Hillary Clinton said after last night’s defeat in Wisconsin that she intends to “reach out” to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) loyal voters.
Sanders soundly defeated Clinton by 56.5 percent to 43.2 percent.
“With our victory tonight in Wisconsin, we have won seven out of the last eight caucuses and primaries, and we have won almost all of them with overwhelming, landslide numbers,” Sanders told a rally in Wyoming on Tuesday night.
And Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, had a message for the Clinton team on CNN: “Don’t destroy the Democratic Party to satisfy the secretary’s ambition to become president of the United States.” Some Hillary supporters online charged that this comment was sexist.
Clinton told MSNBC this morning she’s “in a very good position.”
“[Bernie] had a good night last night and I give him credit for that, but I’m still significantly ahead in the popular vote, about 2.5 million more votes than he has and significantly ahead in the delegate count, which is something that really is what’s going to matter at the end,” she said.
“You know, I remember back in 2008, I had a series of spring victories, but you know, President Obama had an insurmountable lead and it stayed that way. But at the end of it I said, look, we are going to join together to elect Barack Obama president. I made that very clear. I endorsed him. I nominated him. I told my delegates that they should support him and I’m hoping to unify the Democratic Party at the end of this process when I have been able to clearly achieve the nomination.”
In a CNN exit poll Tuesday, 83 percent of Wisconsin voters who said they were looking for an “honest” candidate chose Sanders, while 86% percent of voters who said they wanted a candidate with the “right experience” picked Clinton.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last month found a third of Bernie supporters vowing they’d never vote for Hillary.
“I think it’s exciting to be, in effect, protesting,” Clinton said when asked about the young voters in Bernie’s corner. “I remember I did that a long time ago when I was in my 20s, and I totally get the attraction of this. And in all the research that I have seen about who is supporting Senator Sanders, a lot of the young people like both of us, they really like me, they admire what I’ve done, what I stand for and they really, really like him. So I’m not as worried as the numbers might show about how he has attracted so many young people because I think that it is important to bring them into the process, and I give him a lot of credit for doing that.”
“My argument basically is, look, we are electing a president and a commander in chief. We are electing the Democratic Party standard bearer to go up against whoever the Republicans wind up nominating and we really need to be sure that we elect someone who can walk into that Oval Office on January 20, 2017, and start making decisions about people’s lives and livelihoods. And when folks look at that, I feel very confident both in the nominating process and in the general election.”
Sanders, who leads both parties in monthly fundraising, has vowed to continue all the way to the convention.
Hillary said it’s “up to Senator Sanders” whether he should drop out.
“I’ve been in the trenches for a long time and I believe in electing Democrats up and down the ticket. I want to see the United States Senate move back into Democratic hands with my friend Chuck Schumer as the majority leader,” she said. “So I’m going to keep working and fighting for all Democrats.”
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