Die hard Bernie Sanders supporters in Vermont gave him more than 18,000 write-in votes on Election Day, and that was long after he had left the race for president.
His team had already transferred its efforts to Our Revolution, an organization with the stated claim to “reclaim democracy for the working people of our country by harnessing the transformative energy of the ‘political revolution’.”
Indeed, it was a sad day for many when the 74-year-old wild-haired senator left the race.
Here’s how it all went down:
1. Bernie vowed to stay in until every last vote was counted
Flickr/Michael Vadon
Much to the delight of progressives nationally, they would go on and #FeelTheBern and at least until the party convention in Philadelphia.
Denying any and all attempts to get him to step aside and make way for Hillary Clinton, Bernie pledged to stay in “until every last vote is counted.” Clinton’s ongoing email scandal and potential FBI indictment led him to engineer the unique approach of trying to sway party superdelegates, until it became so late in the race even a sizable share of the win in California looked as if it wouldn’t put the millennial fan favorite in first.
Could he actually flip superdelegates into his column? What about a sweeping win in California? Who would lay claim to New York? Was it a sign from the gods when a dove landed on Bernie’s podium in Portland?
2. The DNC stacked the deck against him
Flickr/Gage Skidmore
Well before the midway point in the race, several hundred party elites known as “superdelegates” threw their weight behind Clinton, leading many to wonder if he ever had a chance. But it was a mystery as to how deep the collusion between Hillary For America and the Democratic National Committee actually was until Wikileaks published a series of documents.
The leaks revealed DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had overt contempt for the Sanders campaign, and her leaked emails led to her resignation. In addition, the DNC national secretary wrote an email saying, “Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.”
The bias was real, just as Sanders supporters had suspected.
3. Bernie officially endorses Hillary Clinton for president
Wikimedia Commons
“Let me begin by thanking the 13 million Americans who voted for me during the Democratic primaries,” he said. “Our campaign won the primaries and caucuses in 22 states, and when the roll call at the Democratic National Convention is announced, it will show that we won almost 1,900 delegates.”
That marked a run between the two labelled “Stronger Together,” which became an official campaign slogan for the Clinton-Kaine campaign.
But not all were sold on the idea. CNN quoted one man as framing it in a way that many of his contemporaries also felt at the time: “I would follow Bernie to the ends of the earth, but I will never follow him to Hillary.”