Hillary Clinton wraps up Democrat nomination

Hillary Clinton has gained commitments from the 2383 delegates needed to clinch the Democrat nomination for president, according to an AP count.

Ms Clinton becomes the first woman to head a major party ticket in the US.

She will face off against Republican nominee Donald Trump in November. A RealClearPolitics poll-of-polls has the race at a statistical dead heat nationwide, with Ms Clinton just 2.3% ahead.

However, the state-based Electoral College system used to elect the president favours the Democrat, has a slim lead in each of the four swing states that could decide the election: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

And for what it's worth (quite a lot, in US politics), Ms Clinton also has a big lead in the fundraising race amid claims Mr Trump doesn't actually have a lot of cash on hand. The Democrat, on the other hand, is soaking in it; her's could well be the first billion-dollar campaign.

Ms Clinton has sharply stepped up her attacks on her Republican rival in a recent speech. Her aim seems clear: to get Democrats who voted for Bernie Sanders to fall in behind her by reminding them of the common cause: defeating Mr Trump.

Sharpening up
After a typically dull and awkward primary campaign, the former Secretary of State seemed to finally find her voice. The New Yorker summarises:

Clinton recalled that Trump has been saying that “the world is laughing at us” since at least 1987, when he bought a full-page ad in the Times to say so. “Reagan was President,” Clinton pointed out, and that was a moment when, to put it lightly, the country was not failing. “He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends, including the British Prime Minister, the mayor of London, the German Chancellor, the President of Mexico, and the Pope,” Clinton said.

Trump’s ideas “are not even really ideas—just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies,” she argued. Clinton mentioned the strange array of plans he had prepared for ISIS—in one instance, he suggested simply handing Syria over to ISIS, and in another sending American ground troops. The liberal line during the past week has been that Clinton ought to call Trump a fraud. Her attack, when it came, ran deeper. The real, devastating charge in Clinton’s San Diego speech was that Trump does not believe in America.

The fate of the TPP
Like nearly all the major party candidates, Ms Clinton has jumped on the protectionist bandwagon and said she now opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which might not come up for ratification until after President Obama leaves office.

But while others have trashed the trade deal, the presumptive Democrat nominee has been much more measured in her criticism, generally attacking certain provisions rather than the TPP as a whole.

TPP-booster and international trade expert Stephen Jacobi sees Ms Clinton pivoting toward the centre if elected, just as Bill Clinton before her opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement on the campaign trail but signed once in office.

How she won
While the Republican primary fight involves state-by-state contests, the Democrat contest also adds a layer of party officials and members of Congress called super delegates.

Ms Clinton only held a modest lead over rival Senator Bernie Sanders in regular delegates going into tomorrow's primary's in California and New Jersey, she enjoyed an overwhelming 548 to 46 lead in super delegates (a system some in the Republican establishment will be jealously eyeing).

Although the results will now be largely academic, polls point to Ms Clinton winning the California primary by a slim margin, and New Jersey by an overwhelming margin.

President Obama is expected to endorse Ms Clinton in the next 48 hours, and to join her in lashing Mr Trump (something that might prove more entertaining, and easier, than discussing their differences on trade).

She will formally become her party's nominee at its July Convention in Philadelphia.