Watch Bernie Sanders In Monterey — Rally To Stream Live: Massive California Upset Depends On Young Voters, Can He Do It?


Bernie Sanders brings his “Future To Believe In” to Monterey, California, Tuesday for a huge rally that will stream live one week ahead of the state’s massive, and massively important for Sanders, primary on the final “Super Tuesday” of the 2016 presidential primary season.

Despite a staggering disadvantage in both the all-important delegate count, as well as the popular vote, to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders continues to insist that he will not only win the California primary, which with 475 pledged delegates up for grabs is by far the largest primary of this or any presidential election year, but that he also still has a chance of wresting the party’s nomination away from the former Secretary of State.

In fact, Bernie Sanders made a surprise appearance on Monday night at the NBA Western Conference Finals deciding Game Seven in Oakland, pitting the local Golden State Warriors against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Warriors won the game, completing a comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit.

“Last week, Golden State was down three games to one,” Sanders said on his Twitter account after watching the Warriors polish off their 96-88 victory. “Tonight, they finished off a great comeback in California. I like comebacks.”

And after the game, Sanders spoke to reporters, saying that the Warriors’ victory boosted his own morale.

“They turned it around,” Sanders said. “I think that is what our campaign is going to do as well — a very good omen for our campaign.”

However, political experts were quick to point out that the Warriors comeback did not make an accurate analogy with Sanders’ situation. The Warriors, much like Hillary Clinton, were the heavy favorites all along.

On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders started the day off with what was billed as a press conference sponsored by the National Nurses United union, at which he discussed his proposal for single payer health care. Watch the entire press conference in the video below.

To watch the Bernie Sanders “Future to Believe In” rally in Monterey, California, click on the video below. Sanders is scheduled to take the podium at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, 10 p.m. Eastern, at historic Colton Hall — the building where, in 1849, the California state constitution was signed — on Tuesday, May 31.

While Sanders believes that he can pull off a Warriors-like comeback in California, polling suggests that if he were to win the state, it would be a far more historic accomplishment than what the NBA basketball team achieved on Monday.

According to the polling average compiled by Pollster.com, Clinton leads Sanders by 12 percentage points, 52-40.

The FiveThirtyEight.com average sees an even bigger mountain for Bernie Sanders to climb, with Clinton ahead by 53.6 to 38.6 — a 15-point polling lead.

Not only that, but on Tuesday, the state’s popular Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, despite holding a longtime grudge against Bill Clinton dating back to the 1992 presidential primary campaign when he waged an emotional but losing battle against Clinton, threw his endorsement behind Hillary Clinton.

But there may be some factors working in Sanders’ favor that could spell a huge upset. First, no poll has been conducted in California since May 22. With Sanders campaigning non-stop in the state and receiving widespread media coverage for his large-scale rallies, there is no way to know if the landscape has changed until a new poll goes public.

The wild card in Sanders favor may be his base of young voters, ages 18-30, with whom Sanders has dominated throughout the primary campaign. According to the Los Angeles Times, there has been a huge increase of young voter registrations this year before the California registration deadline passed on May 23.

Registrations among voters 18 to 24 years of age increased 87 percent compared to 2012, and registrations among 25 to 30-year-old voters have nearly tripled — up 188 percent.


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But will these newly registered young voters actually show up at the polls on Tuesday, June 7, to cast ballots for Bernie Sanders? In other states, young voters, while on the rise, have remained a small portion of the total voter turnout.

In New York, for example, young voters made up 12 percent of the vote in the 2008 primary. This year, despite a powerful effort by Bernie Sanders to bring them to the ballot box, young voters were only 14 percent of total turnout in New York.

The Bernie Sanders California campaign will continue on Wednesday, with another rally in Palo Alto, California, and one in Davis, which will also stream live online.

[Photo By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

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