WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders isn’t leaving the presidential race. Instead, the Vermont senator and democratic socialist is back in a familiar place: on the outside looking in.
After being routed in Democratic primary contests for the third consecutive week by former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders faced the grim calculation on Wednesday that he has virtually no chance of clinching the Democratic nomination. He would need to win a whopping 63% of the remaining delegates to do so.
That left him with a series of wrenching decisions. Sanders could stay in the race and use its national platform to keep pressing for the issues he’s most passionate about, such as a single-payer health care system. He could yield to growing pressure to step aside and let the party coalesce around Biden and focus on defeating President Donald Trump.
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Or he could simply stall for more time as the campaign takes an awkward pause with much of the nation’s attention on combating the coronavirus, which has caused states to push back their upcoming primaries and left the next major contests weeks away. That would also allow Sanders to try to exact additional policy concessions from Biden, who has already adopted his rival’s free-college tuition plan. He could also shape the Democratic Party platform during the upcoming convention.
For a campaign that has inspired millions to activism, the choice of what’s next ultimately falls on a small group: Sanders and his wife, Jane. And he made clear Wednesday he wouldn’t be rushed.
“Stop with this,” Sanders told reporters outside the Senate chamber when pressed on when he might suspend his campaign. “Right now I’m trying to do my best to make sure that we don’t have an economic meltdown and people don’t die.”
Source: Sanders faces tough decisions as path to nomination narrows
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