here. here. on a beautiful sunday afternoon. we announced the beginning of our campaign a year ago. before i talk about the delegate math and our path toward victory, i just want to say a few words about how far we have come in the last year. and i just want to thank the millions and millions of people who have supported us in every way. when we started this campaign, as most of you know, we were considered to be a fringe candidacy. we started with no campaign organization. we started with no money. we started with very little name recognition outside of my own state of vermont. in national polls, we were trailing secretary clinton by at least 60 points. and in some cases, a little bit more.

in this campaign, we have taken on the entire democratic establishment in state after state. we have taken on the senators, the members of the congress, the governors, the mayors. we have taken them all on, and in the clinton organization obviously, we have taken on the most powerful political organization this country. an organization that has won two very successful political campaigns with hillary clinton in 2008. that is what we were up against. that was then. today is today. as of today, we have now won 17 primaries and caucuses in every part of the country. by the way, we hope to make indiana our 18th victory on tuesday. and we have received some 9 million votes. in recent national polls, we are not behind secretary clinton by 60 points anymore.

in the last few weeks actually, there have been a couple of polls that have us in the lead. other polls have us single digits behind. in terms of fundraising, we have received more individual campaign contributions -- 7.4 million -- than any candidate in presidential history at this point in a campaign. we do not have a super pac. we do not get our money from wall street or the drug companies. or powerful corporations. our money is coming from the middle class and working class of this country, averaging $27 a campaign contribution. and i am very proud of the fact that we have just raised in the last month, we have had a phenomenally good month, we have raised $25 million, despite the primaries80% of the

and caucuses are behind us. what the political revolution has shown is that we can run a strong, winning campaign without a super pac and without being dependent on big-money interests. as of today -- and i don't know if anyone else has done it. maybe they have, maybe they haven't. i don't know that. but we have brought out over 1.1 million people to our rallies, from maine to california. and that number will go up very significantly because we intend to have a number of major rallies in the state of california. very importantly, we have won in state after state a strong majority of the votes of younger people. voters under 45 years of age. in other words, the ideas that

we are fighting for our the future of the democratic already -- party and, in fact, the future of this country. again, i'm not just talking about people 23 years of age and younger. we are doing phenomenally well and very proud of that. we are talking about people who are 45 years of age and younger. and the reason for that, i believe, is that the issues we are talking about are the issues that are on the minds of the american people. people know whether you are conservative or progressive that a corrupt campaign finance system of super pac's is undermining american democracy, they understand there is something fundamentally wrong where the average americans working longer hours for lower wages. they understand that we have a broken criminal justice system, with more people in jail than any other country on earth. they understand that we have got

to deal with the planetary crisis of climate change and, among other things, impose a tax on carbon. they understand that at a time we have a major growing crisis with regard to clean water. we need to end fracking. they understand that in a competitive global economy, we need to make public colleges and universities tuition free. and they understand that when you have the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality, yes, large profitable corporations and the top 1% are going to have to pay more in taxes. let me now just say a few words about delegate math, and our path toward victory. as all of you know, there are a total of 4766 democratic delegates. 4047 of them are pledged. i.e. they come out as a result of the contests in the various

states. 719 are superdelegates. superdelegates. a candidate democratic candidate , needs 2383 votes in order to win the democratic nomination. let me be very clear. it is virtually impossible for secretary clinton to reach the majority of convention delegates by june 14. th is the last day that a primary will be held. with pledged delegates alone. in other words, once more, it is virtually impossible for secretary clinton to reach the majority of convention delegates by june 14 with pledged delegates alone. top as theed superdelegates to convention in philadelphia. in other words, the convention will be a contested contest. currently, secretary clinton has

1645 pledged delegates. 55% of the total. we have 1318 pledged delegates, 45% of the total. there are 10 states remaining, where we are going to be vigorously competing. plus, the district of columbia, puerto rico, the virgin islands, and guam. we believe that we are in a very strong position to win many of these remaining contests, and we have an excellent chance to win in california, the state with far and away the most delegates. for us to win, the majority of pledged delegates, we need to win 710 out of the remaining 1083. that is 65% of the remaining pledged delegates. that is, admittedly, and i do not deny it for a second, a

