Brooklyn-born Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suffered a crushing defeat Tuesday in the Empire State’s make-or-break presidential primary, falling to rival Democrat Hillary Clinton 58 to 42 percent.
After two weeks of hand-to-hand combat in New York’s unforgiving media market, the senator from Vermont found himself even further behind Clinton in the race for delegates, with a dwindling number of states left to vote. His recent winning streak, from Idaho to Hawaii to Wisconsin, was over — for now.
Sanders departed New York on Election Day for a rally at Pennsylvania State University and then, after the polls closed, he ditched his traveling press corps for an unscheduled flight to Vermont. Arriving in South Burlington just after 10 p.m., he explained his last-minute homecoming to about 10 Vermont reporters gathered in the cold outside Heritage Aviation.
“I have not been here for a number of weeks, and I miss Vermont, and we need to get recharged and take a day off,” he said with his wife, Jane, standing behind him.
Despite the tough loss, Sanders said he was focused on the states ahead.
“Next week, we will be competing in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Delaware, and we look forward to winning a number of those states,” he said. “We believe we have the momentum, and we believe we have a path toward victory.”
Clinton didn’t see it that way. Celebrating her victory in a hotel ballroom in midtown Manhattan, she said, “The race for the Democratic nomination is in the homestretch, and victory is in sight.”
Even as she relished her win in a state that twice elected her to the Senate, Clinton extended an olive branch to her opponent’s passionate voters, who she would need in a general election fight.
“To all the people that supported Sen. Sanders, I believe there is much more that unites us than divides us.”
New York exit polls showed Clinton drawing broad support from women, African Americans, Hispanics and those 40 and over. Sanders, as usual, appeared to perform better among men, whites and those 39 and younger.
Support for the senator may have been muted by the state’s restrictive rules, which barred some 3 million registered independents from taking part in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. Television cameras caught one such voter, 21-year-old Mike Cantalupo, approaching Sanders Tuesday morning as the candidate strolled through Times Square with his entourage.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to vote,” Cantalupo told Sanders.
“No, it should not be,” the senator responded, adding that millions “have lost their right to vote” in New York. “That’s wrong.”
Later that night in South Burlington, Sanders decried the long lines, purged voter lists and “chaos at the polling places” that appeared to plague New York’s election.
“While I congratulate Secretary Clinton, I must say that I am really concerned about the conduct of the voting process in New York State and I hope that the process will change in the future,” he said, citing similar concerns raised by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer.
“So, we lost tonight,” Sanders concluded. “There are five primaries next week. We think we’re going to do well. And we have a path toward victory which we’re going to fight to maintain.”
Seemingly dismissive of the long odds against his nomination — and unresponsive to the mounting pleas for party unity — Sanders came at Clinton again and again in the days leading up to the decisive and divisive New York primary. Campaigning in Queens and Brooklyn, he cataloged about a dozen differences between his positions and Clinton’s, styling himself as more progressive on every one of them.
Both the assets and deficits of Sanders’ campaign were on floodlit display at a rally on Monday night as the primary roared toward its conclusion.
A contingent of red-shirted Verizon strikers cheered the socialist senator in a park on the edge of Queens, highlighting his appeal to the white working class. Sanders’ strength with such workers has been key to his success in Vermont elections for the past 35 years. Blue-collar wage earners also helped power him to an upset victory in Michigan’s primary last month.
“There has never been a presidential candidate so willing to stand up to corporate power as Bernie Sanders,” Bob Master, political director of the striking Communications Workers of America union, told the Queens crowd.
Sanders himself then described Verizon as “just a poster child for what corporate America is doing to working families today.” Noting that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam makes more than $18 million a year, Sanders demanded that the telecom boss “negotiate a fair contract” with the union.
And as a warning aimed at executive suites atop the glittering towers across Manhattan’s East River, Sanders shouted, “I say to corporate America: Get nervous if Bernie Sanders is elected president.”
Brooklyn-based band TV on the Radio revved up the rally prior to actor Danny Glover’s introduction of Sanders as a leader who knew “how to change the world, change our lives.”
The politician from one of the most monochromatic states in the union has sought, through celebrity endorsements and accounts of his civil rights activism, to whittle away at Clinton’s black and brown base. Polls suggest younger African Americans may be feeling the Bern, but the Clintons — campaign surrogate Bill, as well as candidate Hillary — clearly retain the loyalty of most minority voters. Billary worked in New York to keep that core intact by visiting black churches and repeatedly drawing a contrast between Clinton’s and Sanders’ records on efforts to curb urban gun violence.
Sanders on Sunday nudged a toe onto that terrain. He told a mostly white crowd in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park that he had hours earlier visited a public housing project in one of the borough’s least gentrified neighborhoods. Sanders lamented the lack of opportunities for young African Americans and proclaimed, “It’s our job to give kids jobs, not guns.”
But he didn’t say how he’d get that job done.
The Sanders-Clinton face-off grew increasingly rancorous as they jostled for New York’s mother lode of 291 convention delegates.
