Standing alongside one another at an event in Portsmouth, N.H., Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, congratulated Clinton for winning the nomination and vowed to do everything he can to help her beat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Advertisement
Clinton, who has identified with the centrist element of the Democratic Party throughout her career, was nudged to the left by Sanders during the primary.
Mr Sanders and Mrs Clinton are returning to New Hampshire on Tuesday for the first time since he won a 22-point landslide in the state’s presidential primary.
Sanders acolytes who have been swept up in by his lofty promises and pledges of “political revolution” said they wanted a candidate they connected with, expressing frustration with the idea that they should vote for Clinton simply to keep Trump out of the White House.
Sanders had been under pressure for weeks from Democratic Party officials to throw his weight behind Clinton after she locked up the required number of delegates last month with a string of wins in state-by-state primary contests, but had resisted, citing policy differences.
But top Democrats including President Barack Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren of MA, a favourite of the party’s liberal wing, have already announced their support for Clinton, leaving Sanders at risk of being left behind in the Democratic battle against Trump. In recent Reuters/Ipsos polling, only about 40 percent of Sanders backers said they would back Clinton, and the crowd at Tuesday’s rally made it clear she still had work to do.
“She’s a crook, and I’m not going to vote for a crook”, Bailey said, adding that she would write in Sanders’ name on the November ballot.
In recent weeks, Mrs. Clinton had moved closer to Mr. Sanders’ positions on health care, college affordability and other issues.
Chamberlain noted that his organization, which was started after Howard Dean’s failed bid for the White House, was “never anywhere near the size of the movement that Bernie Sanders put together”, but was still helping to elect their members 12 years after Dean’s run.
Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller says in a statement released during Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton Tuesday that the Vermont senator is “endorsing one of the most pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and pro-off-shoring candidates in the history of the Democratic Party”. Sanders inspires fierce loyalty among his supporters, and some may follow him into the Clinton camp.
Democrats have coalesced around Clinton’s candidacy since she defeated Sanders in primaries last month in California and five other states, led by endorsements from President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others.
The survey, from the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, interviewed almost 2,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 30, including enough black, Hispanic and Asian-Americans for those groups’ results to be statistically significant.
But on Monday Trump ripped into Clinton as “weak, ineffective” and hobbled by the criticism about her use of private email during her tenure as top diplomat.
The event theme was “Stronger Together”.
“Personally, I don’t think I will support Hillary”. In addition, almost three-quarters of those who would choose Sanders said it’s because they support him (as opposed to opposing Trump). He said he would work with Clinton “where she is prepared to stand up and fight for working people and take on big-money interests”.
Advertisement
“She is more or less an establishment Democrat”, he said on C-SPAN.
