MOVE TOWARDS UNITY? Clinton projected to win in DC, meets with Sanders

Presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was projected to defeat Sen. Beie Sanders on Tuesday in the Washington, D.C., Democratic primary, with party leaders and others largely focused more on the candidates’ face-to-face meeting after polls closed.

The Associated Press projected Clinton's victory in the race, the last of the 2016 presidential primary season.

With 64 percent of polls reporting, Clinton had 65,681votes, compared to 17,550 for Sanders.

Clinton clinched the nomination last week by getting the requisite 2,383 delegates -- a combination of superdelegates and pledged delegates awarded to her in 56 primary and caucus wins, including those in Puerto Rico and six U.S. territories.

Before Tuesday, Clinton had 2,784 delegates, compared to 1,877 for Sanders.

Sanders has so far refused to end his campaign, suggesting he will keep trying until the party’s nominating convention in July to persuade Clinton superdelegates to instead vote for him at the convention.

However, the Tuesday night meeting will almost certainly impact Sanders’ final decision, considering it was expected to in part be a negotiation on how much of Sanders’ platform, which focuses on economic and social inequality, Clinton would adopt.

Sanders said he’ll tell supporters Thursday via a live, online video about his next steps.

“After today, the voting is done, but our political revolution continues,” Sanders said in an email Tuesday to supporters.

Clinton said earlier Tuesday in an interview with Telemundo that she was very much "looking forward to having (Sanders') support in this campaign, because Donald Trump poses a serious threat to our nation."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said after the D.C. primary: "Democrats are ready to unify and take on both Trump and the Republican Party that he represents. At our convention in July, we’re going to nominate a qualified, capable candidate who will build on the hard-won progress of the last seven years."

The Sanders campaign has at times suggested the candidate could end his campaign if Clinton, and the entire Democratic party, embrace key parts of his agenda including better universal health care, a $15-an-hour minimum wage and free tuition at state colleges and universities.

“I think the time is now. In fact, the time is overdue, for a fundamental transformation of the Democratic party,” Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, said Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “We need a party which is prepared to stand up for the disappearing middle class.”

On Sunday, Sanders told ABC News that the meeting with Clinton will be about “what kind of platform we have and … what kind of administration she will have.”

Later that day, Sanders, who trails Clinton by more than 500 superdelegates, told reporters in Vermont: “We're taking our campaign to the convention. We're good at arithmetic.”

Sanders also told ABC that he wants Clinton to also specifically commit to a progressive tax system that makes big banks and corporations pay “their fair share of taxes.”

That Sanders, 74, even challenged the better-known and better-funded Clinton this far is a remarkable political feat.

The former first lady and secretary of state was expected to breeze through the primary. But Sanders, appearing to tap into voters’ frustration with established candidates and money-driven politics, took the race until the second-to-last week of the Democratic primary season.

Along the way, Sanders this year won 21 primaries or caucuses, backed by legions of young voters and others excited by his promises of higher wages, free college and limiting the influence of “big money” in elections.

Sanders’ long-shot bid began with a key win in New Hampshire, an early primary that Clinton had won in her failed 2008 White House bid.

He showed his campaign was for real in March by managing seven straight victories, putting the Clinton campaign on its heels until late April, when Clinton won her home-state of New York.

Clinton nearly put the race out of reach with a series of early wins, including first-in-the-nation Iowa, and in delegate-rich states such as South Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas and Virginia.

But Sanders scored a big comeback victory March 8 in Michigan that stopped Clinton’s decisive run across the South. However, he failed to sustain momentum, with Clinton wiing the next seven state contests.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.