Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonWhat Senate Republicans have said about election-year Supreme Court vacancies Bipartisan praise pours in after Ginsburg's death Trump carries on with rally, unaware of Ginsburg's death MORE says she understands Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersKenosha will be a good bellwether in 2020 Biden's fiscal program: What is the likely market impact? McConnell accuses Democrats of sowing division by 'downplaying progress' on election security MORE’s decision not to drop out of the Democratic race for the presidency despite his long odds of winning the party's nomination.

"I have a lot of empathy about this. I ran to the very end in 2008, and I won nine of the last 12 contests, people forget that," Clinton said during a Wednesday interview on CNN.

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"But I couldn't close the gap in pledged delegates. And the gap between me and Sen. Sanders is far wider than it was between me and Sen. Obama."

She added that she would not refer to herself as the presumptive nominee and that she respects Sanders's choice to stay in the race.

Clinton currently leads Sanders by more than 300 pledged delegates despite his victory Tuesday night in Indiana, according to estimates from The Associated Press. That lead appears insurmountable;Sanders would have to win almost two-thirds of the remaining pledged delegates to finish ahead of Clinton.

And even then, Clinton holds a major lead with party superdelegates who could deliver her the nomination at the convention.

But Sanders has vowed to fight on, making the pitch that he'd perform better than Clinton in the fall. His hope is that superdelegates will be convinced and switch sides, but there's been no sign of any defections from Clinton so far.