PHILADELPHIA — Hours before Sen. Bernie Sanders was set to take the stage to make the case for Hillary Clinton, a number of his supporters said they were still reluctant, and said they wouldn’t feel guilty if they sat out and Donald Trump were elected.
Christian Palacios, a Sanders delegate from Palm Beach County in Florida, said he would “have to decide in the voting booth in November” on who to support.
Wearing a green Robin Hood hat that he said was about advocating for a Wall Street tax to expand Medicare to everybody, Palacios said he wouldn’t support Trump, but at the moment isn’t ready to back Clinton. When asked whether he would feel guilty as a Democrat in a swing state, if he didn’t vote for Clinton and she lost, Palacios told the Washington Examiner he would not.
“If Hillary doesn’t win, that’s Hillary’s fault,” he said.
He added that, “Hillary needs to move on the right side of issues, so that way she does earn all the votes.”
Palacios attended the rally earlier in the day during which Sanders supporters booed the Vermont senator when he said they should vote for Clinton. He said it showed that the “election is not about Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. It’s about the issues.”
He specifically mentioned Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage, climate change and stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.
Blocking TPP was a galvanizing issue for Sanders delegates, who could be heard chanting “No TPP” as Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., spoke on the stage.
“I’m worried about the TPP,” said Naples, Fla. Delegate Judy Dempsey, who isn’t ready to support Clinton. “I don’t think she’s going to stop the TPP. I think she’s going to push for it.”
She said that she would not vote for Trump, but is unclear about what other option she may pursue, including voting for presumptive Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
“After the convention I’ll have to sit down and reflect.”
Cummings, in an interview with the Washington Examiner on the convention floor, said he understood the passion of Sanders’ supporters, but thought that they should be happy with their gains in the Democratic platform fight.
“There’s going to be a spirited reaction, and that’s okay,” Cummings said. “I think we’ve got a number of Bernie people who were expecting to get every single thing they wanted. And they’re disappointed and I can understand that. But the thing that they fail to understand, and I can say this as a drafter of the platform, that they got 95 percent of what they wanted. So, that happens in politics.”
