Ahead of California, Sanders Warns Media Against Preemptive Coronation of Clinton

Addressing concerns that the media may preemptively announce his rival Hillary Clinton as the “presumptive Democratic Party nominee” even before she has won the requisite numbers of pledge delegates, Bernie Sanders over the weekend indicated that such reporting would be both wrong and irresponsible and held to his commitment to take his campaign all the way to the national convention when so-called superdelegates will finally—and for the first time, in fact—be able to cast their vote for who they believe will make the best nominee.

Six states are holding Democratic primaries this Tuesday, including California, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

Amid some speculation, bolstered by overt comments by people like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, that cable outlets or other news agencies would call the election in favor of Clinton before all the results of next Tuesday’s results are in, Sander reiterated his argument that even though he has a steep hill to climb, the race is much closer than often reported.

“It is extremely unlikely that Secretary Clinton will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to claim victory on Tuesday night,” Sanders said at a press conference in California on Saturday. “Now I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night. I have reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate.”

What that means, he added, is that he will continue to campaign until the last votes are cast in Washington, D.C.’s primary on June 14 and will then bring his message to July’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “[It] will be a contested convention,” he said.

On Sunday morning’s Face The Nation, Democratic Party operative David Axelrod was the latest to say that Clinton would likely “clinch” the nomination before polls close in California.

While Sanders does not deny the delegate math is not in his favor, he explained to the more 13,500 supporters at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum why he continues to believe he is the best choice to defeat Donald Trump in the general election.

Citing the consistent trends of both national and state polls showing him performing better against the billionaire reality tv star than Clinton, Sanders declared: “I hope that the delegates going to the Democratic National Convention understand that in virtually every state poll we do much better against Donald Trump than Secretary Clinton. If the delegates at the Democratic National Convention want to make sure we defeat Trump and defeat him badly we are the candidate to do that.”

And on Sunday, Sanders tweeted:

As of Saturday afternoon, according to Associated Press figures, Sanders trailed Clinton in pledged delegates by a tally of 1,769 to 1,501 — a difference of 268. Meanwhile, among the superdelegates—elected and party officials who automatically attend the convention where they vote for the candidate of their choice—Clinton has the stated support of 547 of them, compared to 46 who at this point say they back Sanders. Importantly, however, none of these superdelegates have actually “voted” and they can change their minds at any point until casting their ballot at the convention.

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And so while the real difference between the candidates is less than 300 delegates, the media often continue to report that difference as more than twice that.