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Bernie Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton, Hoping to Unify Democrats
(about 1 hour later)
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — After 14 months of policy clashes and moments of mutual disdain, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday, clearing away the last major obstacle to a united Democratic front heading into the party’s convention this month and the general election this fall.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — After 14 months of policy clashes and moments of mutual disdain, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday, clearing away the last major obstacle to a united front for the party heading into its convention this month and the fall election.
Entering the high school gymnasium together and waving and shaking hands along the rope line and from the stage, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders stood before a giant American flag image flanked by Mrs. Clinton’s motto, “Stronger Together.” They appeared to chat briefly before Mr. Sanders spoke, and he patted her on the back before Mr. Sanders stepped forward to cheers to “Unity!”
Yet for all the smiles and hugs between the former rivals here at their first joint rally, Mrs. Clinton’s next challenge was on vivid display as some Sanders supporters jeered her name and held signs saying “Won’t Vote Hillary” while Clinton partisans hissed “shhhh” and others chanted “unity.” In the coming weeks, from Mrs. Clinton’s choice of a running mate to her convention speech, campaign commercials and overtures to Republicans, the 13 million voters who backed Mr. Sanders in the primary contests will be watching her for any hint of wavering from their progressive causes.
“Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process,” Mr. Sanders said, as cheers erupted and Mrs. Clinton broke into a wide smile. “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 that she will be the next president of the United States.”
Mrs. Clinton needs to convert many of these liberals and independents in states like New Hampshire and Wisconsin, which Mr. Sanders won and she wants to carry in November. And Mr. Sanders, in his remarks at the rally, signaled what may be her best hope of attracting them: drawing sharp contrasts between her and Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, so his admirers feel they have no choice but to support Mrs. Clinton.
“I have come here to make it as clear as possible why I am endorsing Hillary Clinton and why she must become our next president.”
Dropping his portrayal of Mrs. Clinton as a captive of Wall Street billionaires and big-money interests, for instance, Mr. Sanders redirected those sorts of accusations to Mr. Trump, saying his proposed tax cuts would be a windfall to wealthy Americans.
Mr. Sanders, the fiercely independent senator from Vermont, who portrayed Mrs. Clinton as a captive of big-money interests during their race, was in a bittersweet but resolute mood, according to Sanders advisers, as he took the stage with her at Portsmouth High School. He was back in a state that once filled his campaign with hope, after he crushed Mrs. Clinton by 22 percentage points in the February primary, and he came around grudgingly to supporting her, the advisers said. But he was also determined to make a strong case against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and to champion Mrs. Clinton as the only chance to defeat him.
“His reckless economic policies will not only exacerbate income and wealth inequality, they would increase our national debt by trillions of dollars,” said Mr. Sanders, the Vermont senator.
Whether Mrs. Clinton can also win over the 13 million Sanders voters will be one of her biggest challenges at the convention July 25-28 in Philadelphia and in the weeks ahead. About 85 percent of Democrats who backed Mr. Sanders in the primary contests said they planned to vote for her in the general election, according to a Pew poll released last week. Yet she has struggled to appeal to the independents and liberals who rallied behind the senator’s call for a “political revolution” to topple establishment politicians, Mrs. Clinton included.
Standing beside him at Portsmouth High School, Mrs. Clinton beamed and applauded as Mr. Sanders spoke, then shared their first hug when he finished; a microphone caught her saying, “you were great, so great” and “thank you so much.” Then, in her appeal to his supporters, Mrs. Clinton sought to pick up his political mantle and pledged to overhaul Wall Street and the campaign finance system, two issues that Mr. Sanders largely left for her to address.
When Mr. Sanders finished his remarks, he and Mrs. Clinton had a tight hug. “You were great, so great,” Mrs. Clinton said to him. “Thank you so much.” Then, in her own speech, she thanked him profusely and hailed Mr. Sanders’s wife, Jane, while also reaching out to his supporters.
“It is past time to end the stranglehold of wealthy special interests in Washington,” she said as Mr. Sanders smiled and clapped.
“With your help, we’re joining forces to defeat Donald Trump, win in November, and build a future we can all believe in,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Thank you, thank you Bernie for your endorsement, but more than that, thank you for your lifetime of fighting injustice. I am proud to be fighting alongside you because, my friends, this is a time for all of us to stand together.”
Mrs. Clinton did not promise to forgo major donations herself, however: After the endorsement event she flew to New York for a private matinee performance of the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” for donors who gave $2,700 to $100,000 to her campaign or the Democratic National Committee. She tried to strike the right notes, though, such as pledging to uphold “our progressive values.”
Mrs. Clinton is counting on Mr. Sanders to help bring his supporters into her camp, and Sanders advisers said he would try. In a text message on Tuesday before this campaign event, Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Mr. Sanders, said the senator and his wife feel as if their voters should feel encouraged.
