JULY 2, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) held a rally for nearly 10,000 supporters Wednesday night in Madison, WI. The turnout was one of the largest for any candidate, regardless of party, in the campaign year so far. [Note: Ted Cruz had over 10,000 present for his official announcement speech at Liberty University, but the school mandated that attendance was compulsory for all students, making Sanders’ draw yesterday even more impressive.]
Sanders delivered his usual stump speech calling for universal health care, redistribution of wealth and a breakup of the nation’s biggest banks. With the widespread reporting of the size of the crowd in Madison, the national media has slowly come to realize the growing appeal of the Sanders campaign.
Which is not to say that Sanders is going to derail Hillary. Polls in Iowa in May had Clinton with 60% of the vote and Sanders with 15%. Certainly a rout. The same poll taken in June, however, showed Clinton at 52% (-8) and Sanders with 33% (+15). This poll marks the first time that Clinton’s numbers have dropped below 60%.
In addition, Sanders reported his 2nd quarter contributions today as $15 million. Certainly, this is dwarfed by Clinton’s reported $45 million (and that’s not counting her super PAC). Still, consider this: at this point in the campaign 8 years ago, Barack Obama had amassed 180,000 individual donors in his successful campaign against Clinton. At this same point in 2015, Bernie Sanders has amassed 250,000.
It remains to be seen whether Sanders has created the infrastructure and get-out-the-vote plan to become a major force in the Iowa caucus. But one has to wonder why numbers like these aren’t gathering more press attention.
 held a rally for nearly 10,000 supporters Wednesday night in Madison, WI. The turnout was one of the largest for any candidate, regardless…){kind=link}