Following the final primaries on June 3 , 2008 , Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee . In a speech before her supporters on June 7 , Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama . By campaign 's end , Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama 's 1,763 ; at the time of the clinching , Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama 's 395 , with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner . Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process with both breaking the previous record . Clinton was the first woman to run in the primary or caucus of every state and she eclipsed , by a very wide margin , Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm 's 1972 marks for most votes garnered and delegates won by a woman . Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in fall 2008 , which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4 . Clinton 's campaign ended up severely in debt ; she owed millions of dollars to outside vendors and wrote off the $ 13 million that she lent it herself . The debt was eventually paid off by the beginning of 2013
2008 Democratic National Convention
2008 Democratic National Convention
Hillary Clinton