Sen. Bernie Sanders, battered from his defeat in many Super Tuesday contests, warned President Barack Obama not to endorse Joe Biden, Obama’s former vice president who is now running neck and neck with Sanders for the Democratic nomination.
“I have not the slightest doubt that there is enormous pressure on President Obama to jump into this race and support Joe Biden,” Sanders said during a press conference about the status of his campaign.
Sanders told reporters he backed Obama’s pledge to support the Democrat who wins the nomination and his private assurances that he would not get involved in the primary.
“I agree with him,” Sanders said. “But that’s not easy for him to do. And I very much appreciate his willingness to do that.”
Obama has said very little publicly about the Democratic fight for the nomination or when he plans to give his coveted endorsement to one of the candidates, now likely to be Biden.
The Democratic candidates have touted their relationships with Obama.
Sanders, on Tuesday, began running a new campaign ad promoting his connection to Obama. It featured a clip of Obama praising Sanders as “somebody who has the virtue of saying exactly what he believes, great authenticity, great passion, and is fearless,” among other compliments.
Biden’s campaign criticized the ad as disingenuous, but Sanders defended it Wednesday.
“We have worked with President Obama,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to say we are best friends. We talk every now and then.”
Sanders said he ran the ad to clarify his relationship with Obama, “to say I work with him and respect him.”
Obama’s endorsement would be pivotal for Biden this month.
The Super Tuesday primaries put Biden ahead of Sanders in the delegate count, but that number will shift as the votes are counted in California, where Sanders is in the lead. There is still a chance neither candidate will win the 1,991 pledged delegates to secure the nomination without a fight at the July convention.
Biden won 10 of the 14 Super Tuesday state contests and is back in the lead in national polls after losing momentum following a poor performance in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Sanders is now scrambling to regain momentum in a close race with Biden for the nomination.
“Of course I’m disappointed,” Sanders said. “I’d like to win every state by a landslide, but that’s not going to happen. But what we are trying to do is unprecedented. We are talking about a political revolution.”
He called Biden “a candidate from the establishment,” raising money form the rich to fund his campaign.
