Following Bernie Sanders’ loss to Hillary Clinton in the New York primary last week, his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, vowed that the Vermont senator would take his fight to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in July.
But on Sunday, Sanders would only look as far ahead as California’s Democratic primary on June 7.
“We intend to take the fight all the way to California,” Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” “so people throughout this country have a right to determine who they want as president and what kind of agenda they want for the Democratic Party.”
Sanders repeated the phrase when asked if he would support Clinton as the Democratic nominee in the fall, just as she supported Barack Obama in 2008.
“We’re not giving this thing up,” the self-described democratic socialist said. “We’re going all the way to California. But if she is the nominee, I would hope that she puts together the strongest progressive agenda that says, ‘Yes, we’re going to stand with the working families in this country. We are prepared to take on the fossil fuel industry and the drug companies Wall Street and the billionaire class.’ And if she has a candidate for vice president who is prepared to carry that mantle, prepared to engage in that fight, I think that would be a very good thing for her campaign.”
On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Sanders focused on the present.
“We are in this race. We are not writing our obituary. We’re in this race to California,” he said, before letting a tense change slip. “And we’re proud of the campaign we ran.”
On CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Sanders said it wouldn’t be fair to the Golden State to d-rop out before it got to vote.
“You can’t say to largest state in this country, ‘California, you can’t determine who the nominee will be or what the agenda will be,’” he said.
On CNN’s “State of the Uni-on,” Sanders pointed to its 475 delegates as his “narrow path” to winning the Democratic nomination.
“I’m not going to tell you that it’s easy,” Sanders said. “What polls seem to be showing is that many of the states yet to come — including California, our largest state — we have a real shot to win. And I think, also, there are a lot of delegates out there who are looking at the general matchup, and what they’re seeing in polls is that Bernie Sanders is running a lot stronger against Donald Trump than is Hillary Clinton, because we can appeal to a lot of independents and people, not just the Democrats.”
“So, I think we do have a path to victory,” Sanders continued. “I think we have come a very, very long way in the last year, and we’re going to fight for every last vote until the California and the D.C. primary.”
The Washington, D.C., primary is scheduled for June 14.
In an interview with Yahoo News last week, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook predicted she’ll have the magic number of delegates needed to secure the nomination by that date.
“I’m not concerned with the primary going until the end,” he said. “I think Hillary, by the end of the primary, by the time the states on June 7 and June 14 vote, it’ll be clear who the nominee is gonna be.”
