And so the race continues. Ignoring opinion polls and expert projections, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders strives to capture the Democratic Party’s White House nomination from Hillary Clinton’s grip with a last chance come-from-behind victory in none other than California.
California, the most populated U.S. state, is the largest trophy of the state-by-state nominating competitions. The ballot on June 7 is the final one before Democrats gather in July to nominate a candidate for the presidential election on November 8th.
According to Sanders’ campaign sources, the millennial favorite has a vigorous schedule of large rallies planned, along with substantial investments in TV, radio and online advertising in not one, but three languages.
“‘We’ll certainly do Spanish-language advertising,’ Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said.”
The campaign manager highlighted the fact that California could be a lot like Michigan, where Sanders had a surprise win after his campaign advertised in Arabic last-minute to attract the state’s Muslim population.
A senior adviser to Sanders’ campaign, Larry Cohen, said that the campaign aspires to match or outdo the 10,000 volunteers it enlisted in New York by calling on the Labor for Bernie volunteer group, local and national unions and other groups.
“’With California what we’re going to do is something that (Sanders) really likes to do: Barnstorm the place,’ said Sanders’ senior adviser, Tad Devine.
What does barnstorming entail? According to Reuters: two or three large-scale rallies a day for weeks in order to target early voters.
“‘Although Sanders’ campaign has not determined a budget for California, the Democratic candidate’s political endeavors will be “hugely expensive – far, far more expensive than any other state that we’ve done,’ Weaver said.”
So far, the campaign has obtained approximately $9.8 million from a surplus of 26,000 donors, which is the most donations Sanders has received from any individual state.
Whether Sanders wins California or not, the message is clear: he is not going to stop fighting until he has exhausted all of his options; judging by the millennial favorite’s campaign energy, he’s not planning on stopping anytime soon.
Feature image by Getty/Natalie Behring
