Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Tuesday morning that he sees his narrow second-place finish in Iowa as a victory given how far away he was from competing just months ago.
“Absolutely,” he told CNN when asked if his campaign is chalking it up as a win. “Look, what we’re talking about is, one way or the other, a couple of delegates, when we’re going to need 2,300 delegates to win this thing.”
“We started our campaign, you know, 40, 50 points behind,” he stressed. “Whether we lose by a fraction of a point, whether we … whatever. We’re very proud of the campaign,” he said.
As of Tuesday morning, Clinton’s narrow victory was thought to be giving Clinton a 28-21 edge in Iowa delegate votes, according to the AP’s delegate tracker. The same dynamic could be seen on the Republican side, where Sen. Ted Cruz’s dramatic victory over Donald Trump was thought to result in a small 8-7 delegate lead for Cruz.
Sanders said that narrow lead shows he’s competitive against a candidate who most thought would easily sweep through the Democratic primaries.
“But what this shows is that this campaign has started in a very forceful way, starting way, way back and coming to a virtual tie, and we are gonna fight here in New Hampshire, look forward to winning here, and doing well around the rest of the country,” he told CNN.
“For folks who did not think Bernie Sanders could win, that we couldn’t compete against Hillary Clinton, I hope that that thought is now gone.”
