As Super Tuesday Progresses, Bernie Sanders Digs In for the Long Haul

Super Tuesday is here, and the race for the Democratic nomination is only getting started.

Following a big primary loss in South Carolina over the weekend, Bernie Sanders promised that he was in the race for the long haul—and then subsequently raised $6 million in one day to amass a total of $42 million in February alone. That’s the most any presidential candidate has raised in a single month in 2016, including Hillary Clinton, his chief rival for the nomination.

“Tomorrow, all over the country our campaign is taking on the political establishment,” the senator from Vermont told reporters during a press conference in Boston on Monday. “We will do well tomorrow if there is a large voter turnout, if working people, if young people, if people in many cases who have given up on the political process want to stand up and fight back and they come out to vote tomorrow.”

Tuesday is one of the biggest primary days of the election season, with voting taking place in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming, and American Samoa.

“At the end of tomorrow, I think 15 states will have spoken,” Sanders said Monday. “Last I heard, we have a lot more than 15 states in the United States of America, and I think it is more than appropriate to give all of those states and the people in those states a chance to vote for the candidate of their choice.”

Recent polls have shown Clinton leading in those states, but more optimistic news for Sanders’ campaign came Tuesday morning with a new poll showing that Sanders would win against GOP frontrunner Donald Trump by 55 to 43 percent—an even bigger margin than Clinton, who would win against Trump by 52 to 44 percent, according to the CNN/ORC survey of 920 registered voters.

Sanders on Tuesday reiterated his attack against Clinton’s reliance on big money donors, stating, “I don’t think real change comes about when your super PAC raises many millions of dollars from Wall Street, from the drug companies, from the fossil fuel industries.”

His campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, noted that Clinton finished out the month with private fundraising events in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and added, “Our supporters are a firewall protecting Bernie from the Clinton campaign’s wealthiest donors and super PACs. But with the amount of high-dollar fundraisers she’s held this month, it’s hard to see how we possibly raised more money than Secretary Clinton in February.”