Sanders Wins Landslide Victory in Ex-Pat Primary
The Vermont senator won 69 percent of votes cast by Americans living abroad, adding nine delegates to his total.
By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams
Bernie Sanders. (Robert F. Bukaty / AP)
Americans living overseas spent early March casting ballots for the U.S. presidential primary, and the results are in: Bernie Sanders wins among ex-pats.
Sanders took 69 percent of the Global Presidential Primary, adding nine delegates to his total, while Hillary Clinton received 31 percent of the vote and five delegates. The landslide shows that the “political revolution that is gaining momentum across America is now resonating all over the world,” Sanders said Monday.
Nearly 35,000 Americans living in 38 countries cast ballots in the primary, a 50 percent increase since 2008.
As The Atlantic explains, the results are an “interesting snapshot” of public opinion abroad. Reporter David A. Graham writes:
It seems likely that Americans who live abroad are a more liberal group, which would explain their tilt toward Sanders. But he’s been criticized for his foreign-policy stances, which critics call vague, especially on the Middle East. Nonetheless, he handily won each Middle Eastern country, including Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, the UAE, and Israel.
The results were announced the same day that Sanders gave a key foreign policy speech while campaigning in Utah. The speech was said to be the one he would have given at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention on Monday, which Sanders skipped.
The win was also a welcome respite for Sanders, who admitted he got “creamed” by Clinton in last week’s domestic primaries.
While the former secretary of state gave [what Glenn Greenwald called] a “disgusting” speech at AIPAC on Monday, Sanders was campaigning in Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, where the next Democratic contests are taking place Tuesday.
“There is a clear path to victory as we begin the second half of the delegate selection process,” Sanders said. “We are waging a strong campaign and plan to take it all the way to the Democratic National Convention this summer in Philadelphia.”
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