Bernie Sanders swept all three Democratic caucuses Saturday — scoring victories in Hawaii, Alaska and delegate-rich Washington state.
While the underdog’s West Coast wins are not nearly enough to trip up former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's path to the nomination, his wide margin of victory provides his campaign with a burst of momentum heading into a 10-day break before the next primary contest. The Vermont senator's big victories are also typically followed by a considerable fundraising bump.
Sanders was victorious in Washington state's caucuses 72.7 percent to Clinton's 27.1 percent and won Alaska's caucuses by a landslide, defeating Clinton 81.6 percent to 18.4 percent. At 4 a.m. Sunday, with 87.8 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders was declared the winner in Hawaii, leading Clinton 70.6 percent to 29.2 percent.
Saturday’s results figure to mark Sanders’ best moment in weeks, as he looks to turn a string of strong performances in March — starting with runaway wins in Idaho and Utah on Tuesday — into a spark that pushes him closer to Clinton, despite her lead of roughly 300 pledged delegates. Even so, his bid to gain momentum heading into April was dealt a considerable blow by Clinton's convincing win in much larger Arizona, the biggest delegate haul of the week.
While the front-runner held no public campaign events during Saturday’s voting — and had none scheduled at all for the Easter weekend — Sanders was rallying in Wisconsin, another progressive state that is set to host the next primary, on April 5.
“We are on a path toward victory,” Sanders told a Saturday evening crowd in Madison, referring to his Alaska and Washington wins. “It is hard for anybody to deny that our campaign has the momentum."
Bernie Sanders swept Saturday’s Democratic caucuses, cutting into front-runner Hillary Clinton’s formidable lead in delegates.
Following the Vermont senator’s victories in Alaska and Washington, the Associated Press declared Mr. Sanders the winner of the Hawaii Democratic caucuses. With 88% of the vote in, Mr. Sanders was leading rival Mrs. Clinton by 70.6% to 29.2%.
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Hawaii has only 25 pledged delegates at stake, but it is one of a series of Western states that the Sanders campaign viewed as winnable and important to mounting a comeback against Mrs. Clinton.
Washington was by far the day’s biggest prize, with a total of 101 pledged delegates up for grabs, more than twice that of the other two states combined.
Mr. Sanders spoke to tens of thousands of supporters in Washington heading into the caucuses.
Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also campaigned in the state in the run-up to the caucuses. Clinton campaign officials seemed to recognize that it was facing long odds. In 2008, Mrs. Clinton lost Washington to then-Sen. Barack Obama. The campaign’s goal was to keep Mr. Sanders’s victory margin and delegate pickup as low as possible.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Sanders won in Alaska, which offered just 16 pledged delegates. Still, despite the state being the day’s smallest prize, neither the Vermont senator nor Mrs. Clinton wrote off the caucuses.
Saturday was a big day for Bernie Sanders' quest for the Democratic presidential nomination as he swept to resounding victories in the caucus states of Hawaii, Washington and Alaska. But the delegate math is still in Hillary Clinton's favor.
We knew things were going to improve as we headed West," Sanders said at a jubilant rally before 8,000 people in Madison, Wisconsin -- a state that will hold the next major contest in 10 days. "We have a path toward victory."
Clinton built up her delegate lead on the back of a strong run in the South, and Sanders argued Saturday his campaign always knew those states would be tough. In Madison, he said the map now offers more opportunities for his campaign as the contest progressed, largely because his wins are being powered by huge turnout among younger voters.
"With your help we're going to win right here in Wisconsin," he said. "So don't let anyone tell you we can't win the nomination, or win the general election. We're going to do both of those things."
Clinton's campaign privately acknowledged that Saturday would be a good one for Sanders, and her efforts in Washington were aimed mostly at trying to keep the race relatively close, as delegates are distributed proportionally. But with over 90% delegates accounted for, Sanders held a wide lead over Clinton in Washington, 72% to 28%. Alaska was more lopsided: Sanders won 80% to 20%.
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Given those efforts, the size of Sanders's margins on Saturday served as a warning shot to Clinton, allowing him to make the argument at his rally in Madison that he was "making significant inroads" into Clinton's delegate lead.
Coming off two wins on Saturday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told a Madison crowd of more than 8,000 that Wisconsin is key to knocking off opponent and front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential contest.
Sanders, a self-declared Democratic socialist, gave a fiery, hour-long speech to an estimated 8,100 people at the Alliant Energy Center’s Exposition Hall focusing on his populist message of being an independent candidate not beholden to heavy campaign contributors, and who would implement plans aimed at boosting the middle class and minorities.
