Looking to find any place to chip away at Democratic front-runner
Hillary Clinton's wide delegate lead, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders scored
decisive victories Saturday in the Washington state and Alaska
caucuses.
In addition to those states, Democrats are also
holding caucuses in Hawaii with a total of 142 delegates at stake this
weekend.
Sanders was speaking in Madison, Wisconsin,
after his commanding win in Alaska when he was told he had won the
second state of the day.
"OK, are you ready for a news alert? We just won
the state of Washington!" Sanders told the crowd to cheers and
applause. "That is what momentum is about."
"So don't let anybody, don't let anybody tell
you we can't win the nomination or win the general election — we're
going to do both of those things," Sanders said.
Despite Sanders' expected delegate gains in the
Pacific contests, he still trailed Clinton heading into Saturday by a
significant amount — 294 — in the race for pledged delegates to the
summer convention in Philadelphia. When the group of unbound elected and
party officials known as super delegates are added to the tally,
Clinton's margin over Sanders grows even larger — to 709.
But the Vermont senator has pledged to keep fighting on, arguing
that the states that have yet to vote in the primary represent the most
favorable ground yet for his insurgent campaign.
The race now heads to the April 5 showdown in Wisconsin, where the two candidates will battle over a total of 96 delegates.
Although Clinton has not yet wrapped up the
nomination, she has increasingly pivoted to a general election message,
more often taking explicit aim at the remaining GOP candidates. She also
spoke out forcefully in the wake of the terror attacks in Brussels
this week, emphasizing her foreign policy experience and contrasting
her vision for America's role in the world with the stances of leading
Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
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