tough road to climb. but it is not an impossible road to climb. and we intend to fight for every vote in front of us and for every delegate remaining. in terms of superdelegates, i would like to just say the following. obviously, we are taking on virtually the entire democratic establishment. and it's amazing to me -- and i just have to thank our volunteers -- that we go into state after state. you've got the senators, you've got the governor, and you've got the mayors all of , them know how to get out the vote. yet in 17 primaries and caucuses , despite all of that political establishment support, we have won. of the 719 superdelegates, many of those delegates committed themselves to secretary clinton even before we got into this campaign. in other words, way back then

she was the anointed candidate. ,and they said we are with , hillary clinton. while she has 520 superdelegates, we have all of 39 superdelegates. in other words, while we have won 45% of the pledged delegates in real campaigns where the spoken, we have won only 7% of the superdelegates. two points regarding that. first, those superdelegates, in states were either candidate, secretary clinton or myself, has won a landslide victory, those superdelegates ought to seriously reflect on whether they should cast their superdelegate vote in line with the wishes of the people of their state. s. let me just give you an example

of what i mean by that. in the state of washington, we won that caucus with almost 73% of this vote of the vote there. ,73% of the vote. in anybody's definition, that is a massive landslide. but at this secretary clinton point, has 10 superdelegates from the state of washington. we have zero. i would ask the superdelegates from the state of washington to respect the wishes of the people in their state and the votes they have cast. in minnesota, we won the caucus there with 61% of the vote. hillary clinton has 11 superdelegates. we have three. in colorado, we won that state with 59% of the vote. pretty strong margin. secretary clinton has 10 superdelegates.

we have zero. new hampshire, we won that state with more than 60% of the vote. secretary clinton has six superdelegates. we have zero. and that pattern continues in other states where we have one -- won landslide victories. i would hope very much that the superdelegates from those states where we have won with big margins or where secretary clinton has won with big margins, to respect to the wishes of the people of those states and vote in line with how the people of that state voted. secondly, and extremely importantly, secretary clinton and i obviously have many differences of opinion on some of the most important issues facing our country. we disagree on trade policy.

on breaking up wall street banks. we disagree on the minimum wage. i want to raise it to $15 an hour, she wants to raise it to $12 an hour. she disagrees on whether we should impose a tax on carbon. we disagree with climate change. i believe we should. we disagree about the extent to which the wealthy and profitable multinational corporations should be asked to pay their fair share of taxes. we disagree on fracking. i believe we've got to end fracking in this country. we disagree on a number of other issues. but where secretary clinton and i strongly agree, and where every delegate to the democratic convention strongly agrees, is that it would be a disaster for this country if donald trump or some other right wing republican were to become president of the united states.

therefore in my view, it is incumbent upon every superdelegate to take a hard and objective look at which candidate stands the better chance of defeating donald trump and other republican candidates. and in that regard, i think the evidence is extremely clear, that i would be the stronger candidate to defeat trump or any other republican. and this is not just on the subjective opinion of bernie sanders. i'm not here just to tell you that this is what i think or this is what i believe. i think this is really what the objective evidence tells us. this is based on virtually every national and state poll done in the last several months. i know that the polls go up and down, but when you have poll after poll after poll nationally saying that sanders can defeat

trump, by in some cases, a much greater margin than clinton, i think it is worth paying attention to that. in a morning consult survey, we beat trump by 16 points. she beat him by seven. these are reasonable polls. -- recent polls. him by 15.i beat she beat him by 11. george washington university, we beat him by 10, she beats or three. fox news has us beating trump by 14. she beats him by seven. she is beaten by seven that she beats him by seven. everyone knows that you win the electoral vote, taking place in 50 states in this country. and if you look at virtually every battleground state in , arizona, in michigan, in

missouri, and in many other states which are up for grabs, maybe one by the republican or maybe one by the democratic candidate, in every one of those states, we defeat trump by larger margins that she does. further, equally important, but recent elections tell us is that when the voter turnout is high, when people come out in large numbers, democrats and progressives win. people are excited. they come out. young people come out. working-class people come out. people don't always vote, out. -- people that don't always come out, out. democrats win. on the other hand, republicans win elections when the voter turnout is low. that is exactly what we saw in the last national election of 2014, win 63% of the american people didn't vote. there is little doubt in my mind that the energy and excitement in this campaign is with the

work we have done. and i believe that energy and excitement among working-class people, among middle-class people, young people, will translate to a very large voter turnout in november which not only will mean victory for the white house, it will mean victory for senate races, u.s. house races, and governors races throughout this country. this is an issue that i hope the superdelegates will pay keen attention to. i understand that some of them prefer secretary clinton, fair enough. some people prefer me, fair enough. but at the end of the day, when every person in the philadelphia convention understands, we must have the strongest candidate to defeat trump or another republican. and i think they objective evidence is that i am that candidate.