Sanders touted his plans for a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system, three months of paid leave for new mothers and fathers and a plan to provide free tuition to all students at public colleges and community colleges.
“Fifty years ago, you had a high school degree and you could go out in this economy and could probably get yourself a damn good job and decent pay,” Sanders said. “The world has changed. The economy has changed. Technology has changed. Today, in many respects, a college degree is the equivalent to what a high school degree was 50 years ago and that is wrong.”
To loud cheers, Sanders said free tuition and allowing graduates with student debt to refinance at the lowest available interest rates are key to improving the economy.
“This is not a radical idea. Don’t let anybody tell you this is a radical idea,” Sanders said.
Sanders on Saturday also blasted Gov. Scott Walker on recent legislation that requires identification to vote, calling him “cowardly.”
Democratic voters had a message for Hillary Clinton on Saturday: It’s not over yet.
The front-runner may possess a substantial lead, support from elected officials, and the backing of the party establishment. But in two of the three states where voters caucused on Saturday, they cast their ballots for Bernie Sanders by huge margins. In Washington, with most precincts reporting, he held 72 percent; in Alaska, he claimed 81 percent support.
Clinton has, in recent months, embraced many elements of Sanders’s platform. She’s adopted the language of intersectional politics. She’s echoed his skepticism of trade deals. She’s insisted she’ll be tougher on Wall Street than he’d be. But so far, at least, she’s had little success in winning over his supporters, and she’s struggled to inspire a similar degree of enthusiasm among her own backers.
Sanders’s voters seem undeterred by Clinton’s advantages. “I feel like probably for the first time since I’ve been voting I connect with somebody I really believe in and that I trust,” one supporter told the Seattle Times. Saturday’s vote suggests she’s not alone. Party officials in Washington said that at least 225,000 voters showed up, rivaling the record turnout of 2008, and the 10,600 who voted in Alaska exceeded that state’s 2008 tally.
Sanders won from wall to wall. He took every county in Washington, and in Alaska, he posted double-digit margins in all 40 districts.
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Most insurgent candidates garner more enthusiasm than dollars, and struggle to find enough resources to compete across the map. That’s not a problem for Sanders. In January, he stunned political observers by outraising Clinton, pulling in $20 million to her $15 million. She did twice as well the next month, raising $30 million, only to find that Sanders had brought in an astonishing $43.5 million. More impressively still, Sanders has raised those astronomical sums mostly by relying on small-dollar donations. There’s every reason to believe that Saturday’s triumphs will produce a fresh infusion of cash.
Just over three weeks before the April 19th presidential primary, Brooklyn welcomed back its hometown candidate this morning, with over 300 Bernie Sanders supporters gathering to celebrate the opening of his campaign’s Gowanus office. A few months ago, it seemed like an impossibility that the Brooklyn-born Sanders would still be running a campaign strong enough to keep New York State competitive. While the most recent poll [pdf] has Bernie lagging behind his opponent Hillary Clinton (though that might change after today's caucuses), for supporters, the fight for the state is just beginning.
“As the only City Councilman supporting Bernie Sanders, I’m proud to be here today,” Councilman Rafael Espinal told the crowd. “I’m here today because Bernie Sanders stands up for my people. I represent East New York and Bushwick, some of the poorest neighborhoods in the state of New York and when Bernie speaks, he speaks for us, for the people that live here.”
Though Sanders was off communing with nature in Oregon, Bern-ers entertained themselves with a performance by Kyp Malone (of Brooklyn’s own TV On The Radio) and speeches by prominent local supporters, who echoed Sanders' call for a political revolution that will put power in the hands of the people, and not the corporations.
“You can go back forty years ago, and Bernie was still saying the same things he is today,” said Linda Sarsour, the Executive Director of the Arab American Association,. “He’s a man who sees all of us, progressives, whites, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, as equals. He’s a man who believes in equal access to higher education. A man who believes we should all be able to afford to live in Brooklyn.”
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The most passionate speech of the morning came from Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, who has been one of the most outspoken boosters for Sanders nationwide. Reflecting on the holiday weekend, Turner told the audience “Not only was Jesus a revolutionary, but as my husband reminded me, he was a Socialist Jew.” The crowd erupted. “He wasn’t with the status quo, he was with the people.”
everal months ago, the pundit class had a specific and compelling brief against Bernie Sanders: He was wobbly on foreign policy.
