It was a political rally, but felt like a rock concert. And in many ways it was both. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his celebrity friends made a home-stretch push for votes Saturday during a festive concert and rally outside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Sanders again promised to fight on until the Democratic National Convention and said his campaign needs a record turnout to emerge victorious in Tuesday's California primary. California voters, he said, "are going to help lead us into the political revolution."
The Sanders campaign said Coliseum officials estimated the crowd at more than 13,000. They gathered Saturday afternoon outside the stadium and listened to a slew of indie rock bands before Sanders spoke.
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Actors Dick Van Dyke and Susan Sarandon introduced Sanders, who delivered his stump speech for over an hour. (The 90-year-old Van Dyke got a big laugh by saying, "Ladies and gentleman, I'm what's left of Dick Van Dyke.")
Sanders peppered his speech with jabs at Donald Trump, claiming he was the best suited to defeat the presumptive Republican nominee in a general election.
After his speach, Sanders was joined onstage by the bands for a rendition of "This Land Is Your Land." Sanders sang along, and that ended the night.
Jacqueline Vergara, a 33-year-old community college teacher from Koreatown, stood nearby with her niece. She said she was energized and ready to go home and start reminding her friends to head to the polls Tuesday.
"I'm inspired," she said.
To beat Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's primary election, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders needs the Latino vote.
Sanders spent part of Saturday appealing to Latino voters in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles -- where 90 percent of the residents are Latino.
Inside an event venue called "Casa del Mexicano," which is decorated with murals of Aztec pyramids, Mexican revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata, and the seal of every Mexican state, Sanders hosted a town hall on immigration.
Sanders spoke and answered crowd questions for over an hour. In his opening remarks he portrayed himself as the anti-Trump candidate who embraces immigrants instead of using them as scapegoats.
"I am going to do everything I can to combat the bigotry of (presumptive GOP presidential nominee) Donald Trump and people like him," he told a crowd of about 300.
He vowed to end the exploitation of undocumented workers, expand President Barack Obama's executive actions granting deportation relief to millions, and promised to negotiate international trade deals that benefit workers of all countries instead of just CEOs of companies who hire them.
Sanders supporters insist that when they back him on 7 June, they won’t be offering a symbolic vote for a candidate who has already lost. On the contrary, they say California voters will turn out in droves, launching the comeback that sets him on the path to defeat Clinton – and eventually Donald Trump.
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Pundits here agree that if the Sanders campaign can translate high-energy rallies into strong voter turnout, he has a legitimate shot at beating Clinton in California.
“Bernie has spent an enormous amount of time on the ground here. It’s pretty incredible,” said Bill Carrick, a veteran California political strategist not affiliated with either Democratic campaign.
Sanders’ approach – targeting residents in every corner of the state with giant rallies that sometimes draw tens of thousands – could help get first-time voters to the polls. Since 9 May, Sanders has held about 30 rallies in California, pledging to reach a quarter-million Californians before the primary.
“It’s a mammoth undertaking, but I think it bonds him to his supporters in a way that’s going to influence turnout,” Carrick said.
Recent polls in California, which has 546 delegates available, suggest Sanders and Clinton are in a very tight race, with multiple recent polls showing that Sanders has cut the former secretary of state’s lead dramatically – and may even be ahead in the state.
Hillary Clinton has won the Virgin Islands Democratic caucuses, according to results provided by the local Democratic Party.
According to a preliminary vote total, Clinton received 1,308 votes to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' 190.
The vote on the islands, along with Puerto Rico, which holds its nominating contest on Sunday, come as Clinton and Sanders battle over Democratic superdelegates -- with Sanders arguing that his stronger polling position against Donald Trump should tip the party's scales in his favor.
On Saturday, Sanders said he would try to woo Clinton's superdelegates in an effort to swing the nomination his way at the Democratic convention.
California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota hold their primaries on Tuesday, and Washington, D.C., holds the final nominating contest of the primary season on June 14.
Bernie Sanders on Saturday called Muhammad Ali not only a sports icon, but a “man of conviction and enormous courage” for his refusal to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War.
“Clearly, Ali was one of the great heavyweight champs of all time, a beautiful boxer and a great athlete,” Sanders said at a news conference. “But the reason that Ali struck a chord in the hearts of so many Americans was not just his great boxing skill. It was his incredible courage. At a time when it was not popular to do so, Ali stood up and said, ‘I am opposed to the war in Vietnam, and I’m not going to fight in that war.’ ”
Ali, who died Friday night in Scottsdale, Ariz., famously refused to be drafted in April 1967. Months later, he was convicted of draft evasion and was temporarily banned from boxing.
