国际英语新闻:U.S. 2016 Democratic primary season winds up, underdog candidate continues fight

WASHINGTON, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Democratic voters in six U.S. states went to polling stations and caucuses on Tuesday as the grueling nomination race was all but over.

Though the coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses in New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota and California offered 694 pledged delegates up for grab, the significance of this round of contests had already been watered down after the Associated Press reported on Monday night that Hillary Clinton reached number of delegates required to notch the Democratic nomination.

According to AP's latest delegate count, besides her 1,812 pledged delegates won in previous primaries and caucuses, Clinton had also garnered support of 571 superdelegates, party leaders who are free to choose any candidate to support at the national convention in July.

Clinton's rival Bernie Sanders immediately demurred, calling the AP report "unfortunate."

"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," said Sanders' campaign in a statement.

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

Sanders, lagging Clinton by 291 pledged delegates and 523 superdelegates respectively, was still eying a highly narrow path to nomination.

One vital part of Sanders' strategies to peel superdelegates off Clinton was his performance in California, where 475 pledged delegates were up for grab.

Recent polls showed that Clinton and Sanders were in dead heat in the most populous state in the United States.

Even if Sanders won the state, it would still be impossible for him to catch up with Clinton in delegate count, since all Democratic nomination races allocate pledged delegates proportionally.

However, it could justify his continued stay in the race beyond the primary season into the Democratic national convention in July.