“It may be hard to see tonight, but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now. But don’t worry. We’re not smashing this one,” she told supporters in Brooklyn. “Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone. The first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee.”
>> PHOTOS: Notable supporters of 2016 presidential candidates
Clinton now hopes to turn her attention toward a five-month campaign against Republican Donald Trump, who locked up his party’s nomination more than a month ago.
But Sanders has vowed to fight on, claiming he poses the bigger November threat to Trump. He's set his sights on swaying enough superdelegates who have pledged their support to Clinton to flip sides; none of the nearly 600 in Clinton's camp have switched so far. The New York Times reported that he plans to continue the campaign – after laying off half of his staff.
“We should let the voters decide who they want the Democratic nominee to be rather than having the media decide for them,” wrote Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, in a fundraising email.
Clinton's victory comes on a day when voters in six states headed to the polls. She won the primaries in New Jersey and New Mexico, while Sanders took North Dakota's caucus. California, Montana and South Dakota also held votes.
The biggest prize of the day by far is California, a state that Clinton won in 2008 in the contest against Barack Obama. Sanders has staked his campaign on winning the state, and a Clinton loss there would revive questions about her strength as a candidate – and bolster his argument to stay in the race.
Waiting in the wings is President Barack Obama, who is said to be eager to endorse Clinton once Tuesday's vote is in the rearview mirror. Obama has not shied from criticizing Trump, but he's had to stay on the sidelines of the Democratic race while waiting for the primaries to play out.
Trump, meanwhile, launched into a lengthy critique of Clinton’s record at an event Tuesday night in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., making an appeal to Sanders backers “left out in the cold by a rigged system.”
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