Hillary Clinton is the apparent winner of the Kentucky Democratic primary Tuesday night and rival Sen. Bernie Sanders will win in Oregon, NBC News projects.
The win in Kentucky appears to be by the narrowest of margins, perhaps just a few thousand votes. The margin in Oregon was larger Tuesday night. With 66 percent of the vote in, Sanders captured 53 percent compared to Clinton's 47 percent.
Sanders was speaking before a crowd in Carson, California, when he was told the news of the projection that he will win Oregon.
"We won a great victory in the state of Washington a few months ago, we just won Oregon, and we’re going to win California," Sanders told the crowd in California. "I am getting to like the West Coast!”
Clinton had no plans to make a speech, but her press secretary Brian Fallon tweeted a simple but cheeky message after the win in Kentucky.
After the results in Kentucky came in, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver characterized it as "Essentially a tie in a state they [Clinton] dominated last time." The Sanders campaign will look at the numbers in Kentucky and could request a recount but no determination has been made, communications director Michael Briggs said.
When polls closed in Oregon at 11 p.m. ET, Donald Trump was quickly projected to be the winner, since he had no real competition.
With the nominating season nearing an end, Clinton entered Tuesday's contest needing to secure 140 total delegates to reach the 2,383 needed to clinch the nomination.
By Tuesday night, with not all of the delegates allocated, Clinton got 47 delegates from both primaries and Sanders got 55 — bringing Clinton to within 100 of the delegates she will need.
Clinton had 2,291 total delegates and Sanders had 1,529 Tuesday night, according to an NBC delegate count. Three delegates were outstanding in Kentucky and 11 were outstanding in Oregon as of Tuesday night.
But Sanders had been on a winning streak of late, having won the past two Democratic contests, giving his campaign momentum despite the nearly impossible to overcome delegate gap heading into the final big primary day June 7.
Sanders said Tuesday night he has no plans of dropping out of the race. “This is, in a sense, the beginning of the final push to win California,” Sanders told the crowd in Carson.
“I should tell you, that there a lot of people out there — many of the pundits and politicians — they say Bernie Sanders should drop out, the people of California should not have the right to determine who the next president will be,” Sanders said.
"Well let me be as clear as I can be: I agree with you. We are in until the last ballot is cast,” Sanders said to cheers.
"Apparent winner" means NBC News has tallied enough votes to indicate that a candidate has won the race, but the results may well depend upon a potential recount or final official tallies.
