2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: California Called for Clinton While 800,000-3,000,000 Ballots Remain Uncounted [View all]onenote
(42,694 posts)in December, which is when electoral college members cast the votes that actually determine who becomes president.
But does anyone ever claim that the person who won the states with a majority of electoral votes isn't the president elect until the EV votes are cast? No. Why? Because it never has happened that enough electoral voters have refused to follow their state's decision to change the outcome, even though "anything could happen".
Same thing with the nominating process. Yes, anything could happen, which is why someone is Clinton's position is deemed the presumptive nominee. How strong is the presumption? Pretty damn strong when the votes you're relying on are saying they're unequivocal in their support and when not a single delegate has jumped from Clinton to Sanders in the nine months since the first stories about Clinton having secured SD support came out.
If and when "something" happens to call into question whether SDs who've committed for Clinton will stay with her, then the presumption weakens and could eventually fail to be valid. But for now, its completely valid. And getting stronger and the number of SDs grows, particularly when you're talking about influential SDs like Obama, Biden, Warren and Pelosi. Could something happen to make them reverse course? Yes, But it hasn't yet and there is no evidence that it will.