The question of the day is not whether Mrs. Clinton will declare victory, but in what terms, and how she will begin to frame the general election race against Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee.
But there will also be something to watch on the Republican side, as Mr. Trump is expected to hold a news conference in New York to mark the end of primary season. He has been heavily criticized — including by many in his own party — for his attacks on a federal judge’s Mexican heritage, and he faces questions about how he will respond.
Voting will also take place on Tuesday in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. Here are a few of the dynamics we’ll be watching:
In her speech Tuesday night, Mrs. Clinton will become the first woman to claim victory in a major party’s presidential nominating fight. She has intermittently emphasized the historic nature of her candidacy, and it may work to her benefit to stress that theme amid Mr. Trump’s continuing struggles with female voters.
But Mrs. Clinton also has a broader choice to make, about how to position herself in one of the highest-profile moments of her campaign: Will she move to calm Sanders supporters and consolidate support on the left, or reach out to moderates and Republicans who may be wary of Mr. Trump? Will she go after Mr. Trump in hard language, or focus on sketching a positive rationale for her own election? Her choices Tuesday night could set the shape of the race between now and the conventions in July.
The slim path available to Mr. Sanders narrowed even further Monday evening with the news report that Mrs. Clinton had crossed the 2,383-delegate threshold through support from party leaders. In order to press forward, Mr. Sanders is in dire need of an upset win in California. By taking the nation’s most populous state, his supporters hope, Mr. Sanders could claim a mandate to keep fighting all the way to the convention in Philadelphia.
He is likely to face intensifying pressure from Democrats — including the White House — to get out of Mrs. Clinton’s way. But Mr. Sanders has never been a creature of the Democratic Party. His natural mode is defiance. As Mrs. Clinton aims to rally Democrats, it is in Mr. Sanders’s power to make that process easy or acutely uncomfortable. His reaction to Tuesday’s results may signal which path he intends to take.