thanks very much. we will take a few questions. we are off to indiana in a few minutes, but let me start with lisa, lera. are you here? >> [inaudible] superdelegates. i believe in 2008, president obama convinced several dozen to switch their position. has wereore of course delegates gone against the person, flipped against the person who lead in pledged delegates. how realistic is this halfway? bernie sanders: let me say it again. we have an uphill climb. no question about it. it is not coined to be easy. nothing i am telling you today suggests this a be an easy fight. again, we don't know what is going to happen on indiana on tuesday. let me put this into your mind. what happens if we do really, really well in the remaining 10 states?

and what happens if the polls continue to show that bernie sanders is the strongest candidate against donald trump? do i believe that there will be some superdelegates -- how many? nobody can tell you. say, il be some that came on the clinton campaign before sanders got in. but i want to rethink this. because what is most important is beating donald trump. this, and that is and if, but if that scenario plays out, i think you will have a lot of superdelegates who say you know , what's most important? it is most important that we defeat donald trump in november. john, did you have a question? >> [inaudible] more superdelegates than hillary clinton has claimed, another 23 that are uncommitted. are those kinds of numbers enough to -- bernie sanders: no they are not,

, john, but it's just part of the process. in other words, those are delegates -- when you are dealing with two superdelegates i think there were two points. lisa asked one question, you are asking the other. 70% of the vote, i think i am entitled to those. i think that the superdelegates should reflect what the people in the state want. that's true for hillary clinton as well. i can't tell you one thing for me and another thing for hillary clinton. if she wins mississippi, by whatever, huge numbers -- superdelegates there should vote for her. that's one issue. but the issue i just spoke to lisa about is a different issue. and that is while i think i say, hey we are entitled to pick up , many dozens of superdelegates, i think the real struggle will be in the hearts and minds of superdelegates who came on board the clinton campaign a long time ago. and they are going to have to go into their hearts, and they are going to have to ask themselves do they want the second

, strongest candidate to run against trump, or do they want the strongest candidate? i'm not making any productions, nothing guaranteed, but i think some of the superdelegates that announced for clinton before i even got into the race will say , you know what? bernie has a better chance of beating trump. jeff, are you still here? jeff, did you have a question? newsnald trump said on fox sunday that he is intrigue by some of your message that you have used to take on secretary clinton. any plans to use that message as soundbites are arguments? going forward as you continue to the rest of this, do you plan to change your tone, and you and you are contributing to this campaign by helping him advance? bernie sanders: i want to congratulate donald trump, who has managed to manipulate the media in an unprecedented way. every word he says is three

hours on cnn or some other station. no, the republican party and trump have the resources to do all the opposition research that they want on secretary clinton. they don't need bernie sanders's critiques of the secretary. and as i have said before, when you look at a donald trump who wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax of 1%, a the top 2/10 man, despite all of the scientific evidence thinks that , climate change is a hoax. a man who thinks we should not raise the starvation minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. i think in the general election matter who runs against him, this guy will not be a strong candidate. i know, and you should know what , trump is trying to do. >> piercing it is your voice -- he is saying it is your voice. it is not the research, the fact

you are saying it. bernie sanders: no, i think that's nonsense. i'm glad he can get through it. what is a campaign about? a campaign is supposed to be about not just political gossip. it is actually supposed to be about differentiating the points of view the candidates have. secretary clinton and i have different points of view on a number of issues. and i have tried my hardest not to run an issue oriented campaign, explaining the differences we have. i may be old-fashioned, but i kind of think that that is what democracy is supposed to be about. as you heard me say a million times, i do wish media paid more the middleo why class in this country is disappearing. the grotesque level of inspiration between and that's -- i don't want to much out of

this. trump is trying in a number of ways to tap into my support. if i lose the nomination he will , not get that support. if i lose the nomination, and we are doing everything we can to win it, and i will fight as hard as i can to make sure donald trump does not become president. is nicole here? "usa today"? john nolan, cbs? john here? are you here? did you have a question? >> what have you heard back in reaching out to superdelegates and asking them to look at your wins and ones you may win over? bernie sanders: again, there are two separate issues. it's not just me. it is people in the states. if you live in colorado, if you live in some of the other states, minnesota, where we have one landslide victories, i think the superdelegates are hearing from the