Sanders, 74, calling himself a “bit of a boxing fan,” wistfully recalled that volatile moment in U.S. history as he stood at a lectern at a DoubleTree hotel here.
“That incredibly courageous decision cost him three and a half years of his prime fighting life and cost him, probably, tens and tens of millions of dollars,” Sanders said. “... But he chose to stand by his ideals, his views.”
The senator from Vermont went on to say that Ali’s Muslim faith was central to the boxer’s life — and a part of the Ali story that should be highlighted “at a time when we are seeing a growth in Islamophobia.”
“A very proud Muslim,” Sanders said. “Don’t tell us how much you love Muhammad Ali and yet you’re going to be prejudiced against Muslims in this country.”
DEMORO: Well, first of all, you know, with the nurses, every hour, every day are stories about the suffering of patients. And every social problem presents in the hospital. And even with the new mandate of the ACA, which has some positives, obviously, what we're finding is that the quality is decreasing. The premiums are increasing. Patients are cutting their pills in half. The out-of-pocket costs are enormous.
I mean, our health shouldn't be a commodity. And that's what's happened. And so fighting for a single-payer system has become a bedrock issue in this campaign. It's always been a bedrock issue for the nurses nationally. And when we joined with the campaign, Bernie Sanders amplified all of the issues of the nurses.
SIMON: Hillary Clinton, who served the Obama administration and quotes the president a lot on the stump, says that it's just not practical to expect - in the political landscape today to expect the U.S. Congress to approve a single-payer health care system. And she wants to expand the Affordable Care Act. That's...
DEMORO: Hillary Clinton...
SIMON: ...Not good enough for you?
DEMORO: Well, first of all...
SIMON: Yeah?
DEMORO: I believe she lacks political will to get the job done, which is one of the reasons that the nurses are supporting Bernie Sanders. If our health isn't achievable, then what's she doing running for president? You don't give up on health. You can give up on a lot of things. And there's compromises to be made. But when it comes to the health of my children, of our families, of our communities, you don't give up on people.
Bernie Sanders urged news organizations on Saturday to hold off on declaring a victor in the Democratic presidential race following Tuesday’s primaries and vowed to soldier on to the party’s convention in July.
Sanders comments come as his rival, Hillary Clinton, is poised to effectively clinch the nomination following the close of the polls Tuesday in California, New Jersey, and four other states.
But the Vermont senator insisted that the delegate count is fluid. And he expressed confidence that he could persuade some “super delegates”— the party leaders who are not locked into voting for a particular candidate — to peel away from Clinton in the “six long weeks” before Democrats gather in Philadelphia.
“Now, I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night. I have heard reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate,” Sanders said at a news conference here.
Sanders then added, with emphasis, that the “Democratic National Convention will be a contested convention.”
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According to the Associated Press count late Saturday, Clinton is only 67 delegates short of reaching the 2,383 delegates necessary for securing the nomination, based on her combined number of “super delegates” and pledged delegates.
But because Clinton is unlikely to reach that threshold without the boost of the hundreds of “super delegates” supporting her, Sanders still sees a path to victory.
“We have come a very long way and steep climbs and challenges are not something that this campaign shies away from,” Sanders said at the news conference.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign is pointing to President Barack Obama's remarks this week about increasing the amount of money seniors get through Social Security as evidence of the impact the avowed democratic socialist is having on policy debates.
The Sanders campaign quickly jumped on the President's remarks, sending out a news report about the statement to the reporters who cover the campaign.
"I applaud President Obama for making it clear that it is time to expand Social Security benefits," Sanders said in a statement. "Millions of seniors, disabled veterans and people with disabilities are falling further and further behind on $10,000 or $11,000 a year Social Security," he added.
Sanders has long been advocating for an increase in benefits, a position that Hillary Clinton adopted earlier this year when she tweeted to Sanders, "I won't cut Social Security. As always, I'll defend it and expand it."
Wisconsin supporters of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders have scored a win at the state Democratic convention.
Delegates Saturday approved a nonbonding resolution asking national Democrats to abolish super delegates, the party insiders who can support whoever they want for president.
The Wisconsin State Journal reports another resolution that was adopted urges Wisconsin's 10 super delegates to vote in proportion to Wisconsin's primary results.
Sanders won the popular vote in Wisconsin on April 5, but because of super delegates backing Hillary Clinton he only has a five-delegate advantage. Three super delegates are undecided.
Sanders' supporters in Wisconsin hope to pressure the state's super delegates to switch their allegiance from Clinton to the Vermont senator.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the last of the holdouts.
