Bernie Sanders threw a last-minute hurdle in front of Hillary Clinton’s march toward the Democratic party nomination on Tuesday by clinching a surprise victory in the Indiana primary.
Despite trailing by an average of seven points in opinion polls and losing a string of bigger, more diverse states on the east coast, Sanders once again proved his appeal to disaffected midwest voters by pulling off his 18th victory of 2016, according to Associated Press projections.
Sanders seemed on track to win a narrow majority of the 83 delegates on offer. With 93% reporting, Sanders had 52.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 47.3%.
Sanders said: “The Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They’re wrong. Maybe it’s over for the insiders and the party establishment, but the voters in Indiana had a different idea.”
The Sanders campaign hopes that Indiana will mark one last turning point in a Democratic race characterised by a series of surprise comebacks that have prolonged Clinton’s otherwise relentless path toward the nomination.
He is well placed to pull off similar wins in West Virginia on 10 May and Oregon on 17 May, before a final showdown next month in California, whose 546 delegates present the biggest prize of the contest.
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“We are in this campaign to win and we’re going to fight until the last vote is cast. There is nothing I would like more than to take on and defeat Donald Trump, someone who must never become president of this country,” he said on Tuesday night, calling for a debate with Clinton in California.
Bernie Sanders scored a meaningful victory Tuesday in Indiana’s primary, narrowly defeating Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in an election dynamic defined by the loss of manufacturing jobs in the state.
While Sanders bested Clinton, her wide delegate lead indicates she is still the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. But Sanders remained defiant Tuesday and told supporters the win in Indiana helped him gain "the momentum that we need to take us to the finish line."
In Indiana, Sanders faced a critical challenge where he needed to muster enough Hoosier support to justify continuing his campaign through to the Democratic National Convention.
Election results Tuesday evening showed Sanders leading Clinton with nearly 53 percent to 47 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press. That was with 5,015 of the state’s more than 5,300 precincts reporting.
“The political revolution wins in Indiana," Sanders tweeted Tuesday night as the race was called.
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In the wake of Carrier Corp. and an affiliate’s plans to lay off 2,100 workers to move operations to Mexico, Sanders struck a nerve. He lobbed criticism at free trade agreements that he argued forced manufacturing jobs to leave the United States, and he called for a $15 minimum wage and a Medicare-for-all public health care system.
His criticism elevated what some feel is a weakness for Clinton: her husband and former president, Bill Clinton, signing the North American Free Trade Agreement that many blue-collar workers blame for the decline of American manufacturing. Indiana shed nearly a fourth of the 672,200 manufacturing jobs it had at its peak in 1999, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. As of March, 515,900 Hoosiers were employed in manufacturing.
Sanders earned endorsements from key steelworker unions. And to cement that support, he came to the Indiana Statehouse on Friday to rally with union workers against Carrier’s plans.
For the second week in a row, there was a temporary glitch in the Associated Press’s election night data. On Tuesday, that glitch was to Hillary Clinton’s favor, showing her with 2,000 more votes in Vigo County, Indiana, than she actually had. That gave Clinton a giant margin in early returns, vastly at odds with what exit polls showed — and far bigger than the 7-point margin she enjoyed in the final polling average from Real Clear Politics.
Within minutes, the wrong numbers in Vigo County was erased, and, over the next hour or so, Clinton’s remaining lead started to vanish. It wasn’t until about two hours after polls closed — at about the same time that Ted Cruz dropped out of the Republican race —- all but handing the nomination to Donald Trump — that the race in Indiana was called for Bernie Sanders. He’d beaten the polls, as he did in nearby Michigan — and probably, once all the votes are in, by a wider margin.
After losing five of six races over the last two weeks and only winning the small state of Rhode Island, the Indiana win was no doubt a welcome psychological boost. But why did Sanders win Michigan and Indiana, while losing other Midwestern states like Missouri (narrowly), Illinois and Ohio?
In Indiana, preliminary exit poll data reported by CNN showed that the electorate in the state was more likely to identify as liberal than in other Midwestern states, and less likely to identify as moderate. What’s more, the change since 2008 was much larger than in those other states.
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On Tuesday night, the percentage of the electorate that was black was slightly lower than the average of all contests for which we have polling data so far, but not dramatically so. Black voters preferred Clinton by a 3-to-1 margin. But white voters — nearly three-quarters of the electorate — leaned heavily toward Sanders, giving him nearly six in 10 of their votes. (On average so far, the two have been equally matched, about 50-50.) Sanders also did better with the upper end of the young-voter bracket, a group that turned out more heavily than they did in 2008. Those two shifts made the difference.
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Speaking before thousands in Louisville, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders took aim at presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump as he stunned Hillary Clinton by winning his party's Indiana primary on Tuesday evening.
Trump also won Indiana in his respective primary with a romp over U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, all but clinching the GOP nomination. Sanders told a crowd assembled around the Big Four Bridge that the country will not elect a president who has insulted "every group you can think of every single day."
