Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said that if he had been the nominee in 2016 instead of Hillary Clinton, he would have won the election and been president today.
“If I won the nomination, I would have defeated Donald Trump,” the 2020 Democratic presidential primary hopeful said in an interview that aired Sunday on “Noticias Telemundo.”
Clinton lost the election when what was thought to be a “blue wall” of Democratic-leaning, upper-Midwestern states that would ensure her victory went to Trump instead. Sanders said those are exactly the states where he can beat Trump in 2020.
“We need a candidate who can really defeat Trump,” Sanders said. “And all of the polling out there has me defeating Trump. Especially in battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and others.”
Sanders believes that he appeals to working-class voters in those states who supported Trump and that he can steal them from the president if he becomes the 2020 nominee.
Sanders took direct aim at Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, grumbling that some people are already taking Biden’s nomination for granted.
[Related: Sanders takes on Biden: ‘There is no middle ground’]
“I suppose there are some folks out there who say, ‘Let’s anoint Joe Biden. Why do we have 24 candidates?’ Well, I don’t agree with that,” he said.
Biden also touts himself as someone with appeal to the workers who sided with Trump in the upper Midwest.
