Sen. Bernie Sanders has won the Democratic caucuses in Maine, a victory that means he'll be taking home most of the state's 25 delegates at stake.
With nearly all of the state's precincts reporting, Sanders leads rival Hillary Clinton by double digits, with more than 64 percent of the vote.
"I thank the people of Maine for their strong support. With another double-digit victory, we have now won by wide margins in states from New England to the Rocky Mountains and from the Midwest to the Great Plains," Sanders said in a statement Sunday night. "The pundits might not like it but the people are making history."
While the state was sparsely polled in the weeks leading up to the caucuses, Sanders' win was not altogether unexpected. The Vermont senator has had significant success already in New England, where he has blown out Clinton in primaries both in his home state and New Hampshire.
The win makes for Sanders' third of the weekend. With victories in Kansas and Nebraska, Sanders entered Sunday having already won 47 pledged delegates this weekend. Yet, after Clinton's big-margin win in the Louisiana primary, which delivered her 55 delegates alone, Sanders' performance in Maine means the two candidates will have effectively reached a draw this weekend — a 66-63 split in pledged delegates, led by Sanders.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders sees a "path toward victory" after winning the Democratic caucuses in Nebraska and Kansas.
Sanders said Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" his campaign was happy about the states he has won. He won two of the three states Saturday, losing to Hillary Clinton in Louisiana.
"I think geographically, we are looking good. I think we have a path toward victory," he said.
Sanders touted the voter turnout in Kansas, where he beat Clinton 68 percent to 32 percent.
"In Kansas, they had the largest voter turnout in their caucus history. That was the case in Colorado, where we won as well," he said. "In every primary and caucus that we have won, we have won by double digit numbers and we're winning all across the country."
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Sanders said he's looking ahead to states that vote in April and as late as June despite trailing Clinton.
"We think we have an excellent chance to do well out on the West Coast in California, state of Washington, Oregon," he said. "We think we have an excellent chance to do well in large states like New York. We think we're going to surprise people here in Michigan."
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders angrily clashed over auto industry bailouts, guns and ties to Wall Street on Sunday, as underlying tensions in the Democratic presidential race burst into the open at an impassioned CNN debate in Flint, Michigan.
The forum quickly turned into a heated philosophical argument about an economy that Sanders said is weighted against the middle and working classes and is abetted, he said, by close ties between politicians, such as Clinton, and Wall Street financiers.
Sanders accused Clinton of supporting "disastrous" trade policies that contributed to corporate America's decision to move manufacturing from cities like Flint to low-wage economies in Central America and Asia. But she in turn said that Sanders had refused to vote for a bailout for the auto industry that was included in the outgoing Bush administration's attempts to stave off the financial crisis.
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Sanders repeatedly knocked Clinton for her ties to the finance industry and demanded that she release transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street firms. Clinton said she will do so when other candidates, including Republicans, agree to do the same.
While the exchanges were intense and revealed clear schisms between Clinton and Sanders, they were largely confined to policy differences, and lacked the personal -- and even vulgar -- tone that characterized the last two Republican debates.
Both candidates billed themselves as the best possible person to take on the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, in a general election. Clinton slammed what she said was the "bigotry, bullying and bluster" of the GOP front-runner, while her rival pointed to polls indicating he was more likely to beat the billionaire.
Bernie Sanders made clear Sunday night that he is not about to ease up on Hillary Clinton in the interest of Democratic Party harmony — in fact, the Vermont senator seemed to be spoiling for a fight more than ever.
Clinton was repeatedly put on the defensive by her insurgent rival in a debate in Flint, where Sanders challenged her more personally and relentlessly than he has in previous matchups. If Clinton had hoped to use the nationally televised event as an opportunity to hone her attacks against Republican front-runner Donald Trump, Sanders made that impossible. He would not be ignored.
As voters in Michigan prepare to cast ballots in their primary Tuesday, Sanders is looking to make a defiant stand in the Rust Belt, seeing the region as fertile territory for his brand of economic populism and for a comeback in a race in which he is in desperate need of a big upset.
He mocked Clinton’s record on trade and Wall Street, casting her as a late — and opportunistic — convert to progressive economics.
“Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America,” he said, singling out the North American Free Trade Agreement reached by President Clinton’s administration in the 1990s — which, Sanders said, erased “tens of thousands of jobs” in the Midwest.
Bernie Sanders would be the first Jewish president in American history, but he doesn't talk about it much on the campaign trail.
On Sunday Anderson Cooper asked him whether he was intentionally downplaying his heritage. Sanders gave a great response — one that this Jewish writer, in particular, found incredibly moving:
No, I'm very proud of being Jewish. And being Jewish is so much of what I am.