Clinton attacked Sanders on abortion rights less than 24 hours before the polls opened, charging that the impeccably pro-choice senator had characterized reproductive freedom as a “distraction” from “real issues.” The female frontrunner was angling to ensure she’d get a majority of women’s votes in New York.
But Sanders ceded no ground to Clinton on women’s rights. He pointed out at rallies in Brooklyn and Queens that women in the U.S. earn an average of 79 cents for men’s $1, and he thundered on both occasions, “They want the whole damn dollar!”
On primary eve, Sanders amped up his claim that Clinton is a pawn of big-money interests. He accused her of “serious apparent violations of campaign finance laws” by paying her campaign aides with funds raised by a committee jointly controlled by the Clinton camp and the Democratic National Committee. And at the rally on Monday night, Sanders hammered his opponent for taking donations from Wall Street, observing that politicians usually refrain from biting the hands that feed them.
Sanders’ New York audiences loved his critiques. But New York voters? Not so much.
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This article appears in Apr 20-26, 2016.
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overstated. The primaries don’t end until the middle of June. Write your post mortems then.
Should have never have run as a democrat- cause, he isn’t. He shuld bow out now- cause frankly, the fat lady is warming up to sing. The whine & cheese is getting old.
“Trounces” “Crushing defeat” – all overstated. Here’s another one: “‘It’s our job to give kids jobs, not guns.’ But he didn’t say how he’d get that job done.” Nobody said how they would get Anything done – did the three of you writers notice that? I now expect this stuff from the NY Times, but in 7Days? How about making it sound like it’s an election and not a boxing match? Thank you.
“trounces”? More like voter suppression. Oh – and Bernie WON 50 out of 62 NY counties. In percentages, he carried 80% of the state – not quite the definition of “trounced.” What happened – did Scummy Shummy get a hold of you guys?
Bernie made big mistakes in explanation. Nothing is FREE everyone is taught as they grow up to be afraid when offered anything for nothing. Bernie means better long term outcome for the future of the USA and at a more economical cost. This is not a new concept we have had tuition only with no out of pocket costs for a large part of the population. Colleges in NY like Cooper Union & City College for years had either no tuition or very low tuition . Bernie never had testimonials from thousands of students who benefited from these programs and how much they were then able to improve their own lives as well as contribute to the economy much more than the tuition costs that were covered by indirect payment . He also could of had the testimonials from the hundreds of thousands that had tuition paid by the GI bill and what this contributed to the economy of the USA. When it come to healthcare millions of people are satisfied with universal healthcare all over the world this is not a new concept for sure he could of had testimonials on the merits. He let FREE become the mantra and FREE does not work.
Headlines purposely crafted like yours to be misleading contribute to voter suppression and increasing distrust of the media. Wanna stifle the vote? Tell ’em the race is over. Well, it’s far from over. How about some real journalism? As another reader pointed out, he won the majority of NY. Hillary only won the big money areas. There are more independents in the country now than those loyal to a party. You can damn well bet that Bernie would have trounced Hillary if the independents were allowed to vote. That is how the Democratic party is thwarting Democracy and YOU are how the media is thwarting Democracy. Certainly not the type of journalism I expect from Seven Days.
Darlene, respectfully, you don’t seem to get it. The Democrats are a political party. They have a process for them to select their party’s nominee. So do the Republicans (and Liberty Union, Socialist, Green and many others. If there are so many non-committal – er, I mean, Independent voters, let them start their own Independent Party and nominate their Independent candidate to run in November. If they want to allow people from other parties to vote in their nomination process, that is their choice. Grumpy Grandpa Sanders apparently thought that he could persuade the Democratic Party that he should be their guy. He appears to be wrong, but still sees a “path to victory” which he apparently intends to follow until he needs to win 99.5% of the remaining pledged delegates in the last primary and when that doesn’t happen – – he’ll blame the 1% – – which is who he blames for everything else he doesn’t like in the world.
Everyone who wants to vote should be able to. Yes, it was a Democratic Primary, and he’s running as a Democrat even though the Party higher-ups would rather have Hillary. Everyone should still be able to vote – and more importantly – they should let everyone know the rules Before the day of the Primary.
Journalists like Hillary and Apple products more than your average person. Unfortunately, in Vermont the first one means you’re terribly unrepresentative of actual people. Same goes for the rest of the country, to a smaller extent. Congrats on life in an echo chamber.
“Everyone who wants to vote should be able to.”
Not a well thought out statement. We’re talking about party primaries here. Non-Democrats do not get to vote in the Democratic primary, at least in some states, like NY. That fact was well known long before the primary took place.
“They should let everyone know the rules Before the day of the Primary.”
Another uninformed statement. What does this statement even mean? Who’s the “they”? And what “rules” were not known before the day of the primary? And not known by whom? Bernie’s campaign knew all the rules about the Democratic Party system before he decided to crash the Democratic Party and run in its primary. All he has done from day one is complain about the rules.
Bernie hasn’t complained at all about the rules. It is true, though, that each state has its own rules for primaries and those rules are well known, or at least should be, in advance. Bernie had plenty of time to get independents to register as democrats before the primary in NY. However, this does not explain missing registrations, voter purging, and other difficulties those that followed the rules had in voting.