Hillary Clinton has secured enough delegates and super delegates to win the nomination.

Hillary Clinton speaks at a church in Oakland. AP

With a combination of delegates and super delegates, Hillary Clinton has passed the 2383 needed to secure the nomination. NBC News. Hillary Clinton is now the presumptive nominee. Clinton's win in Puerto Rico gave her enough delegates to win. Clinton was expected to win enough delegates to win tomorrow in the final elections of the primary season, but she was able to cross the threshold a day early. Clinton's win is controversial, to say the least. The super delegate system favored her against her primary opponent, US Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders hopes to contest the results at the convention. His only hope now is to switch enough super delegates over to win the nomination. 

My Comment:

Ugh. Even though I think Hillary Clinton is a longshot to win the White House I am still disgusted with this result. Hillary Clinton is completely unqualified to be president. She shouldn't be allowed to run for dog catcher, let alone the most important political position in all of existence. Though I am no fan of Bernie Sanders to say the least, he has a lot less baggage and scandals and is more qualified then she is. He would still be a bad president but at least he's not evil.  

I am not surprised that Hillary Clinton managed this though. She has always been popular among the Democratic party elite, which is the main reason she managed to get the advantage in super delegates. Clinton has also been very popular among minorities. She locked up the African American vote a long time ago and Bernie Sanders was never able to make a dent in her support there. This allowed her to easily win states with a large black electorate. 

Would Hillary Clinton have won without the super delegates? I guess we will find out tomorrow. But if it wasn't for that system the race would still probably go to her. Why? Because almost all the races in the Democratic primary awarded delegates on a proportional basis. This system, even more then the super delegates, hurt Bernie Sanders. Even when he won states he could never really catch up because Clinton would get delegates at all. Compare this to the Republican race where there were many winner take all or winner take most states. Though I am not sure if Sanders would have beaten Clinton with the same system that the Republicans, there is no question in my mind that the race would have been closer. 

The real question is what happens to the Democratic party now. Bernie Sanders is trying to contest the convention and that will most likely cause chaos. Especially if Hillary Clinton gets enough normal delegates to win outright. I don't know if that will happen or not but if it does then Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters will be in an all out war. To the point where I am expecting the kind of violence from leftists that we have been seeing throughout this election cycle, only this time targeting other Democrats and liberals. 

Clinton and her supporters will argue, correctly, that she won the most delegates so she should be the one that wins the candidacy. Sanders and his supporters will argue, also correctly, that she's a terrible candidate and that the Democratic Party conspired to keep Sanders out of the White House. Neither of these positions are really wrong, so I predict the divisions between the Democrats to last far after the convention. Both sides have reason to be very angry, and I don't see the self inflicted wounds healing quickly.

As for the convention, I really don't think that Sanders will be able to pull off an upset. His delegates will fight for him but the Democratic Party has decided that Clinton is the person they want, despite her obvious flaws. The super delegates will not switch to Sanders and pretty much exist only to keep people like him from winning the candidacy. 

So my prediction is that Sanders is done. He will contest the convention and lose. After that I am not sure what happens. I don't think that Sanders will win third party. It is too late to get on the ballot in most states. There is a small chance that Sanders could run with the Green Party, which has ballot access in 21 states. That would go up if Sanders made it as the VP pick, but I really can't see that happening. He will still try to push the party too the left, but I don't know how much impact he will have.

Where do Sanders supporters end up? I think the majority of them will end up voting for Hillary Clinton, just out of party loyalty. But many won't. Many will just stay home, disillusioned and angry. Others will vote for third party candidates like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. And many of them could cross over to Donald Trump. The problem for Clinton is that many Sanders supporters are the same young people demographically that propelled Barack Obama to the White House. 

I think that the divisions in the Democratic Party might be enough alone to get Donald Trump elected. But the fact that Hillary Clinton is uniquely vulnerable to Trump means that I think that his election to president is much more likely now. He would have had a much harder time against Bernie Sanders, who wouldn't have as many glaring flaws to exploit. Thankfully, the Democrats did not make that choice.