Senator Bernie Sanders routed Hillary Clinton in all three Democratic presidential contests
on Saturday, infusing his underdog campaign with critical momentum and
bolstering his argument that the race for the nomination is not a
foregone conclusion.
Mr.
Sanders found a welcome tableau in the largely white and liberal
electorates of the Pacific Northwest, where just days after resoundingly
beating Mrs. Clinton in Idaho he repeated the feat in the Washington
caucuses, winning 73 percent of the vote. He did even better in Alaska,
winning 82 percent of the vote, and in Hawaii, he had 71 percent with a
few precincts still be counted, according to The Associated Press.
Washington,
the largest prize Saturday with 101 delegates in play, was a vital
state for Mr. Sanders, whose prospects of capturing the nomination
dimmed after double-digit losses to Mrs. Clinton across the South and
weak showings in delegate-rich Ohio, Florida and North Carolina this
month. As of Saturday evening, Mrs. Clinton had roughly 280 more pledged
delegates, who are awarded based on voting, and 440 more superdelegates
— party leaders and elected officials — than Mr. Sanders.
At
a rally in Madison, Wis., late Saturday afternoon, Mr. Sanders assured
supporters that his victories had cleared a viable path to the
nomination. “We knew from day one that politically we were going to have
a hard time in the Deep South,” Mr. Sanders said. “But we knew things
were going to improve when we headed west.”
Noting
the “huge” voter turnout — in Washington, party officials estimated
more than 200,000 people participated on Saturday, close to the record
set in 2008 — he told the crowd, “We are making significant inroads into
Secretary Clinton’s lead.”
The
victories on Saturday only slightly narrowed the gulf with Mrs. Clinton
in the quest for the 2,382 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic
nomination.
But
the wins are likely to bestow on the Sanders campaign a surge of online
donations with which to buy advertising in the expensive media markets
of New York and Pennsylvania, which hold primaries next month. The
victory will also embolden Mr. Sanders to stay in the race and continue
challenging Mrs. Clinton on her ties to Wall Street and her foreign
policy record.
Republicans
did not hold any contests on Saturday. The next nominating battle for
both parties will be the April 5 primaries in Wisconsin, followed by the
April 9 Democratic caucuses in Wyoming, another contest that plays to
Mr. Sanders’s strengths.
His
victories on Saturday were not unexpected. All three states have
relatively low percentages of the black and the Latino voters who have
bolstered Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, and Washington and Alaska held
caucuses, the type of voting in which he has done well.
Yet
the results also highlighted the uphill climb Mrs. Clinton would face
in winning over the young and liberal voters who have flocked to the
Vermont senator, and who often express concerns about her fund-raising
and speechmaking practices.
On
Saturday morning, the auditorium at Eckstein Middle School in North
Seattle burst with more than 1,400 caucusgoers holding lattes, pushing
strollers and wearing “H” or “Bernie” lapel pins. Bleachers were set up
onstage to accommodate the crowd. “This is what democracy looks like,”
Janet Miller, the caucus organizer, said from the auditorium’s stage.
Mr.
Sanders won that precinct on Saturday, and many others. “I appreciate
Bernie’s fervor and honesty,” said Ian Forrester, 25, a barista and rock
musician who caucused for Mr. Sanders. “We’ve all seen the poor and the
middle class suffer during this economic downfall, and we need someone
who cares about them, not about corporations.”
The
Sanders campaign blanketed Washington with $1 million in ads. Mr.
Sanders found a sweet spot of support among Seattle’s young voters. A video clip of his rally
on Friday, just over the state line in Portland, Ore., went viral after
a delicate songbird perched on his podium, inspiring the Twitter
hashtag #BirdieSanders. “I think there may be some symbolism here,” Mr.
Sanders said to a roar of applause.
Mrs.
Clinton will have a chance to regain momentum, and a wash of delegates,
when the Democratic primary moves to her adoptive home state, New York,
on April 19. Her national campaign headquarters is in Brooklyn; on
Saturday, Mr. Sanders opened an office in the borough’s Gowanus
neighborhood, just a few miles from where he grew up.
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Lately
on the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton, bracing for some losses in the
caucus states, seemed to have grown annoyed by the commentary from
political rivals that Mr. Sanders’s campaign has drawn far more
enthusiastic supporters. “I totally respect the passion of my opponent’s
supporters, absolutely respect it,” Mrs. Clinton said while campaigning
on Tuesday in Washington.
“And
here’s what I want you to know,” she continued, “I have, as of now,
gotten more votes than anybody else, including Donald Trump. I have
gotten 2.6 million more votes than Bernie Sanders,” and “have a bigger
lead in pledged delegates, the ones you win from people voting, than
Barack Obama had at this time in 2008.”
Mrs.
Clinton has shifted her focus and her words to taking on the
Republicans in November, but given Mr. Sanders’s influence over liberal
voters she would need in a general election, she has been cautious how
she discusses domestic and foreign policy.
With
Mr. Sanders’s focus on income inequality and taking on Wall Street,
Mrs. Clinton has continued to reach out to working-class voters,
including holding a rally on Tuesday at a machinists and aerospace
workers union hall at the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash.
“I
was made an honorary machinist some years ago, so I feel a particular
connection here to my brothers and sisters in the machinists,” she told
the crowd. “I am no person new to this struggle. I am not the latest
flavor of the month. I have been doing this work day in and day out for
years.”
She
also knocked Mr. Sanders for not supporting the Export-Import Bank, the
government-backed agency that provides low-interest loans to help
companies doing international business, like Boeing, and which Mr.
Sanders and some Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have
opposed as “corporate welfare.”
And
as Mrs. Clinton sought to demonstrate her toughness and preparedness to
be commander in chief in response to the terrorist attacks on Tuesday
in Brussels, she also had to avoid inflaming liberal primary voters who
still associate her with her 2002 Senate vote to authorize the Iraq war.
On
Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton said the responses to the Brussels attacks by
the leading Republican candidates, Donald J. Trump and Mr. Cruz,
amounted to “reckless actions” that would alienate American allies,
demonize Muslims and embolden Russia.
Mr. Sanders ran an emotional 90-second ad in Hawaii, called “The Cost of War,” featuring Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran from Hawaii who reminded viewers that Mr. Sanders voted against the Iraq war.
“Bernie
Sanders will defend our country and take the trillions of dollars that
are spent on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars and
invest it here at home,” an impassioned Ms. Gabbard said, against scenic
views of Hawaii.
Foreign
policy was what motivated Warren Jones, 65, a retired software
engineer, to caucus for Mr. Sanders on Saturday in Seattle. “She was
wrong on Iraq, and proved she didn’t learn from that experience, but was
wrong on Libya, too,” Mr. Jones said. “I think in large part she is
responsible for ISIS, though there’s plenty of blame to go around.”
Yamiche Alcindor and Kristen Millares Young contributed reporting.
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