Clinton clinches nomination, talks with Sanders

The race for the Democratic Party's presidential nominee is finally over, as Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of the final primary in Washington DC on Tuesday night, just as she sat down for a highly anticipated summit with rival Bernie Sanders.

The carefully choreographed meeting ran for nearly two hours at the neutral territory of the Capital Hilton in Washington.

Afterwards, both candidates released nearly identical statements calling the meeting "positive" and saying they had agreed to work together to defeat Donald Trump.

"The two discussed a variety of progressive issues where they share common goals like raising wages for working families, eliminating undisclosed money in politics and reducing the cost of college for students and their families," a Clinton official said, echoing the same policy items listed in Sanders' statement.

However, while Clinton's statement discussed "unifying the party", Sanders' made no mention of this.

Sanders' wife and campaign manager attended, along with Clinton's campaign chairman and campaign manager.

As the sun set over the capital city, which had the distinction of voting after every other state and territory in the country, it was easy to forget how close the 2016 presidential contest came to going awry for Democratic Party elders.

They had so carefully cleared the way for Clinton to be their next leader. But if a few votes had gone differently in Iowa's exceptionally tight caucus, or if Bernie Sanders had run a more effective campaign in Nevada, the insurgent could have given Clinton a real run for her money.

Instead, the forever front-runner ended up taking 34 states to Sanders' 23, and winning millions more votes and hundreds more pledged delegates.

Meanwhile, the most recent general election polls show Clinton well ahead of Donald Trump - despite holdout Sanders supporters.

Sanders hoped to extract concessions from Clinton on the Democratic platform and other issues during Tuesday's confab, their first face-to-face meeting in months.

Earlier in the day, despite being hours away from losing his ninth contest out of the last 12, Sanders issued a series of demands ahead of the meeting.

He called for a replacement to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman with whom his campaign has often feuded, an end to superdelegates, more open primaries, and the most progressive platform in the party's history.

"The time is long overdue for a fundamental transformation of the Democratic Party," Sanders said.
 
Those issues and more were likely discussed inside the conference room at the Hilton, where Sanders and Clinton met behind closed doors and away from the throng of reporters who crowded into an alley to catch a glimpse of the candidates entering the hotel.

After the meeting, aides gave little hint about what went on in the room where it happened.

Sanders has said repeatedly that he's prepared to help the Democratic Party stop Donald Trump. The question is how. Aides say they're still working that out, aware that some of his most die-hard supporters will view an endorsement of Clinton as capitulation.

Sanders will address supporters on Thursday on a teleconference, during which he's expected to discuss his future.