Bernie Sanders pointed to polling results that show him as the stronger candidate against Donald Trump. Sanders: 'Defying history is what this campaign has been about'

Undaunted by news that Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, Bernie Sanders renewed his vow Tuesday to keep his campaign alive by lobbying the party’s superdelegates to flip in his favor.

“We’re on the phone right now,” Sanders said.


In an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, Sanders reiterated his argument that it is he, not Clinton, who offers Democrats the best shot at defeating Donald Trump in November. The Vermont senator pointed to polling results that show him as the stronger candidate against the brash billionaire, maintaining that those numbers should be front and center in the mind of party superdelegates.

“I believe that if those superdelegates are honest with themselves, if they look at all of the national polling, all of the state polling, the nature of our organization, they will conclude that if we want to beat Donald Trump, and it’s absolutely imperative that we defeat Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders is the strongest candidate,” Sanders said.

“You’d be defying history,” Holt said to Sanders. “You’d be defying the will of the voters.”

“Defying history is what this campaign has been about.”

Sanders also expressed frustration with The Associated Press, which announced Monday night that its delegate count showed Clinton had earned enough support to become the presumptive nominee. Sanders has campaigned hard ahead of Tuesday's primary votes, especially in California, where 475 delegates are at stake. Sanders has repeatedly said at rallies across the Golden State that he would win there with a high turnout, but the Vermont senator told Holt he worried that the AP's decision to call the race could keep voters at home.

"They got on the phone, as I understand it, and they started hounding superdelegates to tell them in an anonymous way who they’d be voting for," he said. "And the night before the largest primary, the biggest primary in the whole process, they make this announcement. So I was really disappointed in what the AP did.”

Sanders did hint at what his plans might be to put his stamp on the party platform at the Democratic National Convention, should he eventually concede the race to Clinton. Reiterating his campaign pledges to fight income inequality and combat climate change, Sanders said his imprint on the party is "not what I want, it’s what working families in this country want.”

“I am going to be meeting with our supporters," he said. "To figure out the best way forward so that we have a government which represents all of us and not just the one percent.”