It wasn't that he had bad views per se — his vote against the Iraq War is reason enough to rate his judgment higher than Hillary Clinton — rather he was palpably unsure of himself. While he was fluent and confident on domestic policy, he sounded hesitant and poorly-briefed on foreign policy. It was doubly unfortunate as Clinton is far more hawkish than President Obama, leaving a missed opportunity for Sanders to present himself as the defender of Obama's (relatively) non-interventionist legacy.
Fast forward to today, and Sanders has developed a strong foreign policy vision that is actually quite a bit better than I had hoped. This is undoubtedly due to him and his campaign working to fix a weakness, but some credit should also go to the Clinton campaign for helping dredge up some of Sanders' old, good foreign policy views.
The new Sanders can been seen in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Hayes, where he articulates a reasonably comprehensive foreign policy approach. He favors continued action against ISIS, though only with the support of neighboring Muslim nations which have a lot at stake. He's correctly skeptical of Saudi Arabia, arguing their war in Yemen is a misplaced priority at best (true). In keeping with a general pro-diplomacy view, he supports the Iran deal, and while he's suspicious of the country he argues it could be a good foundation for future relations and a relaxation of tensions.
Perhaps best of all, he's not ludicrously biased towards Israel. He was the only major candidate from either party to decline the invitation to speak at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference — rather remarkable from the first major Jewish presidential contender, especially given that the crypto-fascist Donald Trump (who has energized anti-Semites across the country) did attend, and his speech was greeted with rapturous applause. Clinton, of course, gave an outlandishly hawkish speech, clearly trying to position herself to Trump's right.
The band from Modesto, California in the valley wanted the song to have a “campesino” sound, like what you might hear musicians playing at a Mexican restaurant, and as soon as the song starts, it’s clear the Bern is being felt.
“He’s the man with a vision to better this country,” the song opens in Spanish. “Running for president but the rich don’t want him. Bernie Sanders is his name. Now you’re going to feel his burn.”
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Juve Quintana, the 26-year-old singer and songwriter of the berning hot tune, said his girlfriend turned him on to Sanders.
“I can relate to him and everything he wants to do for us,” Quintana said. “I thought what can I do so the Hispanics, the paisanos, the Mexicans vote for him? Everyone I speak to says ‘I’m going to vote for Hillary’ and I say ‘Have you heard of Bernie Sanders?” And they say ‘No, I don’t even know who that is.’”
The song, which was shared by Sanders Latino staffers and supporters on social media on Friday, comes at a good time, with the campaign turning lots of its attention to California and its big pool of delegates in a June primary. Quintana is trying to connect with the Sanders campaign with hopes of opening up for one of his rallies to show that the Vermont senator has Latino support.
And Quintana said part of the motivation for releasing the song was the violence against protesters at rallies for the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and to push back against his comments about Mexicans and immigrants.
“Yes, we are upset,” Quintana said. “I don’t know what he’s thinking but I think he forgets that even he came from a family of immigrants. And if they never came to this country he wouldn’t be here now and this is why we all come, for a better life for our families and so our kids can go to school.”
Supporters of the Bernie Sanders campaign came out and rallied for the candidate on Purdue’s campus Saturday.
Sanders supporters met at Purdue Memorial Union.
People of all ages voiced their opinions and held signs in support of Sanders.
Many are hoping that Sanders will make a stop at Purdue while on the campaign trail.
For some, Sanders is seen as the most equal candidate.
“He believes in everyone. He doesn’t play favorites. He treats democrats and republicans the same and he’s a very equal-minded person,” Sanders supporter John Gadient said.
About two dozen supporters of presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders staged a rally at the Four Corners intersection of Lake Elsinore Saturday morning.
Many of their signs encouraged passing motorists to "Honk for Bernie," and more than a few did, electrifying the small but passionate group.
There also were some people who mounted small-scale counter-protests while driving by, shouting epithets at the supporters or yelling "Down with Socialism" while waving the U.S. flag from their passenger window.
Jorge Lopez of Lake Elsinore for Bernie, the organizers of the rally, said he was pleased with the turnout.
His group is planning similar rallies in other cities in the region ahead of the June primary, which will find Sanders, (D-Vermont) competing in California against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Daniel Perez, a 23-year-old from Murrieta, said Sanders' positions on climate change and the economy helped win him over.
"If the middle class is strong, the economy is strong," Perez said, casting Sanders as a candidate who will stand up to big banks and monied interests.
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