Donald Trump urged Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday to withdraw from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and launch a third-party bid instead, a move that would likely give Trump a huge boost in the general election.
The Republican presidential front-runner, who has said he would prefer to run against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the general election, claimed Sanders has been treated “terribly” by the Democrats and should “show them” by challenging Clinton as an independent candidate.
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Bernie Sanders has been treated terribly by the Democrats—both with delegates & otherwise. He should show them, and run as an Independent!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2016
Sanders and Trump have both risen to popularity this election cycle through the support they’ve found among hundreds of thousands of American voters who are frustrated with the current political system and the Washington elite.
The 74-year-old Democratic socialist trails Clinton among pledged Democratic delegates and superdelegates, but has so far refused to exit the race before all 50 states have held their nominating contests.
“We’re going to give the people in every state in this country the right to determine who they want to be the president of the U.S. [and] what kind of agenda they want,” Sanders told CNN on Sunday. Sanders said Tuesday morning that his goal was to keep fighting all the way through the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in mid-July.
Recent general election matchup polls show Sanders performing better against Trump than Clinton would as the Democratic nominee. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released Monday showed the Vermont senator leading Trump 53 to 37 percent.
