Bernie Sanders has endorsed Joe Biden for president.
“Today I’m asking all Americans, I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse,” the former 2020 Democratic candidate and Vermont senator said Monday about Biden, a two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator.
Sanders didn’t publicly back Biden when he withdrew last week from the primary, his second campaign for the White House. Instead, he said he would continue amassing delegates ahead of the summer’s Democratic National Convention and devote his time and resources to defeating President Trump in November’s general election.
Sanders, who urged his fans to move forward together with him and Biden, made the announcement during a digital event hosted by the former vice president about the economic response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The pair, appearing alongside each other virtually from their respective homes in Delaware and Vermont, discussed how “Generation Z” would be hardest hit by the COVID-19 recession, among other topics.
“You want to bring people in, even people who disagree with you … you want to hear what they have to say, we can argue it out,” Sanders continued of Biden. “Let’s respect each other, let’s address the challenges we face right now and in the future.”
Biden lavished praise on his former opponent during the show of unity, parroting some of his campaign rhetoric, such as “We can’t just go back to business as usual.” The Obama administration alumni also drew parallels between a few of their policy positions and highlighted new stances he had adopted on Medicare and free college as he seeks to woo Sanders’s supporters and younger Democrats.
“You don’t get enough credit, Bernie, for being the voice that forces us to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves, ‘Have we done enough?’ And we haven’t,” Biden said, adding he needed Sanders’s help “not to just win the campaign, but to govern.”
Sanders’s initial statements concerned Democrats worried they were about to experience a repeat of 2016, when the senator didn’t endorse then-rival Hillary Clinton until July 12.
While many Democrats breathed a collective sigh of relief, the Trump campaign was quick to seize on Sanders and his socialist ideas’s impact on the White House race.
“This is further proof that even though Bernie Sanders won’t be on the ballot in November, his issues will be. Biden had to adopt most of Bernie’s agenda to be successful in the Democrat primaries. One thing that is missing is enthusiasm, however, as almost no one is excited about a Biden candidacy,” Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale wrote.
