The Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday the Vermont senator will spend the next several weeks assessing the future of his campaign after a string of losses to former Vice President Joe Biden.
“The next primary contest is at least three weeks away. Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement Wednesday morning.
“In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable,” Shakir added.
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In a subsequent email to supporters, Shakir said: “No sugarcoating it, last night did not go the way we wanted.”
The campaign manager said that after the expected Senate vote on coronavirus relief later Wednesday, “Bernie and Jane are going to get on a plane back to Vermont. Once there, they’ll begin holding conversations with supporters to get input and assess the path forward for our campaign. We will keep you updated as those conversations progress.”
Shakir’s comments came the morning after the populist senator from Vermont was swept in Tuesday’s three Democratic presidential nomination primaries by Biden.
The former vice president’s landslide victory in Florida, his crushing defeat of Sanders in Illinois, and his win in Arizona cemented his status as the presumptive Democratic nominee and all but closed the senator’s extremely narrow path for any potential comeback to win the nomination.
On Tuesday, for a second straight week, Sanders didn’t deliver a primary night speech. Instead, earlier in the evening, the senator delivered an address on the nation’s response coronavirus outbreak. His plan – which he acknowledges comes with a $2 trillion price tag – called for $2,000 per month checks to help families dealing with the burgeoning economic downturn caused by the coronavirus.
Sanders made no mention during those comments of Tuesday’s contests, which may be the last to be held in the Democratic race for quite some time. As most Americans self-isolate at home as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the nation, states with upcoming primaries and caucuses are quickly postponing their nominating contests.
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The campaign's assessment comes as calls for Sanders to suspend his bid and back Biden are likely to grow as the math doesn’t add up anymore for the senator. Sanders will need to make a decision on what’s best not just for his campaign but to make sure that his political revolution continues the progressive fight.
Kurt Ehrenberg, Sanders' longtime leading political adviser in New Hampshire, told Fox News he thinks the senator "clearly sees the end of the road. It’s just a matter of how he transitions the campaign into his future work leading the movement. It will continue and Bernie will be the leader."
Ehrenberg, who parted ways with the Sanders campaign last year, emphasized that "I think for Bernie, the presidential campaign has always been part of a larger movement and the ideals and the goals that the movement set for itself."
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