Are we getting the first preview of what a Bernie Sanders exit interview could look like? The Vermont senator seemed to have a more resigned tone on Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Sanders conceded his campaign has only a “narrow path to victory” but that they would “fight…through that path. We hope to win.”
This was a different tone than the one he used just a few weeks ago when he confidently assured supporters, “We are going to win New York.” He ended up losing the state to Hillary Clinton by 16 points.
Yet Sanders insisted his campaign is “not writing our obituary.” Looking ahead, Sanders said, “We’re in this race to California, and we’re proud of the campaign we ran.”
It”s obvious he’s not quite ready to link arms with Clinton and skip off to Philadelphia. While he told Chuck Todd that “there is a lot that unites” him and Clinton, namely an “understanding that Trump would be a disastrous president.” He also acknowledged that there is “a lot that divides us.”
He repeated that he is the “stronger candidate” and “runs better against Trump in almost all of these polls than does Hillary Clinton.” And the numbers back him up. For example, in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll of Pennsylvania, Sanders beats Trump by 20 points (57 percent to 37 percent) in a hypothetical general election match-up. Clinton beats Trump in the Keystone State as well, but by a smaller margin.
Asked if he would encourage his supporters to back Clinton should she win the nomination, Sanders replied, “I will do everything that I can to make certain that Donald Trump is not elected president.” But he put the impetus on Clinton to “convince all people, not just my supporters, that she is the kind of president this country needs to represent working people in this country, to take on the big money interests who have so much power, to fight for what the American people want.”
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com.
Sally Bronston