‘The struggle continues’: Bernie Sanders vows to fight on, as Hillary Clinton declares victory

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Hours after Hillary Clinton joyously declared victory in the Democratic presidential primary Tuesday night, a hoarse Sen. Bernie Sanders took the stage in an airplane hangar here and declined to concede the fight. He told thousands of boisterous supporters that he will continue to press on to win the final primary contest in Washington, D.C., next week and to build his movement through the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in late July.

“We’re going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C.,” Sanders said to huge applause. “And then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia.”

The crowd booed when Sanders said Clinton had called him and he had congratulated her on her victories in New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico Tuesday night. Sanders won Montana. California was not called for Clinton until the following morning, but the three earlier victories were more than enough to cement her status as the Democratic nominee — the first woman to ever rise that high in a major political party. Sanders did not acknowledge that victory, however, instead saying he realized he had a “very, very steep climb” to win the nomination and that he wanted to continue to fight for every delegate and vote until the end of the contest.

Sanders has some of this election cycle’s most passionate supporters, and many of them believe strongly that he should continue to fight Clinton until the Democratic National Convention. The senator has said multiple times this week that he believes the convention will be “contested” and that the Democratic nominating process was more like an “anointment,” because a majority of superdelegates backed Clinton from the beginning. (Clinton handily beat Sanders in pledged delegates and the popular vote, as well, besting Sanders by a substantially higher vote margin than Barack Obama beat her by in 2008.)

Sanders has been facing steep mathematical odds in his quest for a path to the nomination since fairly early in the primary, in part due to Clinton’s near-sweeps in Southern states, but he has insisted to his supporters that he could win and that the media was exaggerating Clinton’s lead. As Clinton continued to beat him in the popular vote and pledged delegates, Sanders began arguing that he would convince the superdelegates to back him. This was a long shot, since superdelegates have never backed a candidate who did not win a majority of pledged delegates, but many of his most ardent supporters have also held on to this hope.

Several supporters who gathered in the airplane hangar to hear him speak said they would be disappointed if Sanders were to concede and not take his fight to Philadelphia. The raucous crowd alternated between cheering “Bernie or bust!” and “We hate Trump!” as they waited for the senator to speak.

“I think he should absolutely go all the way to the convention,” said one Sanders supporter, Saul Raye. “Look at all the people still behind him.”

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Dutch Merrick, another Sanders supporter, said he would be very disappointed if Sanders conceded before the convention, but added that he thinks it won’t happen. “I think it’s very unlikely,” he said. “He’s at the point of his life where he’s dedicated and passionate about what he’s doing.”

The crowd booed live election results that showed Clinton in the lead, and also jeered at the news that Sanders would be meeting with President Barack Obama Thursday.

Sanders heads back to his home in Vermont Wednesday morning and then to Washington on Thursday to meet Obama. The senator is also preparing to lay off half his staff this week, the New York Times reported.

On Tuesday afternoon, Sanders’ senior strategist, Tad Devine, told reporters that the D.C. primary, the final contest, to be held next week, is “very important” and that Sanders will campaign ahead of it. But he conceded that Sanders’ strategy of flipping superdelegates would be less tenable if he did not win California and other states. In an interview with NBC that afternoon, however, Sanders said his campaign was “on the phone right now” with superdelegates attempting to flip their votes.

“Ultimately, the decisions are going to be made not by [campaign manager] Jeff [Weaver] and me, but by Bernie Sanders,” Devine said.

That assessment was borne out by a story in Politico that detailed infighting in the Sanders campaign over his campaign’s final days. Weaver told the site that Sanders is committed to fighting until the end at July’s Philadelphia convention.

Though many of the Sanders supporters at his rally Tuesday night said they believe he should continue fighting, a handful said they believed he had taken the message as far as he can.

“He clearly won,” said Randall Klarin, a 66-year-old Santa Monica resident. “He went from nothing to almost half. When she gets elected, I hope Bernie holds her feet to the fire.”