Voters in Six States to |Decide Democratic Race

(CN) - Voters in six states will weigh in on their preference for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, despite the Associated Press and other news organizations already having declared Hillary Clinton the winner.

Campaigning in California on Monday evening, Clinton said she was on the brink of a "historic, unprecedented moment," eight years after conceding the Democratic nomination to then-Sen. Barack Obama.

On that June night in 2008, Clinton said she'd failed to "shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling."

Now it appears she has done it.

Shortly before her appearance, the Associated Press announced that its latest survey of the 714 Democratic superdelegates showed that Clinton already has all the support she needs to secure the party's nomination at its July convention in Philadelphia.

Superdelegates are former office holders and party insiders who are free to vote for the candidate of their choice.

After the AP moved its story, several other news organizations, including NBC, CBS and CNN, also declared Clinton the presumptive nominee.

The former secretary of state, however, refused to take a victory lap as she wrapped up a full day of campaigning in California.

Instead she told attendees at a rally in Long Beach "we're going to fight hard for every single vote."

Meanwhile, the campaign of her opponent in Tuesday's contests, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, called the frenzy to give Clinton the nomination a "rush to judgment," pointing out that the superdelegates don't actually vote until the convention and they could change their minds about who they support.

"Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump," said Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs.

In the wake of weekend Democratic contests in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, Clinton had 1,812 of the 2,383 pledged delegates she needed to secure the nomination. Sanders had 1,519.

But according to the Associated Press, Clinton has also locked up the support of 571 superdelegates, compared with Sanders' 46, thereby giving her all she needs for the nomination.

The AP said according to its count, only 95 superdelegates remain publicly uncommitted to a candidate.

It further noted that since the start of its surveying of superdelegates in late 2015, none of those delegates has switched their support from Clinton to Sanders.

Nevertheless, Sanders on Tuesday vowed to fight on until the convention, saying that between now and then he will make the case that he is better positioned to beat presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in November.

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