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Despite the dire numbers from the California primary, Berners packed an airplane hangar in Santa Monica to hear what some thought might be the final speech from Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign as a presidential candidate. However, the Vermont senator pledged to continue his fight—all the way to the Democratic convention in late July.At the Santa Monica Municipal Airport, almost three hours after the polls closed in the California primary, Sanders finally took to the stage to and thanked the crowd "for being a part of the political revolution."
For a while, it almost sounded like Sanders was on his way to making a concession speech, laying out a larger goal of shaping and changing the future of the country, and "not [allowing] right-wing Republicans to control our government," adding it was "especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate." The rhetoric was much less pointed and combative, which some say was the undoing of his upstart campaign.
"The American people will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry," he said of Trump. "We will not allow Donald Trump to become President of the United States. But we understand that our mission is more than just defeating Trump. It is transforming our country."
Although Hillary Clinton claimed the Democratic nomination earlier in the evening after winning the New Jersey and New Mexico primaries, Sanders then said, "Next Tuesday we continue the fight in the last primary in Washington, D.C."
"And then we take our fight for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania," where the Democratic convention will be held on July 25, he said. "I am pretty good in arithmetic and I know that the fight in front of us is a very steep fight."
You can watch Sanders' speech here:
