“We’ll be in L.A. tomorrow night and we’ll be taking a plane back to Burlington,” he added, when asked for further specifics on his schedule.

But Sanders made clear that he is far from ready to cede the nomination to Clinton, who picked up more delegates over the weekend and leads the Vermont senator among both superdelegates and pledged delegates.

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“Certainly we’ll be campaigning in D.C.,” Sanders said, looking ahead to the District's Democratic primary on June 14.

Speaking to reporters at the Hilton Garden Inn in a conference room overlooking the glimmering San Francisco Bay, Sanders insisted that he could still win over some superdelegates in the coming days.

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“We are in private conversations,” Sanders said of his efforts to court party leaders and officials. “We’ve seen a little bit of movement,” though he acknowledged that his recent superdelegate pickups number less than a half-dozen.

In his opening remarks, Sanders cast himself as the standard-bearer for a grass-roots movement that has won millions of votes and is best positioned to take on Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the general-election campaign.

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"The issue is who is the better candidate to become president of the United States and to defeat Trump," Sanders said. "Our goal is to get as many delegates as we possibly can and to make the case to superdelegates."

Sanders then dismissed the suggestion by a reporter that he could be a "spoiler" if he remains in the race.