On the evening of the June 7 presidential primary in California, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders appeared at the Santa Monica Airport. Addressing a large crowd of supporters inside of the airport’s cavernous Barker Hangar, the Jewish senator from Vermont said he will continue to participate in the presidential race despite his opponent, Hillary Clinton, having declared herself the Democratic Party nominee in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.
“Next Tuesday we will continue the fight,” he said eliciting roars from the enthusiastic audience in the hangar.
“Bernie or bust!” crowd members chanted in response to his expressed commitment to stay in the race.
Clinton, for her part, appeared to have won the primary contest in California at the time of Sanders' local appearance, though Sanders said that he expected the gap between them in the California race to significantly narrow. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Clinton won 56-percent of the total votes in California, with 94.4 percent of the votes accounted for, and she has declared herself the winner of the primary race, thus becoming the first woman to become the presumptive nominee of a major political party.
Sanders, meanwhile, said he was committed to not allowing presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who won more than 70-percent of the vote in the Republican Californian primary on Tuesday, win the office of the presidency.
“We will not allow Donald Trump to become president of the United States,” he said, appearing before a sea of pro-Sanders signs reading, “A Future to Believe In.” “[However] our mission is more than beating Donald Trump, it is transforming our country.”
He said he would continue to “fight” in the primary race against Clinton and that he is looking ahead to the upcoming primary contest in Washington D.C. and to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
“We are going to fight on to win the primary in Washington D.C.,” he said. The District of Columbia primary, the last primary in the contest, takes place this Tuesday.
Sanders also delivered remarks from his usual stump speech during his appearance, discussing the need to close the income gap between the wealthy and the poor, his hopes for campaign finance reform, fixing the immigration system and more.
Santa Monica Police Department officials as well as other personnel from other law enforcement agencies were on the scene as Sanders appeared on an elevated platform, with supporters filling up bleachers behind him and a crowd of people watching him from the floor beneath the platform. Nearby, a state of California flag and an American flag, respectively, hung from the ceiling.
“What we understand and what every one of us has always understood is that real change never occurs from the top on down, always from the bottom up. That is the history of America, whether it was the formation of the trade union movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement… that is what our movement is about,” he said.
Those in the crowd also included Mia Hanson, 37, a massage therapist and personal assistant who is based in Sherman Oaks. A Sanders campaign volunteer, Hanson said she voted for Sanders “first thing” on Tuesday morning.
Mia Hanson, left.
Asked what she thought of Sanders being Jewish, Hanson said his values were more important than his religion.
“I think it’s awesome he said his religious beliefs are ‘You hurt, I hurt. We’re in this together.' I don’t think him being Jewish really matters… It’s more like his values. He’s more like a Christian,” she said. “He’s closer to how Jesus was then most Christians walking around today.”
This article was updated at 10:58 a.m. on Thursday, June 9.
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