It’s an odd kind of victory. Hillary Clinton surely dreamed of crossing the finishing line in style, with a clear, unambiguous win in one of the early primary contests back in February or March. She doubtless pictured herself taking a call from her leading opponent – in which he conceded defeat and offered his congratulations – before facing a crowd of exultant supporters. That’s how victories in presidential campaigns are meant to look.

Hillary Clinton declared Democratic presidential nominee Read more

Instead, Associated Press announced late on Monday that it had added up the number of delegates Clinton could rely on at next month’s Democratic convention and could declare her the mathematical winner of her party’s nomination for the White House. There were no balloons dropped from the ceiling, no brass band striking up Hail to the Chief.

On the contrary, Clinton had to stifle the news that she was the presumptive nominee, lest it dampen turnout in today’s round of primary contests in California, New Jersey and a handful of other states. For it remains possible that, even as AP says she has reached the magic number of 2,383 delegates, she will lose California to Bernie Sanders. Partly for that reason, Sanders did not so much as acknowledge Clinton’s presumed triumph, let alone deliver the concession that usually accompanies victory for a rival. His team vowed to fight on all the way to the convention in Philadelphia, where they will attempt to persuade the “superdelegates” – the party bigwigs who have several hundred votes between them – to switch sides and nominate him rather than her.

And yet, even if it didn’t look the way victory looks in the movies, what a breakthrough this is. If AP’s sums hold, Hillary Clinton will become the first woman to win the nomination of a major US party. It’s taken till 2016 – and close to 60 presidential elections – for a woman to have even a serious shot at the White House. This time eight years ago, in one of the most stirring moments of her career, Clinton referred to the number of votes she had received in her duel with Barack Obama. She said that those voters had created 18 million cracks in “that highest, hardest glass ceiling”, “and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time”.

As it happens, it hasn’t been much easier this time. Once again, she has found herself up against not a mere candidate but a phenomenon: Obamamania in 2008, #feeltheBern in 2016. Each time, she has been overshadowed and upstaged, cast as the dull, plodding face of continuity against the unexpected harbinger of change. The same dynamic is set to play out in November, though in very different form, when she contends with Donald Trump: Clinton yet again up against a man who gets the crowds fired up and the media more excited than she ever seems to manage.

The AP declaration should now add to the pressure on Sanders to bow out gracefully once tonight’s votes are counted. The democratic argument is pretty unanswerable: Clinton won 3m more votes than he did. Whichever way you slice it, she is the winner. As Amanda Marcotte put it in Salon, “Clinton has won, fair and square. She has more votes. She has more pledged delegates. She has more superdelegates … Even if you tweaked the rules, she is the winner.”

Sanders is now left saying he will try to persuade superdelegates to dump Clinton and come over to him. Yet earlier in the campaign he insisted that superdelegates were fundamentally undemocratic and that they should not be allowed to thwart the will of the Democratic electorate. So why is he suddenly happy to let them be decisive now?

Sanders has fought a remarkable and inspiring campaign. He now risks tainting it, becoming remembered as the man who regarded any system as undemocratic unless it anointed him the winner.

But there is an even more fundamental argument, one that now has to weigh on Sanders supporters who have so far viewed Clinton as too compromised, too flawed, too hawkish to be worthy of their vote. The question on the ballot paper in November will not be, “Is Hillary Clinton perfect?” The question will be, “Is Hillary Clinton better than Donald Trump?”

As I’ve argued before, any progressive should know the answer to that question. And if Clinton is to defeat Trump, she needs the left and centre left to unite behind her. Having to keep fighting Sanders till late July, having to fight on two fronts, only weakens her and strengthens Trump. If AP’s numbers are right, it’s time for Sanders to make that phone call – and back the one person standing between Trump and the White House.