After a long, often contentious, and surprisingly successful primary campaign, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for the presidency on Tuesday morning at a New Hampshire rally.
“Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process, and I congratulate her for that. She will be the Democratic nominee for president and I intend to do everything I can to make certain she will be the next president of the United States,” Sanders said.
“I have come here to make it as clear as possible as to why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president,” he continued. In his speech he went on to sharply criticize Donald Trump, and praised Clinton for understanding the nation’s economic challenges, supporting a public option for health insurance, and listening to scientists on climate change. You can read his full prepared remarks here.
Now, Sanders didn’t announce that he was suspending or ending his own campaign. He said that the delegates’ roll call at the convention in a little over two weeks would reflect that he had won almost 1,900 delegates — suggesting that he might technically stay in the race till then.
But regardless, his endorsement of Clinton finally brings the Democratic primary to a close, and helps unify the party around the shared goal of defeating the Republicans and their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
The endorsement comes after a campaign in which Sanders has had quite a lot to be proud of. After starting as a little-known underdog, he ended up winning 22 states, nearly 1,900 delegates, and more than 40 percent of overall votes cast in the Democratic contest.
He also built a remarkable small-donor fundraising apparatus, got millions of young people involved in politics, and proved that “socialist” is no longer a dirty word among Democratic primary voters.
In the end, however, he was undone by his failure to sufficiently expand his appeal among the black and Hispanic voters who make up so much of the party’s coalition. With Clinton winning so many states with large black and Hispanic populations in landslides, the delegate and demographic math just didn’t add up for Sanders.
But don’t expect this to be the end of Sanders-ism. Though he may have lost, his surprisingly strong performance shows that much of the party’s base, especially young people, quite like a “democratic socialist” economic agenda. Indeed, it’s quite possible — though far from certain — that the Sanders platform could be the future of the Democratic Party.
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