PHILADELPHIA — Now that Bernie Sanders has officially lost the Democratic presidential nomination, his ardent followers say they don’t know if they can vote for Hillary Clinton, or whether they’ll even return to the Democratic convention or the party they once believed would put their candidate at the top of the ticket.
“They can have their convention, that’s not our party,” Nebraska delegate Edgar DeLeon told the Washington Examiner as he and a group of Sanders supporters stormed out of the arena.
For Clinton, disaffected Sanders voters could become politically disastrous if she can’t win them over by November. Clinton is counting on the support of the 12 million people who voted for Sanders during the Democratic primary. And while some plan to remain loyal to the party and vote for Clinton, which Sanders has urged them to do, many others said they won’t or simply aren’t sure yet.
“I’m right now in complete limbo,” Maine delegate Denise Groves said on her way out the door. “I’m leaving now and I may or may not come back.”
Groves said the Democratic Party and Clinton team has not shown enough respect to the Sanders faction that has spent the convention cheering for Sanders and booing Clinton.
“We’ve been laughed at,” Groves said. “People have ripped up our signs.”
Groves said she has a difficult time embracing the Clinton campaign because she picked moderate Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, of Virginia, to be her running mate. Clinton and the Democratic Party, she said, “spit in our face.”
DeLeon and other young Bernie supporters who walked out of the convention Tuesday were on a mission to find Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who was reportedly seated somewhere in the arena.
As soon as Clinton secured the nomination, the buzz among Sanders delegates who swarmed the hallway outside of the convention arena was all about Stein, whose environmental and social justice agenda most closely matches that of Sanders out of any third party candidate. Stein has been rallying with Sanders protesters at the DNC on Monday and Tuesday.
New York delegate Sandy Przybylak, who had been crying for an hour over the end of the Sanders campaign, said she was headed home, but not before checking out a Sanders alternative.
“I heard Jill Stein was here and I had to at least stop by and see her,” Pryzbylak said after leaving her seat in the arena.
Jose Navarrete, a California delegate, said former New Mexico Gov. and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was also on his list of alternatives to Sanders. But he said Stein “is really closely related to our agenda so we are going to keep an eye on if she can convince us.”
Navarrete said Sanders supporters plan to “continue to fight on for the political revolution.”
He fought back tears when he talked about Sanders, who he said many delegates believed could have beat Clinton in a contested floor fight. But it never happened.
“We now have two choices that we are not really excited about, so that leaves us Bernie Sanders delegates in a very difficult position,” Navarrete said.
DeLeon predicted that most Sanders backers will simply walk away from Clinton and the Democrats.
“I can assure you there is going to be a large exodus from the party after the convention,” DeLeon said.
