Clinton adds to delegate lead

Hillary Clinton will leave Tuesday night having added to her already significant lead in delegates. 

Clinton entered election day with a lead of about 200 delegates and will leave with a lead of about 300. 

{mosads}As of 1:10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday morning, Clinton had 1,094 pledged delegates, compared to 774 for Sanders, according to The Associated Press. These are the delegates earned at the ballot box. 

With the addition of superdelegates — party leaders who can support any candidate — Clinton’s total grows to 1,561 to Sanders’s 800.

A candidate need 2,383 to secure the Democratic nomination, putting Clinton about 65 percent of the way there. 

With just over 2,000 pledged delegates still up for grabs, Clinton would only need to win about 40 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination, even if she doesn’t gain another superdelegate. 

She has won 60 percent of the pledged delegates allocated so far

Clinton entered Tuesday with 768 pledged delegates compared to 554 for Sanders. 

As of early Wednesday, Clinton had won an additional 326 delegates, and Sanders added 220. There were still 145 delegates yet to be allocated from Tuesday’s contests.

Clinton is likely to gain further on Sanders when these are distributed, as some of those outstanding came from Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, where she won big.

Clinton and Sanders are running neck and neck in Missouri and Illinois, and so are likely to split the bounties there. 

Clinton sought to highlight her lead at a rally on Tuesday night. 

“We know we will add to our delegate lead to roughly 300 with over 2 million more votes nationwide,” Clinton said. “We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election.” 

Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said there is no way Sanders can catch Clinton now. 

“We think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for him to overtake her at this point,” she said on CNN.

But in a statement early Wednesday, Sanders said he still can win. 

“With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come, we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination.”