Even with the benefit of having no real competition for the “not Hillary” vote, Sanders’ campaign is falling just a little short.
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That’s according to a new CNN/ORC national poll released Wednesday, the day after Trump all but clinched the GOP race with a primary victory in IN that forced Ted Cruz to drop out. “They’re wrong”, Sanders said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from New Albany, Indiana. “So I will absolutely be doing everything I can to help the Republican presumptive nominee, who is now Donald Trump”.
With Donald Trump’s remaining rivals bowing out of the race, clearing his path to the nomination, Hillary Clinton is looking for ways to woo Republicans turned off by the brash billionaire. “They must have dozens and dozens of opposition researchers”, Sanders said.
“I think it generates enthusiasm, gets people involved in the political process”, Sanders said.
Pennsylvania hasn’t voted Republican in the presidential race since 1988, but the state includes numerous white working-class voters who are Trump’s most fervent supporters.
Trump was left as the last Republican candidate standing this week, after Ted Cruz dropped out on Tuesday night and campaign officials confirmed on Wednesday that fellow candidate John Kasich would be suspending his campaign as well.
Clinton earns 54 percent support while Trump garners 41 percent support.
Sanders’ next stop in furthering his political revolution is West Virginia, where he is now campaigning. But with Bernie Sanders handing Clinton a smashing and stunning defeat on Tuesday (Clinton led in almost every poll taken prior to the primary) and his verbalized determination to stay in the race to the bitter end, there is now a role reversal amounting to what some are calling a sea change in American politics.
A recent Washington Post-Univision poll also shows Trump continues to struggle mightily with Latino voters with more than 80 percent of them insisting they have a negative view of the man who has vowed to deport more than 11 million immigrants. One map showed this week that to win the presidency, she would need only to capture 20 of the country’s 50 states in November’s national election against Trump, the 19 that have voted for Democratic candidates in the past six presidential elections, plus the large southeastern political battleground state of Florida, where one poll shows her ahead of Trump by 13 percentage points.
Clinton has faced a hostile reception in West Virginia, coal country where voters appear infuriated over her comment in March about plans to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”. Sherrod Brown, a Clinton backer, said of Trump.
However, the lack of winner-take-all states on the Democratic contests makes it very hard for Sanders to close the delegate gap, The New York Times reports. Elizabeth Warren, who said “I’m going to fight my heart out to make sure @realDonaldTrump’s toxic stew of hatred & insecurity never reaches the White House”.
Sanders may capture a couple of more primary wins in OR (where he enjoys a large margin in the polls) and West Virginia (where Clinton’s statements about coal mines have hurt her chances). “We’re going to take him on at every turn”.
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Well, emboldened by his Hoosier State win, Sanders told CNN that he is not going anywhere.