“You will always have a seat at the table when I am in the White House,” she said to Mr. Sanders’s backers.
“They feel like the millions of people who were the heart and soul of the campaign have a lot to be proud about,” Mr. Briggs wrote as he drove from Vermont with Senator Sanders and Ms. Sanders to the New Hampshire event.
For many of those supporters, voting for Mrs. Clinton is still hard to fathom. About 85 percent of Democrats who backed Mr. Sanders in the primary contests said they planned to vote for her in the general election, according to a Pew poll released last week. Yet other polls show that only a small fraction of them would do so enthusiastically.
One person close to Mr. Sanders said the senator and his wife were “putting on a good face” Tuesday but were disappointed that his campaign did not succeed after he gave it so much of his energy and rallied millions of people around his ideas. The person, a longtime top political adviser to Mr. Sanders who spoke on condition of anonymity to share the private views of the couple, also said the senator was resolved to keep his word that he would endorse the Democratic nominee and that he has been told by some high-ranking Democrats that he could become chairman of the committee that will work on trying to carry out a proposed $15 federal minimum wage.
“I’m a Bernie guy,” explained Noah Levin, a college student in Hampstead who wore an “H” for Hillary sticker on his T-shirt but said he wasn’t sure he would support Mrs. Clinton in the fall. “I won’t vote for Trump, but November is a long way away,” he said.
Denouncing Mr. Trump as much as praising Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Sanders unfurled an aggressive, point-by-point comparison of the policy positions of the two candidates, arguing that “there is no doubt in my mind that, as we head into November, Hillary Clinton is far and away the best candidate.”
On the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton has been focused on winning over independents and Republican-leaning women who are turned off by Mr. Trump, exuding confidence that the young voters and liberals who backed Mr. Sanders will get in line and support her when faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency instead.
Largely blurring over his own differences with Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Sanders aligned himself with her on creating more jobs, raising the minimum wage, expanding access to government-run health care, combating climate change, and offering relief to college students in deep debt. But he made no mention of new regulations on Wall Street and his disgust for billionaire-driven “super PACS,” two points on which he hammered Mrs. Clinton during their long nomination fight.
But behind the scenes, her senior campaign aides have been in frequent contact with Sanders advisers while also trying to build bridges to a wing of the party skeptical of Mrs. Clinton and the brand of moderate politics her husband advanced. Since she clinched the number of delegates needed to secure her party’s nomination on June 7, the campaign has reached out to Mr. Sanders’s supporters, dispatching three top-level staff members — the campaign manager, Robby Mook; director of states and political engagement, Marlon Marshall; and the top policy adviser, Jake Sullivan — to states where Mr. Sanders defeated Mrs. Clinton, including New Hampshire, Wyoming, Vermont and Washington.
“It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues — that is what this campaign has been about, that is what democracy is about,” Mr. Sanders said.
Mr. Sanders was in a bittersweet but resolute mood on Tuesday, according to Sanders advisers, as he took the stage with Mrs. Clinton. He was back in a state that once filled his campaign with hope after he crushed Mrs. Clinton by 22 percentage points in the February primary, and he came around grudgingly to supporting her, the advisers said. But he was also determined to make a strong case against Mr. Trump and, in doing so, champion Mrs. Clinton as the only chance to defeat him.
He left it to Mrs. Clinton to promise aggressive action to police greed on Wall Street and overhaul the campaign finance system.
Taking the stage together in the high school gymnasium, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders stood before a giant American flag flanked by Mrs. Clinton’s motto, “Stronger Together.” The clashes in the audience quickly subsided, and Mr. Sanders drew some of his strongest cheers as he described his unexpectedly competitive challenge against Mrs. Clinton and his primary and caucus victories in 22 states. In an odd passage for a concession speech, Mr. Sanders said that Mrs. Clinton had “389 more pledged delegates than we have, and a lot more superdelegates” — a reference to party leaders that drew boos from the audience and a steely look from Mrs. Clinton.
“It is past time to end the stranglehold of wealthy special interests in Washington,” she said as Mr. Sanders smiled and clapped. Still, she did not promise to forego major donations herself: After the event she planned to fly to New York for a private matinee performance of the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” for donors who gave $2,700 to $100,000 to her campaign or the Democratic National Committee.
One person close to Mr. Sanders said that the senator and his wife, Jane, were “putting on a good face” on Tuesday, but that they were disappointed his campaign had not been more successful after he gave it so much of his energy and rallied millions of people around his ideas.
On the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton has been focused on winning over independents and Republican-leaning women who are turned off by Mr. Trump, exuding confidence that the young voters and liberals who backed Mr. Sanders would get in line and support her when faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency instead.
The person, a longtime top political adviser to Mr. Sanders who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share the private views of the couple, also said that the senator was resolved to keep his word to endorse the Democratic nominee and that he had been told by some high-ranking Democrats that he could become chairman of the committee that would work on trying to carry out a proposed $15 federal minimum wage.
