Bernie Sanders said he hoped “our people treat the process with respect, and respect the results.” | AP Photo Sanders: My delegates should 'vote for me'

Bernie Sanders has already offered a repeated and full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, but when Democratic delegates gather Tuesday night to nominate a candidate, the Vermont senator still wants his votes.

Asked at a Bloomberg Politics breakfast what his message to delegates would be ahead of Tuesday’s roll call vote on the convention floor, Sanders said they should “vote for me.” He said they should do so even though he plans to remain an independent in the Senate and will not officially change his party affiliation there to the Democratic Party.


"Why would I do that? There's an election,” Sanders explained. “We're going to lose, but if you were campaigning for me for six months and I asked who you're going to vote for, you'd say, 'I'm going to vote for Bernie Sanders.'"

Sanders said he hoped “our people treat the process with respect, and respect the results.” He said it “may well be the case” that someone at the convention might move to make Clinton’s nomination unanimous once the roll call vote is complete.

Neither Sanders nor his campaign manager Jeff Weaver, who was also at the breakfast, were willing to unequivocally say the booing from the Vermont senator’s diehard supporters would cease Tuesday night. Instead, Sanders would only say, “We will see what happens.” He did say that he was hopeful that his legions of fans would "accept the reality" that Clinton would be the party's nominee, but was empathetic towards his fervent followers for their reluctance to fall in line behind the former secretary of state.

"Democracy is a little bit messy sometimes," Sanders said. "Especially for young people who work their hearts out."

Sanders used even stronger language in his remarks to the California delegation's breakfast Tuesday morning, framing the general election choice between Clinton and Trump as far more important than any intra-party divisions.

“It’s easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face who would be living under a Donald Trump presidency,” he said.

Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon offered a more optimistic outlook in remarks to the Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont delegations at a breakfast Tuesday morning.

“We’re going to go through and count every state,” Fallon said. “I think that will be a very good moment for the party and of course in the end I think it’ll be a historic moment because it’ll mean we’re making it official that we have the first female nominee in the history of this country.”

Gabriel Debenedetti and Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this story.