When the Associated Press announced that Hillary Clinton clinched the number of delegates required to secure the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday night—the night before six major primaries, including California and New Jersey—a number of people, especially those who have worked tirelessly to support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders throughout this process, were furious. For good reason.
The announcement meant that many who had planned to cast their vote for Sanders on Tuesday morning now might as well be tossing scraps of paper into the wind. The die was cast. The deal was done.
But was it?
When Hillary heard the news, her camp immediately tweeted out a “not so fast” response saying they were flattered, but there were still more states to win. There was historical significance to the news, coming almost eight years to the day after she ended her campaign against U.S. President Barack Obama. But she insisted it wasn’t coming from her camp.
“I got to tell you, according to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment, but we still have work to do, don’t we?” Clinton said on Monday evening. “We have six elections tomorrow, and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California.”
Many remained unsatisfied by her response and furious about the timing, including Sanders’ camp, which called the timing “unfortunate” and accused the media of ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s admonishment against counting superdelegates' votes before they actually vote at the convention this summer on July 25.
For months, we’ve been waiting for one of the candidates to reach that magic number of 2,383 delegates to secure the nomination and hit the majority for the convention. Though no elections were held on Monday, over the weekend, Clinton had won two more Democratic contests—the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico—that put her within striking distance of that coveted number. As of Monday morning, she only needed 23 more votes. With 1,812 pledged delegates and commitments from more than 500 superdelegates, Cinton was still a bit short. So the AP did some digging and came up with enough Clinton pledges to make that call.
There is so much competition, in our current climate, with social media pummeling news organizations in terms of early reporting. Granted, Twitter is known for sometimes spreading false information about breaking news, but for many people, Facebook and its ilk are primary news sources. So the AP is in a tight spot, and might feel some pressure to get on top of the news. Maybe there was no conspiracy at all—maybe it was just about the competitive news industry.
Tonight, we can say with pride that, in America, there is no barrier too great and no ceiling too high to break. pic.twitter.com/7vbGPJe543
Still, the timing left those of us in New Jersey, South Dakota, California, North Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico in the lurch. Sanders supporters took to social media to fight the AP’s story and encourage others to get out there anyway, and many felt like the premature Clinton call was done on purpose to stymie voters and take some wind out of their sails. To be sure, it was early. As Sanders supporters rightfully pointed out, superdelegates can—and have—changed their minds between the end of the primaries and the convention. In 2008 some delegates did flip, once it became clear that Obama had the nomination in the bag.
But the Sanders camp isn’t going down without a fight. According to a campaign statement: “Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump.”
As with anything else, this big announcement and its timing came with both pros and cons for Clinton.
On the pro side, it rallied the women vote. Despite understanding that the outcome was already a foregone conclusion, many women reported feeling chills as they cast their ballot for Clinton. If you believe (as I do) that every vote matters no matter what, the fact that the election is decided is neither here nor there. Rallying the troops toward making history may have really helped put Clinton over the top. The truth is, I was on the fence throughout primary season; I kept saying Sanders was my heart and Clinton was my head. It wasn’t until Monday night, when I saw the reality of this historic moment on social media, that I realized Hillary—and this moment for all women— had been my heart all along.
Still, many people already see Hillary as corrupt. With tensions flying high over expensive suits and private email accounts, it wasn’t a good time for her to do something many perceived as shady and manipulative. We will never know whether Monday night’s breaking news swayed Tuesday’s vote, but in the end, Clinton took both the big states of New Jersey and California and all but declared victory in a moving and historic speech around on Tuesday night.
Regardless of personal political affinities, seeing Clinton walk out and greet the screaming crowd was a moment to behold. Beside me, my nine-year-old cried tears of joy. We let her stay up way past her bedtime to experience history unfolding. “Did they really do that?” she asked. “Did they really choose a woman to run?” I nodded, choked up. Apparently I’d been waiting for that moment my whole life, too. In that moment, I felt the same awe and excitement and possibilities as my third grader.
Did Monday night’s premature announcement take away from that glorious thunder?
Not one bit.
