Bernie Sanders Takes on Donald Trump Online

— -- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders took to Twitter late Thursday night, sending a series of messages aimed at Republican front-runner Donald Trump after the businessman spoke in Sanders' hometown of Burlington just blocks from the Sanders campaign headquarters.

Sanders’ first tweet of the night came in direct response to Trump’s commenting during his Burlington rally that he would “love” to run against the progressive.

“Finally @realDonaldTrump and I agree on something. He and I both want to run against the other. Guess who wins?" Sanders tweeted back, including a link to a recent Quinnipiac poll that had Sanders winning handily in a general election matchup against Trump.

Sanders’ final tweet of the night, bookending attacks on Trump, included a graphic demonstrating that the same poll had Sanders, an independent running in the Democratic primary, doing better in a head-to-head race against Trump than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That final tweet had over 7,000 “likes” and 3,000 retweets.

Not only has Sanders joked with his fans on the trail lately that he hopes they will give him a chance to take on Trump, but he has also ramped up the number of times he references the billionaire during his prepared remarks.

He debuted a new riff last week about the New York real estate mogul, going out of his way to mention him when talking about climate change. Sanders brought up a line Trump tweeted back in 2012 when he siad climate was a hoax created by the Chinese. Sanders used the attack line again Thursday night.

In interviews, Sanders has said that he believes Trump is appealing to the "fears and anxieties" of the U.S. people and he has gone out of his way at times to validate Trump supporters by saying that people have a right to be scared based on the state of the economy and wages.