Top Bernie Sanders allies call on him to exit race
With Hillary Clinton now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, some of Bernie Sanders’ top endorsers are calling for the Vermont senator to end his primary campaign.
Sanders was defeated Tuesday night in the California primary, as well as others, and cannot mathematically overtake Clinton in delegates. Sanders had hoped that a Golden State win would boost his flagging campaign.
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, Sanders’ only Senate colleague to endorse him, said on CNN Tuesday that his party must begin uniting against Republican Donald Trump.
“We have to be unified to take on Trump,” Merkley said the morning after the Associated Press reported that Clinton had gained enough delegates to clinch the nomination. “And that unity is going to begin today as soon as the polls close.”
Merkley clarified his stance on Wednesday in an interview with the Washington Post, saying that Clinton is now clearly the nominee.
“Once a candidate has won a majority of the pledged delegates and a majority of the popular vote, which Secretary Clinton has now done, we have our nominee,” Merkley said.
Sanders has remained defiant in taking his populist campaign to next month’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia. His campaign sent out a fundraising email to supporters Wednesday saying that the effort would continue to try to flip superdelegates. Sanders also scheduled a rally in Washington, D.C., ahead of the district’s primary next week.
Another key Sanders endorser, Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, also told the Post that he expects Sanders will “do the right thing” and drop out sooner rather than later.
“The reality is unattainable at some point. You deal with that. Bernie is going to deal with this much more rapidly than you think,” Grijalva said. “At some point, when we’re trying to flip 400 superdelegates, and it’s not gaining traction, I think you have to come to the conclusion that it’s not going to happen. You just move into a different direction. And that different direction is that we begin to try to integrate the party.”
Grijalva was Sanders’ first congressional backer and was actively calling on Sanders to remain in the race as recently as Tuesday.
“Sanders needs to keep doing what he’s doing,” Grijalva wrote in a USA Today editorial Tuesday. “He needs to keep bringing a progressive vision for the future to communities that have never heard it before, and that respond favorably every time.”
Meanwhile, progressive group Moveon.org is supporting Sanders’ decision to stay in the race but also said the group would adhere to the notion that the candidate with the most pledged delegates is the nominee.”
“MoveOn members believe, as we have long advocated, that the nomination should go to the winner of the majority of pledged delegates, and that undemocratic superdelegates should not overturn the will of the voters,” the organization said in a Wednesday statement.
