Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination for US president after reaching the required number of delegates, an AP tally suggests.
The count puts Clinton on 2,383—the number needed to make her the presumptive nominee.
She will become the first female nominee for a major US political party, BBC reported.
But rival Bernie Sanders said Clinton had not won as she was dependent on super-delegates who could not vote until July’s party convention.
Clinton reached the threshold with a big win in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from super-delegates, AP said late on Monday night.
Super-delegates are party insiders who can pledge their support for a candidate ahead of the convention but do not formally vote for them until the convention itself.
At an appearance in Long Beach, California, shortly after the news broke, she said: “We are on the brink of a historic and unprecedented moment but we still have work to do.
“We have six elections tomorrow and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California.”
Voters will go to the polls for Democratic primaries on Tuesday in California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Jersey.
The nominee for either party is not officially named until the parties’ respective conventions.
Sanders’ California vow
Sanders has vowed to stay in the race until the convention and his campaign team said the Vermont senator would attempt to win back super-delegates who have pledged their support to Clinton.
His spokesman Michael Briggs said it was too early to call the Democratic contest.
“It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of super-delegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” he said.
“Our job from now until the convention is to convince those super-delegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump.”
Clinton, a former secretary of state, New York senator and former first lady, leads Sanders by three million votes, 291 pledged delegates and 523 super-delegates, according to AP’s count.
She has won 29 caucuses and primaries to his 21 victories, and an estimated 2.9 million more voters have backed her during the nominating process.
That gives her a significantly greater lead over Sanders than US President Barack Obama had over her in 2008; he led by 131 pledged delegates and 105 super-delegates at the point he clinched the nomination.
AP reports White House officials as saying that Obama is preparing to endorse Clinton in the next few days, although the announcement would come after Tuesday’s primaries.
Obama telephoned Sanders on Sunday, AP said. The contents of the call have not been revealed.
Speaking in San Francisco, Sanders did not refer to the AP count and promised supporters he would win in California.
“As of today, we have won primaries and caucuses in 20 states across this country. And tomorrow, in the most important primary in the whole Democratic nominating process, we’re going to win here in California,” he said.
On May 26, Donald Trump passed the number of delegates needed to secure the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, AP reported.
