2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary supporters: How is Hillary's and your claiming victory prematurely going to unite the party? [View all]onenote
(43,105 posts)Even BEFORE she suspended her campaign a few days later.
But this time around, some folks want to apply a different standard than the one applied just 8 years ago.
No one -- and I mean absolutely no one -- denies that the nomination doesn't become official until the convention.
But only one group denies that when a candidate has a combination of pledged delegates and public commitments from enough super delegates to put them over the nomination threshold, that candidate is rightfully considered the presumptive nominee. That presumption will get stronger or weaker as the convention approaches. If Clinton obtains more super delegates it will get stronger. If Sanders begins flipping delegates it will get weaker. Theoretically, the presumption could be flipped, not that I see any likelihood of that happening.
But hiding one's head in the sand or putting ones fingers in one's ears isn't going to change the simple fact that when a candidate has enough pledged and super delegates prepared to vote for them at the convention, they are the presumptive nominee until something happens to change that presumption.