The House minority leader has dropped plenty of hints that she wants Hillary Clinton to prevail in her historic run for the White House, but she’s withheld an official endorsement amid the primary contest pitting Clinton against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a liberal icon.
With Speaker Paul Ryan's Thursday endorsement of Donald Trump, Pelosi is now the only top congressional leader of either party, in either chamber, to withhold an endorsement this year.
The silence has become more intriguing in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's primary in her home state of California, but Pelosi has hinted she doesn't want her endorsement to undermine voter turnout in the state. True to form, she's remained non-committal.
“I will make an endorsement, and I’ll decide when that is,” she told reporters in San Francisco last month. “But I won’t be telling you that right now.”
Pelosi's reticence highlights the tightrope she's walking in her different roles as a party leader, campaign strategist, monster fundraiser, California legislator, liberal advocate and feminist champion.
It also underscores the tricky political environment Democratic leaders are navigating in the face of Sanders’s resounding success.
The Vermont senator has drawn an enormous following few foresaw a year ago, and his thundering promotion of economic justice has reverberated with millennials, blue-collar workers and otherwise disenchanted voters both distrustful of Clinton and compelled by the thought of sending an outsider to the White House.
"The Sanders campaign is absolutely destroying us."
Those are the words of California Green Party spokesman Mike Feinstein, who, in response to an inquiry from Mother Jones on Friday, visited the website of the California Secretary of State. He discovered, to his consternation, that his party has lost 30 percent of its members in the months since Sanders launched his presidential campaign. "I am apoplectically mad right now," Feinstein says. "I am so disgusted with this."
"They intentionally went after our voters because they are low-lying fruit on the issues," he adds, citing mailers the Sanders campaign sent to Green Party members.
The party's steep decline in registration—from nearly 110,000 voters in early 2015 to 78,000 now—represents a tiny fraction of California's 18 million registered voters. Yet it underscores how the Sanders campaign has made deep inroads into California's liberal electorate, tapping voters who may have never before considered voting for a Democrat.
California's other major leftist third party, the Peace and Freedom Party, has also seen a significant drop in registration since last year, losing about 7,000 voters, or 9 percent of its members.
"Most of the members of our Central Committee, and probably other registrants, like Bernie," says Debra Rieger, the Peace and Freedom Party's state chair. Two of the party's three presidential candidates are themselves socialists, and their policy positions aren't appreciably different from Sanders'. "We think it's great that Bernie has opened to door to talking about socialism, free education for everyone, open healthcare—all these things we've been advocating for years."
As an artist in Washington, Shani Shih said creating a showcase around Bernie Sanders was a natural idea, given how his messages resonate with members of the artistic community.
"It really brings like-minded artists who have that sort of orientation to come together and do something like this," she said.
Shih is one of the organizers of the Bern The System showcase at the Fridge, a gallery in the Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington.
The three-day exhibit features works from local artists and others from across the country who were inspired by Sanders' campaign.
Monolith, a featured artist and organizer of Bern The System, said Sanders brings attention to overlooked issues, including mass incarceration, corruption in politics and the war on drugs.
"I think a lot of artists mobilized behind Obama because of the same issues," he said.
Sanders' consistency and experience working to address these issues has artists excited, according to Monolith.
If recent polls can be trusted, Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton should have no problem winning New Mexico in Tuesday’s primary election.
But campaign contributions tell a different story.
Clinton’s opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has received more than three times the number of contributions in New Mexico as the former Secretary of State, giving him a fundraising edge — albeit a small one.
“What’s happening in New Mexico mirrors national trends, where Sanders tends to have more contributors giving fewer dollars but still adding up to large sums,” said New Mexico pollster Brian Sanderoff.
According to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, as of April 30, Sanders had received 18,774 contributions totaling $896,861 in the state. Clinton had received far fewer contributions, a total of 5,299, but almost as much money, taking in $857,370.
Sanders’ lead over Clinton in donations is a recent development. In May 2015, Clinton had received $80,680 in contributions and Sanders a mere $250. By the end of that month, Clinton had 282 donations to 12 for Sanders. This pattern held until Sept. 13, when contributors to Sanders began to surge and he surpassed Clinton with 637 donations to her 612. Then, on April 15, Sanders inched past Clinton again with $813,829 in donations to Clinton’s $812,914.
Sanders’ funding strength appears to be in his small and frequent donations. He has received nearly 4,200 contributions of $10 or less, while Clinton had 824 at that level. Clinton has received 267 contributions of $1,000 or more, compared to 77 for Sanders.