Bernie Sanders predicts he will win Texas and Democrats will ‘transform this country’
Bernie Sanders made a bold prediction on Friday night.
“We are going to win the state of Texas,” the 78-year-old told a cheering crowd of thousands on Friday night at the Mesquite rodeo arena. “We have a president who is trying to divide the American people ... based on the color of our skin or where we were born, our sexual orientation.
“... We are going to win because we are bringing our people together,” he said. “We are all Americans.”
And if Democrats work together, he said, “we are going to transform this country.”
Sanders, hot off a primary win in New Hampshire, made this one stop in Texas — a key battleground in this year’s presidential election — just days before early voting begins here for the March 3 primary. Earlier in the day, he held two rallies in North Carolina.
His visit came after President Donald Trump said he believes Sanders, of Vermont, is the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race.
“Bernie Sanders has shown time and again that he is a radical socialist committed to hiking taxes on hardworking people and killing the oil and gas industry,” said Samantha Cotten, a spokeswoman with the Trump Victory campaign. “Good luck with trying to run on that platform in Texas.”
Sanders spoke for about half an hour on Friday night, touching on some of his key election topics.
He called for the end of student debt, the creation of universal healthcare, a raise in the minimum wage, the need to address the climate crisis and an end to mass incarceration.
He said he wants to make colleges and universities tuition fee, raise salaries for teachers and make marijuana legal if he is elected president.
Sanders told the crowd that voters across the country need to make Trump a one-term president.
“We cannot continue to have a president who is a pathological liar,” Sanders said. “We cannot have a president who is running a corrupt administration. ... We cannot have a president who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a ... bigot.
“And those are his best qualities.”
Early voting in Texas runs from Feb. 18-28.
Campaign work in Texas
Sanders, who lost the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2016 to Hillary Clinton, is among those seeking at least a share of the 261 delegates Texas has to offer Democratic presidential candidates.
His visit to Texas comes as he’s buying $2.5 million in advertising time in Texas and California — and as he’s opening campaign offices across the state in cities ranging from Austin to Dallas to Houston to San Antonio. There currently are no Sanders campaign offices in Tarrant County.
On Friday, Sanders announced co-chairs of his campaign in Super Tuesday states. In Texas, they are: Austin City Councilman Greg Casar, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, attorney S. Lee Merritt and Farrukh Shamsi, former vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party.
“I’m not a politician. I’m a civil rights attorney,” Merrit said while introducing Sanders to the Mesquite crowd. “Sen. Bernie Sanders has been in this fight for a long time.
“I trust him to help us.”
Arena staff estimated the rally turnout at more than 5,300 people.
Sanders supporters
Brooke Al Mawla, a 22-year-old Fort Worth woman who waited outside for four hours before the doors opened, said she’s a huge fan of Sanders — and has attended other rallies in Fort Worth and Grand Prairie in recent years — because he is trying to make life better for many people.
Al Mawla, who voted for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary, believes there should be Medicare for all and some sort of relief for those who have massive college debt.
“He’s amazing,” she said. “I love him so much. I’ve never seen someone who is so caring and who genuinely wants to fight for the people.
“It’s a commitment,” Al Mawla said. “It must be discouraging sometimes. But he hasn’t given up, and we can’t give up on him.”
Ann and Kelly Fodge drove in from Paris, Texas, to see Sanders at this Valentine’s Day rally.
“He’s honest, and it seems as though he’s for the middle class,” Ann Fodge, 67, said. “I want to get rid of our dictator, Trump, in the White House.”
Kelly Fodge, 55, said he supports Sanders because Sanders wants to improve health care and benefits for all people.
“The cost of health care has become so high that no one can afford them anymore,” he said. “I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and I can’t afford to buy all my medicine.”
Campaign issues
Sanders also talked briefly about climate change.
“Donald Trump thinks climate change is a hoax,” Sanders told the crowd. “I think Donald Trump is a hoax.”
As president, Sanders said the country will end capital punishment in America.
He said it’s time to bring “fundamental reform to a broken and racist criminal justice system. ... It’s not acceptable to me that we have more people in jail in America than any other country.”
And he said it’s time to end the war on drugs. “By executive order, I can and will legalize marijuana,” he said to large cheers in the crowd.
Sanders also said that when the president, “who demonizes the undocumented” leaves the White House, (Sanders) will lead the effort to “pass bipartisan immigration reform with a path toward citizenship.”
Sanders also told the crowd that it’s time for gun-safety legislation that includes universal background checks, ending the sale of assault weapons and ending the gunshow loophole.
This legislation, he said, “will be written by the American people, not the NRA.”
Most of all, Sanders said his campaign is making the “establishment” very nervous, because he supports higher wages, universal health care, higher education for all.
“If we stand together, and (do) not let Trump and his friends divide us .... we will defeat them.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 9:48 PM.
