Hillary makes history, 'clinches Democratic nomination'

Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic Party nomination for the United States presidential elections after reaching the required number of delegates, media reports said on Tuesday.

Clinton has the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, the Associated Press said, putting her on course to become the first woman to head a major US party ticket.

Clinton, a former secretary of state, reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates, the Associated Press reported.

Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an Associated Press count.

Clinton's delegate count is poised to grow on Tuesday when six states, including delegate-rich California and New Jersey, hold contests. Speaking in Long Beach, California, on Monday, Clinton said she was still focused on the states where voters head to the polls Tuesday.

"We are on the brink of a historic, historic unprecedented moment but we still have work to do, don't we?" she said. "We have six elections tomorrow and are going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California."

Democrat Rival Senator Bernie Sanders, however, slammed the media's "rush to judgement."

"It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgement, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee's clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer," Bernie's spokesman Michael Briggs said.

"Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination. She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can change their minds between now and then. They include more than 400 superdelegates who endorsed Secretary Clinton 10 months before the first caucuses and primaries and long before any other candidate was in the race.

"Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump."

Meanwhile, the White House has signalled that President Barack Obama's full endorsement could come as early as this week.

White House officials and Democratic aides are still determining how and when Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, will throw their formal endorsements behind Clinton and her campaign.

Eager to exploit his recent spike in popularity, Obama is looking to become the most active lame duck campaigner in recent presidential history.

Even as Bernie pledges to keep fighting until the Democratic convention, Clinton and her allies are planning a major push to unify the party behind her candidacy, including a high-profile endorsement Obama is poised to deliver as soon as this week, two Democrats familiar with the effort told CNN.