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Bernie Sanders Takes Kansas And Nebraska

By Caitlin Johnstone
Published on: 13:38 PST, Mar 5, 2016

The ornery Democratic Socialist from Vermont will not say die, and has taken out two of the three Saturday primaries this weekend.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won Kansas against the Democratic frontrunner and presumed heir-apparent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The wily Senator also came out on top in Nebraska winning the day, two-to-one. Clinton won in Louisiana, as projected. Details on the final delegate count are yet to come, but the Sanders camp is confident it can hold good ground in the pledged delegate count, despite Louisiana being a winner-take-all state.

“I feel good about our campaign because the voters are sending a clear message. No matter what the pundits say, it is the voters who will decide this election,” Sanders said, in a statement released on the Bernie Sanders website.

When the state Democratic Party told CNN that Bernie Sanders was the victor of the Kansas primary tonight, Sanders was quick to tweet out his gratitude.

Kansas is something of a watermark state for the Democratic nomination, with the Kansas winner of Democratic primary going on to become the nominee 100 percent of the time in past elections. There was a huge turnout at the Kansas caucus, with CNN reporting that it was “overwhelmed with voters.”

Only 30 minutes later, CNN and AP called Nebraska for Bernie Sanders, up 10 percentage points with 75 percent of the vote counted, and a thrilled Bernie was back online, tweeting out his thanks for what he called Nebraska’s “strong support.”

Talk of a possible indictment has dogged the Clinton campaign in recent weeks and may have taken a toll on Hillary’s results, but she took Louisiana as expected.

Louisiana is a winner-take-all delegate state, so she will take more delegates from the weekend’s proceedings. In her speech, Hillary congratulated Bernie on a “strong campaign” but said that now “all eyes will be on Michigan.” The state will hold its primary on Tuesday and has been the focus of much campaigning, particularly around the issues of lead poisoning in the water of Flint, Michigan, where one city’s water supply was turned into toxic waste by bad water management.

Notably, in recent days, Clinton has turned focus on to the Republican side being scathing of their proposals and policies, and she took the opportunity in her speech to warn against a possible Republican president.

“They will rip away all the progress we’ve made under President Obama,” Clinton said in a speech she gave after the Louisiana primary closed.

Bernie Sanders’ general focus has been on the Hispanic vote lately, and today he released a beautifully made video in Spanish on YouTube.

Bernie Sanders spoke to the press after his two state wins and was upbeat about his chances in the long game of the campaign.

“It looks like we won a very good victory in Nebraska, a very good victory in Kansas.”

“We have won double-digit victories in New Hampshire, in Oklahoma, in Colorado, in Minnesota, in Vermont, and today and we hope it will be in Kansas and Nebraska,” Sanders told reporters in Michigan, reported ABC, “and that tells me that the people in this country are tired of establishment politics and establishment economics.”

The next Democratic caucus is in Maine tomorrow, and then Michigan on Tuesday, with a town hall debate held on the night before. Clinton initially was not able to attend due to a scheduling conflict, but Fox has announced that both nomination hopefuls will be in attendance.

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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