After New York Loss, Bernie Sanders' Campaign Pledges to Stay the Course
"We have a path toward victory."
— -- Bernie Sanders spent a lot of time over the last few days strolling -- in Midtown Manhattan, Astoria, Queens and, yesterday in State College, Pennsylvania. To members of the press traveling with him, the walks often felt impromptu and a little directionless.
“Where should we go?” or, “Up here to the left,” and, “I’m doing great,” the Senator said as his staff scrambled and he shook hands with supporters.
Now, in the wake of a loss in New York -- worse than his team had imagined – and with questions mounting about the progressive underdog’s next moves, the sidewalk moments seems all too metaphorical. Sanders’ senior staff argued Wednesday that they have not lost, they have a plan to win.
During a rushed, last-minute press conference with local reporters in Burlington, Vermont Tuesday night, Sanders pointed to the contest to come next week and reassured his supporters that his bid for the nomination was not yet.
“Our 5 primaries next week - we think we’re going to do well - and we have a path toward victory,” Sanders said. His staff Tuesday night announced two events for Thursday in Pennsylvania, which votes next week, and vowed to continue business as usual.
One of his senior strategists, Tad Devine, told ABC News Wednesday that Sanders' team was not planning on reworking its message or strategy as a result of the New York loss.
“I don’t think we have to change our message,” Devine said. “We still think we have the winning message and we have the most credible candidate to deliver it.
“I don’t think we are rejiggering fundamentally anything here,” he continued.
Devine made headlines late Tuesday night after the results came in after telling the Associated Press that the campaign would “assess” where they were after mid-Atlantic states, such as Connecticut and Pennsylvania, had primaries next week.
Wednesday, however, Devine said that he meant the campaign would need to assess their calculations – specifically, the numbers of delegates they would need to win in each state to get back "on track" and eventually take the lead in pledged delegates.
According to calculations from the Associated Press and ABC News, if all of the super-delegates who have already committed to Clinton continue to back her, the former Secretary of State could lose all of the remaining contests by 44 percentage points and still clinch the nomination.
“We did think we were going to lose delegates yesterday, but we lost more than we thought we would. So that’s what we have to reassess again – our numbers,” Devine told ABC. “We believe, right now, by the time this process ends, the voting ends, we can get to an advantage in pledged delegates.
“Now it is harder because of what happened yesterday,” he added. “She won a bigger victory than we thought she would. But I still think we can get that and that is what I was talking about with assessing.”
Overnight, the campaign was accused of sending mixed messages. Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said in television interviews that they were planning to stay in the race until the party’s convention in July no matter the election results in New York or upcoming primaries. He doubled-down on those comments Wednesday morning.
“Absolutely. We are re-energized and ready to go,” Weaver told ABC News. “We are doing very well in a number of states.”Weaver said that internal polling from his campaign suggested that New York would not be representative of what was to come in other East Coast states.
As he did before the New York, Weaver argued that “neither candidate will have requisite number of pledged delegates” before the convention, in which case the nomination will be determined by super-delegates. The campaign maintains they can flip should Sanders’ finish strong in the end.
The Sanders campaign maintains that the Senator’s speeches were not too negative, despite the criticism. Aides also pointed to exit polls that showed New York voters thought Clinton, not Sanders, was running a more “unfair” campaign.
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