"I know many of you are fearful of a President Trump," Sanders told about 7,000 supporters. "I’m here to tell you, that won’t happen. It won’t because in every national poll that I have seen for a long time, we beat Trump by double-digit numbers."
Sanders' speech touched on familiar campaign points such as reigning in Wall Street, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and criminal justice reforms. He said the country needs to expand Social Security benefits, end the war on drugs and provide free tuition for colleges and universities.
"How are we going to pay for it?" he asked. "We are going to impose a tax on Wall Street speculation."
"It is insane in my view that we have hundreds or thousands of qualified students who cannot attend college simply because they don’t have the money," Sanders said. "It is absurd we have millions crushed by high levels of student debt."
That's one of the reasons Rafiki Turney, a 21-year-old college student, said he is backing Sanders. "I believe that we shouldn't have to pay for college, we shouldn't have to pay for learning because it's something that's a public good."
Charles Meredith brought his 9-year-old son, Matt, to hear Sanders speak.
“I like that he voted against the Iraq war,” Meredit said. “I’m against corporate welfare, and mainly I’m a peace activist.”
Akilah Ruiz said she was “a big fan of his passion.”
“I feel like he genuinely represents the things I’ve been wanting out of a presidential candidate,” she said.
Dave and Ellen Suetholz said they have been big Sanders fans for years — so much so that they made a point of stopping by his office in Burlington, Vt., while they were on their honeymoon five years ago. Though Sanders was out at the time, they later ran into him at a coffee shop and introduced themselves.
“He’s just very personable,” Ellen Suetholz said.
Dave Suetholz said he appreciated Sanders’ outspokenness in opposing cuts to Social Security.
“He’s a man of the people,” he said, adding that for 40 years, Sanders has fought against “inequality in all its forms.”
“That means a lot to us,” he said.
Bernie Sanders just got the victory he desperately needed. The Democratic presidential candidate won in the Indiana Democratic primary on Tuesday, which will give him to the momentum he needs to stay in the race and fight on.
The victory does not not fundamentally change the trajectory of the Democratic race, in which Hillary Clinton holds a commanding lead in the all-important delegate count. But it offers some much-needed enthusiasm to the Sanders campaign at a crucial moment. After a string of defeats in Northeastern primary states last month, Sanders attempted to reframe the terms of the race, suggesting that even if he does not win the White House, he might still claim victory if he can leave a progressive stamp on the Democratic party platform.
To achieve even that, Sanders will need to prove that he can maintain widespread support. One of the ways the campaign has measured its success throughout the race is by touting its vast network of small-dollar donors. But in the past week, news surfaced that the campaign’s fundraising had taken a hit. Additional primary defeats risk accelerating that decline. The Indiana victory is an opportunity to reverse that. Donors are far more likely to give money when they believe their money will make a difference, and the campaign will have an easier time making that case after a win. Prevailing in Indiana will also help Sanders ward off pressure from Clinton allies who undoubtedly want him to exit the race so that the Democratic Party can coalesce behind its nominee of choice.
The Clinton campaign attempted to keep the focus on the general election after the Indiana results were tallied. John Podesta, the campaign’s chairman, spoke urgently of the need to defeat Donald Trump. “While Donald Trump seeks to bully and divide Americans, Hillary Clinton will unite us,” he said in a statement, failing to even mention Sanders. In contrast, Sanders trained his focus on his Democratic opponent. “The Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They’re wrong,” Sanders said defiantly in a statement. “Maybe it’s over for the insiders and the party establishment, but the voters in Indiana had a different idea.”
Here are five immediate repercussions to Ted Cruz dropping out of the Republican primary:
1. News coverage for the Democratic primary, and thus Bernie Sanders, will increase exponentially — immediately.
Without Trump in the field, all of the focus on future election nights — nine states and several territories over the next 45 days — will be on Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
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5. The Democrats will have a contested convention, and the Republicans won’t.
Few saw this coming, but assuming Bernie Sanders maintains his pledge to contest the Democratic convention unless Clinton can get 2,383 pledged delegates by June 14th — which she can’t, barring a miracle — only one of the two major parties will go to their convention divided, and with (not for nothing) the sort of logistical hurdles that come with that. For instance, when does Clinton roll out a Vice Presidential candidate? Before a convention she knows will be contested? At a time when a few super-delegates might abandon her?
The larger question: do some quantity of super-delegates switch to Sanders if the possibilities explored in items #1 through #4 above — particularly with respect to the upcoming primaries and caucuses — come to pass?
All we know for sure is that Ted Cruz dropping out of the Republican race has changed the Democratic race almost as profoundly as the Republican one.
Sanders is the last dream merchant in American politics, and lots of voters love it.
