We’ve already got one point of agreement between Hillary and Bernie- they both wish that the AP (and subsequent news organizations) had not declared Hillary the presumptive nominee last night.
Their reasons, of course, are very different, but the conclusion is the same.
Why isn’t Bernie happy? Well, the reasons are pretty obvious. Having your opponent declared the winner the day before the race that you’ve staked your campaign on doesn’t feel great. The media, further, did not buy into Sanders’s (relatively recent) belief that superdelegate commitments should not be included in the tallies.
Why isn’t Hillary happy? I would think the reasons here are pretty obvious, too. There is no surprise that Hillary would have clinched the nomination today when the results from New Jersey came in. There is no doubt that she would have clinched the majority of pledged delegates later in the evening as New Mexico, California, and several smaller western states report their totals. The Clinton campaign will be having a massive rally tonight in Brooklyn where Clinton quite clearly intends to declare victory- eight years to the day after she conceded the nomination to Barack Obama. The symbolism is powerful, it would be the addition of pledged delegates that put her over the top, and I’m sure she’s got a barn burner of a speech prepared for this evening. She’s making history as the first woman to be the nominee of a major party and the AP stole her thunder to a certain extent. There is some worry that this could also cause her supporters to not vote today, leading to what would be only a symbolic loss in California, but one that could embolden the worst among Bernie’s supporters and advisers in terms of how we go forward to the convention.
Clearly Bernie, Hillary, and supporters of both candidates had reasons to be disappointed in the fact that the race was called last night. So why did the AP rush to get this out on Monday, before the contests held today?
There are several schools of thought that have sprung up since last night- some more laden with wild conspiracy theories than others.
Did the Clinton campaign strongarm the AP into calling the race because they think they’re going to lose California (hint: no)
Did the AP call the race because they’re hostile to Clinton and want to depress her turnout today? (hint: also no)
Did the AP call the race to fuel the angst of Sanders supporters about the “rigged” nomination process and keep the intramural fighting in the Democratic Party going on because it is good for the news business (hint: maybe a little bit but probably no)
Did the AP call the race because they’re always desperate to be the first to report something and to be the standard for when an election is decided? Yes. That is quite clearly what happened.
Based on what we know right now it appears that there was something of a race between AP and NBC (and perhaps other outlets) to call the race. If they had waited for tonight, it would basically have been a race to call New Jersey because even an absolutely shockingly bad result for Clinton in the state would give her the delegates needed to clinch. The news outlets, all wanting to be the proverbial blog commenter who is “FIRST!!1!11!”, didn’t want to wait and essentially tie with the others in calling the race.
Everyone knew that there were enough superdelegates waiting to endorse to finish the race and that Clinton was asking them to hold back until tonight. AP and NBC saw this as an opportunity- if they can find enough of these people willing to go on the record, they could be the winner in the race to call the nomination. Folks were working the phones all day calling the (relatively small) group of remaining undeclared superdelegates trying to ferret out their support. Maybe some of the approximately 40 we knew about were too excited to wait like they were asked to do. Maybe these were another group of folks and the Clinton campaign did not know about their support and hadn’t contacted them asking them to hold back. Who knows? What we know is that about 30 superdelegates who AP previously listed as undeclared told AP they were supporting Clinton yesterday, allowing them to beat NBC to the punch and call the race.
And now AP will have that forever. History books might even read something like “the Associated Press called the race at whatever time on Monday, June 6th, making Hillary Clinton the first woman nominated by a major political party in the United States.” They know that no one is going to remember or care about little superdelegate fights down the road.
So they “scooped” the others. They made their call based on their own self-interest. This wasn’t about trying to help or harm either campaign. Neither campaign wanted it done this way. But we are where we are. Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party based on the standard we’ve always used in previous elections- the same standard Bernie used in 2008 to declare Obama the nominee. Tonight is still a big night for her- she will clinch the majority of pledged delegates and clinch a popular vote majority (since the margin will undoubtedly be larger than the entire population of Washington, DC who will be the only remaining contest after tonight). She will declare victory tonight in Brooklyn, and she is entirely justified in doing so. If the excitement is dampened a little bit by AP’s rush to call the race, that’s just the world we have to live in.
In the end, fighting over this is silly. The 24 hours between when AP made the call and when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt it would have been over anyways won’t matter a great deal down the line. We’re all pissed at AP today, but tonight is Hillary Clinton’s night. She’s making history, and we can all be proud of that too.