Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersNYT editorial board remembers Ginsburg: She 'will forever have two legacies' Two GOP governors urge Republicans to hold off on Supreme Court nominee Sanders knocks McConnell: He's going against Ginsburg's 'dying wishes' MORE's lone endorser in the Senate said that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination should end only if Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJeff Flake: Republicans 'should hold the same position' on SCOTUS vacancy as 2016 Momentum growing among Republicans for Supreme Court vote before Election Day Warning signs flash for Lindsey Graham in South Carolina MORE finishes Tuesday night with the majority of pledged delegates.

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Merkley admitted that it's likely Clinton will reach that mark, because she only needs to win 30 percent of the delegates awarded Tuesday to reach a majority. But he cautioned that the votes have not been counted yet and that Sanders's goal should be to secure his own pledged delegate majority by winning more than 70 percent of Tuesday's delegates.

The Associated Press announced Monday night that Clinton had reached the delegate threshold to secure the nomination, but Sanders's campaign bristled at that declaration. It argued that superdelegates — party leaders with the freedom to vote as they wish — don't officially cast their ballots until the Democratic National Convention in July and should not be counted until then.

Sanders's camp has also said he'd keep fighting to the convention by attempting to flip those superdelegates away from Clinton.

But Merkely, a superdelegate who has called on an end to including superdelegates as part of the primary process, said doing so would seem like a subversion of the will of the people.

"I just don't think you can reverse the pledged delegates with superdelegates and have it feel like anything happened that was appropriate," Merkley said, adding that the view is his own and not representative of the Sanders campaign.