But behind the scenes, her senior campaign aides have tried to build bridges to a wing of the party skeptical of Mrs. Clinton and the brand of centrist politics her husband advanced. Since she clinched the number of delegates needed to secure her party’s nomination on June 7, the campaign has reached out to Mr. Sanders’s supporters, dispatching the campaign manager Robby Mook, the director of states and political engagement, Marlon Marshall, and the top policy adviser Jake Sullivan, to states where Mr. Sanders defeated Mrs. Clinton, including New Hampshire, Wyoming, Vermont and Washington State.
Still, Mr. Sanders uttered the words that she needed him to say — “I am endorsing Hillary Clinton” — and aligned himself with her on creating more jobs, raising the minimum wage, expanding access to government-run health care, combating climate change and offering relief to college students in deep debt.
The détente between the two camps began after Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders met privately at the Hilton in Washington last month. Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager, and Mr. Mook remained behind after the meeting hashing out their differences and discussing policy for the next two hours. In the weeks that followed, Mr. Mook, a Vermont native, and Mr. Weaver were in daily contact, exchanging texts and phone calls and grabbing dinner at the Farmhouse Tap and Grill in Burlington.
“There is no doubt in my mind that, as we head into November, Hillary Clinton is far and away the best candidate,” he said.
Mrs. Clinton also inched toward Mr. Sanders’s positioning on education, with a pledge to make public colleges and universities tuition free for families that make less than $125,000 a year and with a reaffirmation of a “public option” to be built into the Affordable Care Act.
“It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues — that is what this campaign has been about, that is what democracy is about,” said Mr. Sanders, who only three months ago declared that Mrs. Clinton was “unqualified” to be president.
In Orlando, Fla., Mrs. Clinton’s policy adviser, Maya Harris, and Mr. Sander’s policy adviser, Warren Gunnels, sat down to come up with compromises on both issues, though trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, in particular, remains a sticking point between the two camps.
As Mr. Sanders delivered his endorsement, the Trump campaign, hoping to appeal to disaffected Sanders supporters, sent out a statement saying “Bernie is now officially a part of a rigged system” for “endorsing one of the most pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and pro-off-shoring candidates in the history of the Democratic Party.”
For many Sanders supporters, voting for Mrs. Clinton is still hard to fathom: Recent polls show that only a small fraction of them would support her enthusiastically. At the campaign event here, as well as around the country, there was a relatively lukewarm reception for Mrs. Clinton among the legions of liberals who embraced Mr. Sanders’s attacks on her ties to Wall Street and previous support for global trade deals.
But Mrs. Clinton would not be deterred from her unity message, urging Democrats to come together against Mr. Trump.
Ethan Winnett, 31, of Waukegan, Ill., said Mr. Sanders might be being “duped” or “threatened” by Mrs. Clinton and vowed never to vote for her even if she’s back by the senator. The computer engineer believes Mrs. Clinton is “more crooked than Trump” and said he felt “betrayed” by Mr. Sanders’s endorsement.
“With your help, we’re joining forces to defeat Donald Trump, win in November and build a future we can all believe in,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I am proud to be fighting alongside you because, my friends, this is a time for all of us to stand together.”
Mr. Winnett added that he also feels betrayed by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and President Obama for their support of Mrs. Clinton. In his frustration with the race, he has already turned to working for the Green Party and this summer helped collect signatures to get the party’s presidential nominee, Jill Stein, on the ballot in Illinois.
However, Winnie Wong, co-founder of People For Bernie, said the group will now be focusing efforts on explaining to people the damage a Trump presidency could do. The group, though, will not be endorsing Mrs. Clinton, she said.
“This is what I expected to happen,” Ms. Wong said of Mr. Sanders’s endorsement. “I will do what I can to stop Trump. We cannot afford a Donald Trump presidency and I think most people from social movements understand that.”
Mr. Sanders’s endorsement comes after weeks of talks between his campaign and Mrs. Clinton’s and after a tough primary battle where he frequently attacked her as not being progressive enough. He often criticized Mrs. Clinton as the “anointed candidate” and assailed her for her ties to Wall Street, for having a “super PAC,” for not more strongly backing an across-the-board $15 minimum wage. He called on her repeatedly to release transcripts of her paid speeches to commercial banks.
Mrs. Clinton attacked Mr. Sanders’s past tepid support of gun control, implicitly tying him to gun violence. His defense – that he represented a state with a hunting population – did little more than remind voters that his entire career had been spent in the removed idyll of Vermont.
Frustrated, Mr. Sanders, at a rally in Philadelphia in early April, called Mrs. Clinton “unqualified” to be president, setting off days of back and forth between the campaigns.
“She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote unquote, not qualified to be president,” Mr. Sanders said then. “I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is, through her ‘super PAC,’ taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds.”
