Bernie Sanders vows to fight on despite Hillary Clinton rout

'Don’t settle for the status quo when the status quo is broken,' he told his disappointed supporters

(Getty Images)

He did not talk of defeat.

He talked still of victory, of changing the status quo.

But as Bernie Sanders put a brave face on a sad night and promised that his battle to make it to the White House would continue, he was aware that he now faces a huge struggle to fulfill his dreams, and those of his supporters.

After securing a stunning, surprise victory a week earlier in Michigan, there had been excitement and anticipation among his team that he could perform a similar insurgent win in such states as Ohio and Illinois.

But on an evening when the bight blue graphics on television screens showed several of the battles between him and Hillary Clinton to be be agonisingly close, he came away without a single victory. The closest, and perhaps most painful, was the last race to be called, when the former secretary of state secured the contest in Missouri by less than half a percentage point.

While delegates in all of the Democratic contests are awarded on a proportional basis, Ms Clinton now has a haul of 1,599, of which 467 are so-called super delegates, party officials that are not obliged to vote for a particular candidate. Mr Sanders has 844, of which just 26 are super delegates.

To reach the threshold of 2,383 delegates required to claim the nomination, Ms Clinton now needs to win just a third of those remaining. Mr Sanders would have to win at a level he has not managed since his heady days in New Hampshire in February.

On Tuesday night, Mr Sanders did not talk about the terrible night he had suffered. Rather, speaking in Phoenix, Arizona, he continued to talk of the revolution he was trying to lead.

“Don’t settle for the status quo when the status quo is broken,” he said, in a speech that lasted for around an hour.

“Are you ready for a political revolution? Are you tired of a handful of billionaires running our country? The people of our country will not tolerate oligarchy. We’re going to create an economy that works for all of us, not just the one percent.”

Mr Sanders’ campaign insists there is still a way for him to win the nomination.

“Our plan on this is we’ve got a long way to go, and we’ve got to demonstrate that Bernie’s the strongest candidate,” strategist Tad Devine told Politico.“We believe that slowly we can win support for people who aren’t for someone, or who are softly for her, and then we can reach out more.”

In a statement issued in the early hours of Wednesday, Mr Sanders added: “With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favours us in the weeks and months to come, we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination.”

But Ms Clinton and her supporters are already looking to the general election, apparently relishing the prospect of a showdown with Mr Trump.

“We can’t lose what made America great in the first place, and this isn't just about Donald Trump,” Ms Clinton told supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“We can’t just talk about economic inequality, we have to take on all forms of inequality and discrimination.”

She added: “We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November.”