The concept came to me last week on YouTube when I was revisiting some of the great miniseries of the 1980s, a time when the most trusted man in America was Walter Cronkite, a network news anchor. One of those miniseries was titled “The Dream Merchants,” about the pioneers of the movie business who asked customers to give them a nickel to watch actors perform silently in moving pictures.
In politics, a dream merchant is a candidate who sells a big idea about what America can be, offers big proposals that could make it happen, and campaigns with a sincerity and passion that voters believe is real, true and appealing.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a dream merchant. He dreamed of lifting himself out of his wheelchair and lifting the nation out of the Great Depression, with big bold programs for change he pioneered as governor of New York.
John F. Kennedy was a dream merchant. He dreamed of inspiring a new generation of leaders who came out of the Second World War, to lift America out of poverty, roll back the nuclear arms race and dare to touch the moon.
Ronald Reagan was a dream merchant. When he dreamed of abolishing nuclear weapons, he deserved consideration for Mount Rushmore.
Sanders is the dream merchant heir to Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. When Clinton criticizes him for not being practical, she forgets that the New Deal, landing on the moon and abolishing nuclear weapons were often called impractical by opponents of FDR, JFK and Reagan.
Sanders calling for his revolution is like Robert Kennedy paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”
hloe Raynaud knew her senior prom was going to be special. She had the perfect dress, a gorgeous corsage, and the hottest date in the country — Senator Bernie Sanders.
An avid Sanders supporter, Raynaud ditched the typical date and brought a life-size cardboard cutout of the senator to prom.
“I hadn't gotten asked yet and prom was approaching quickly, so I was thinking about who would make a good prom date,” she told Revelist. “I really identify with Bernie's political standpoint so I just went for it!”
Oraynaud is definitely feeling the Bern: she tweets frequently about the campaign, proudly calling herself a “stubborn socialist.” But she also loved the ease that her non-conventional date afforded her.
“I just bought [the cutout] online,” she told Revelist. “Cheapest date ever!”
The night of the event, Raynaud didn’t shy away from her decision. Instead, she posed with her cardboard date in the typical prom photos, arranging him in the lineup along with her friends. She decked the replica out with a corsage of his own, and even brought him onto the floor with her to dance.
“During the slow dance I brought him out to dance with him and everyone started laughing,” she told Revelist. “Then my friends made him crowd surf.”
Tara Houska, 31
Native American Advisor, Bernie Sanders for President
"It's very easy to feel disenfranchised" as a Native American, says Tara Houska. The Minnesota native and tribal rights attorney has spent her career fighting to get Native Americans a seat at the political table, and in March she won herself a position with the Bernie Sanders campaign. She meets with tribal members in primary states, and helped shape Sanders' Native American policy platform. "You don't see a lot of politicians that will reach out to tribes and let them have a very strong say," Houska says of Sanders. "He realized we were incredibly oppressed people that needed a voice, and he gave us that voice. More than that, he gave us the opportunity to speak for ourselves."
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Michael Whitney, 31
Digital Fundraising Director, Bernie Sanders for President
When Correct the Record, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, launched its first public attack on Bernie Sanders last year, his campaign turned the hit into a fundraising win. "Yesterday, one of Hillary Clinton's most prominent Super PACs attacked our campaign pretty viciously," read a fundraising email blasted out to Sanders' supporters, which asked for a $3 contribution. "It was the kind of onslaught I expected to see from the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelson." In less than 48 hours the campaign received more than $1.2 million, from as many as 180 individual donors per minute. "We've never seen an immediate donor response like what the Sanders' campaign received," the director of a nonprofit that processes donations for Democratic candidates said at the time.
"That's the kind of thing Michael does really well — seeing those opportunities in the news," Kenneth Pennington, Sanders' digital director, says of Michael Whitney, the man behind the email. Whitney cut his teeth as a co-founder of Generation Dean, the youth outreach arm of Howard Dean's campaign, in 2003. Now he's helping Sanders explode the old campaign-finance model. Instead of working through a rolodex of wealthy donors, Whitney is reaching out to people who may not have ever contributed to a campaign in their lives, and only have a few dollars to give.
Dear Daily Kos Community members in Washington State:
I am running for the US House from the 3rd Congressional District of Washington State.
I am looking at a May 20th Deadline to submit 1,740 validated Washington State registered Voter signatures to the state Secretary of State’s office, to ensure I get on the WA State Primary ballot showing up in voters mailboxes on July 15, 2016.
For federal offices like the seat I am running to win (U.S. House), any Washington State registered voter can sign the Ballot Signature Petition to put me on the ballot. You do not have to live in my District, but only have to be a Washington State resident who is a registered voter. The form itself states this fact.
Will you help me, please?
You can download the single page form from my campaign website www.Angie4Congress.com, the notice about the Ballot Signature Petition is right on the Front Page. There is a link to the form, which is a Google Doc. You just download the form and print it out at home. The mailbox to send the forms back to is also included in the information on the Front Page.