In his first public comments to the press after crushing blows in primary contests, Bernie Sanders announced that he is staying in the race and previewed debate attacks on Joe Biden.
“Last night, obviously, was not a good night for our campaign from a delegate point of view,” Sanders said from his Burlington headquarters on Wednesday.
The former vice president decisively won Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, a state that the socialist Vermont senator won in 2016 in an upset over Hillary Clinton. That expanded Biden’s lead to 166 pledged delegates ahead of Sanders, though about 119 delegates from states that have voted have yet to be allocated.
The loss there, though, is not prompting Sanders to drop out.
“We are strongly winning in two enormously important areas which will determine the future of our country,” Sanders said. “A strong majority of the American people support our progressive agenda,” he argued, and asserted that he is “winning the generational debate.”
Exit polls show that Sanders is more popular than Biden among younger voters.
“Today I say to the Democratic establishment: In order to win in the future, you need to win the voters who win the future of this country,” Sanders said.
Sanders conceded that Biden is winning among voters looking for the most electable candidates versus President Trump in a general election, but said that he hopes voters will change their minds after seeing the two candidates in Sunday’s one-on-one Democratic presidential debate.
“I very much look forward to the debate in Arizona with my friend Joe Biden,” Sanders said.
He previewed his attacks on Biden.
“Joe, what are you going to do for the 500,000 people who go bankrupt in our country because of medically related debt?” Sanders said, referencing Biden’s opposition to his signature single-payer “Medicare for all” healthcare system.
“What are you going to do to make sure that all of our people can go to college or trade school, regardless of their income?” Sanders continued. “What are you going to do to end mass incarceration in a racist criminal justice system? What are you going to do to end the terror millions of undocumented people experience right now?”
