Super Tuesday 2016 is pretty much here, and Hillary Clinton is coming off of a huge victory in South Carolina. Still, that doesn’t mean she is totally in the driver’s seat for the Democratic nomination. As soon as Clinton took the Palmetto State, Bernie Sanders continued his campaigning elsewhere and gained a number of huge endorsements in the process. Things aren’t looking so bleak now that Alan Grayson, Robert Reich, and Tulsi Gabbard are all backing him.
As the New York Times reported, Clinton absolutely decimated Sanders in South Carolina and won 39 delegates in that state. With 100 percent reporting, Clinton had won by a margin of 73.5 percent to just 26 percent for Sanders.
Over on the Republican side of things, Donald Trump won South Carolina with 32.5 percent of the vote and captured all 50 delegates.
Once the voting in the South Carolina primary was over, and even before, Sanders was speaking to huge crowds in Dallas, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Kansas City. He’s attracting thousands upon thousands of supporters, and no one could have expected that in those particular cities just a year ago.
Meanwhile, the Nation is reporting that Sanders has just gained some huge endorsements on the eve of Super Tuesday. Last week, he won over a huge Latino rights group in Arizona, and it was the first time that Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) had ever given their backing to a possible presidential candidate.
Now, he has won the backing of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who believes Sanders is the “only means by which we can get the nation back from the moneyed interests that now control so much of our economy and democracy.” Reich continues on, saying that Sanders is leading a “political revolution” to get America back for “the many, not the few.”
Oddly enough, Reich has been an associate of Bill and Hillary Clinton for a very long time. His decision to back Sanders is about the issues and how they are handled in the race for the Democratic nomination and not personalities.
“I have the deepest respect and admiration for Hillary Clinton, and if she wins the Democratic primary I’ll work my heart out to help her become president. But I believe Bernie Sanders is the agent of change this nation so desperately needs.”
Reich isn’t the only strong endorsement that Sanders received, though. Just mere days after that backing, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, endorsed Sanders, and Congressman Alan Grayson, D-Florida, also plans to give his vote to Bernie Sanders.
Gabbard is not opposed to controversy if it means that her endorsement is going to the best candidate available. She was originally going to stay neutral in the primaries, but she ultimately decided to endorse Bernie Sanders.
Alan Grayson conducted an online poll to see who he should support in the race to be president, and he said the “response has been absolutely overwhelming.” Close to 400,000 Democrats voted in the poll, and 86 percent of those voters believe Grayson should back Bernie Sanders. The result was obviously one-sided.
“More than just a landslide. An earthquake.”
In an interesting note, the amount of people who took part in Grayson’s poll is more than those who voted in the South Carolina primary. Bernie Sanders isn’t going away quietly even with a couple big losses already on him.
Super Tuesday 2016 is going to be very telling in how both the Democratic and Republican races are going to go. NPR believes it won’t be a close race if Clinton ends up pulling ahead on Super Tuesday, but it will be a total blowout in her favor.
If Bernie Sanders takes Super Tuesday, then it is expected to be very close, and he’ll end up squeaking by Hillary Clinton.
Bernie Sanders does need some help to overtake Hillary Clinton and attempt to win the Democratic nomination for president. With the endorsements of LUCHA, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Reich, Alan Grayson, and others, he’s now getting that help and just in time, as Super Tuesday 2016 is here.
[Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images]