Look, my father's family was wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust. I know about what crazy and radical and extremist politics mean. I learned that lesson as a tiny, tiny child when my mother would take me shopping, and we would see people working in stores who had numbers on their arms because they were in Hitler's concentration camps.
I'm very proud of being Jewish. And that's an essential part of who I am as a human being.
Bernie Sanders butted heads with Anderson Cooper Sunday after the CNN anchor said that the Flint Water crisis “was created by the government.”
"Your policies are about expanding government, why should the people of Flint trust that more government is the answer?” Cooper asked.
“I suppose they can trust the corporations who have destroyed Flint … We could trust them, I’m sure,” Sanders said sarcastically as the crowd cheered. “Or maybe, Anderson, maybe we should let Wall Street come in and run the city of Flint because we know their honesty and integrity has done so much for the American people.”
“At the end of the day I trust the people to create a government that works for them rather than Wall Street or corporate America,” Sanders said.
Sanders also said Flint's water woes stem from misplaced priorities.
"How did we have so much money available to go to war in Iraq and spent trillions of dollars but somehow not have enough money not just for Flint," Sanders said.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in an impromptu news conference before the Democratic debate here, announced that he had acquired the endorsement of Donald W. Riegle Jr., a former Michigan senator, and then got a head start on attacking Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Riegle, a native of this city that is now reeling from a crisis over lead-tainted water, said he supported Mr. Sanders and launched into attacks on the trustworthiness and electability of Mrs. Clinton and the policies of her husband’s administration, which he said had “damaged” his hometown.
“The most important fact about Bernie is that he is honest and trustworthy,” Mr. Riegle said. “That’s an essential differentiator for me.”
As Mr. Sanders looked on stoically, Mr. Riegle, who retired from the senate in 1995 and has worked as a corporate lobbyist, said Mr. Sanders was the only Democratic candidate who could defeat the leading Republican candidates, Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, in a general election.
the candidates’ differences were highlighted in Sunday’s debate when they were asked to explain their stance on fracking—also known as hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting a mixture of water and chemicals into the earth in order to extract natural gas.
Clinton answered first on the issue
Transcript per the Washington Post:
You know, I don’t support it when any locality or any state is against it, number one. I don’t support it when the release of methane or contamination of water is present. I don’t support it—number three—unless we can require that anybody who fracks has to tell us exactly what chemicals they are using.
So by the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place. And I think that’s the best approach, because right now, there places where fracking is going on that are not sufficiently regulated.
So first, we’ve got to regulate everything that is currently underway, and we have to have a system in place that prevents further fracking unless conditions like the ones that I just mentioned are met.
Then it was Sanders’ turn to answer:
My answer—my answer is a lot shorter. No, I do not support fracking.
Advocating for better wages, the right to bargain and more help for Flint residents amid the water crisis, hundreds of fast food workers, clergy and community members marched and chanted ahead of the Democratic debate Sunday urging the 2016 presidential candidates to support their causes.
Sunday's debate featuring Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders marked the second time in three days that the Fight for $15 organization has protested at a presidential debate in Michigan, advocating for a $15 minimum wage. On Thursday, the organization brought hundreds of workers to protest outside of the Republican debate in Detroit at the Fox Theatre.
Sunday, many of the same protesters arrived in Flint right outside the Whiting Auditorium where Sanders and Clinton went head-to-head. This time dozens of Sanders supporters rallied next to the Fight for $15 organization and held up signs and joined them in chanting, "This is what democracy looks like."
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Flint resident Tyrone Stitt, who says he is struggling to make ends meet, was at the forefront of the Sunday protest.
Making just $8.50 after working at Taco Bell for 18 years, Stitt said he's been forced to spend extra money on bottled water every week amid the Flint's water crisis and he's fed up.
"We want our voices heard," Stitt said. "We are hoping they hear our message. I would love for our movement to get $15 an hour for every fast food worker across the country."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) may be losing out to Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton with minority voters, but three Ferguson activists he invited to speak at an Illinois rally Friday say they're definitely "feeling the Bern."
Bruce Franks, the founder of 28 to Life, an organization that focuses on youth empowerment and police relations with communities, talked about losing his brother to gun violence at the packed rally inside Southern Illinois University Edwardsville basketball stadium.
“In 1991, my brother, Christopher Harris, was 9 years old when he was killed. He was used as a human shield," said the 31-year-old, before announcing his run for Missouri state representative of the 79th district.
“Senator Sanders knows that the root cause of violence is lack of jobs, education, and resources.”
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Cori Bush, another activist-turned politician, spoke at the rally about being tear-gassed in Ferguson and the importance of standing against social injustice.
“For some reason, my brown lips and my dark skin says that I must make less money than my counterparts and I don’t understand that,” said the single mother, ordained pastor and nurse, who is running as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.
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