Hillary Clinton: ‘I will be the nominee

“I will be the nominee for my party,” she said during an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won’t be.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has pledged he will continue to challenge Clinton for the nomination, though the math requires him to secure increasingly improbable landslides in the remaining contests to overtake the former secretary of state among pledged delegates. He then hopes to convince superdelegates to switch their allegiance, another difficult task.

Despite these daunting odds, Sanders insists he will soldier on through the June 7 primary races, which include big, Clinton-friendly states such as California and New Jersey. On Tuesday, after Sanders won the primary in Oregon, he vowed to fight on until “the last ballot is cast.”

Clinton told Cuomo on Thursday that Sanders will ultimately have to step up and help unify Democrats going into the general election.

“I am absolutely committed to doing my part — more than my part — but Sen. Sanders has to do his part,” she said.

Clinton recalled her own unsuccessful 2008 primary race against then-Sen. Barack Obama.

At the time, Clinton — who was then closer to Obama in delegates than Sanders now is to her — forged on into the late primaries despite also facing improbable odds. But she noted to Cuomo that she later worked to rally her supporters behind Obama’s candidacy.

“That’s why the lesson of 2008, which was a hard-fought primary as you remember, is so pertinent here,” she said. “Because I did my part. But so did Sen. Obama. He made it clear he welcomed people who had supported me. He made it very clear.”

Hillary Clinton on Democratic unity: I will do my part but "Sen. Sanders has to do his part" https://t.co/0GBZNXusCU https://t.co/H3EaOpq9I1

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 19, 2016