Friends -

A short while ago, I gave a brief statement to the press about our campaign, and where we go from here. I want to share some of those thoughts with you today, and to ask you, once again, for your financial support.

If you can do that now, please use this link to contribute $2.70:

https://act.berniesanders.com/go/forward

Let me start by saying that last night was not a good night for our campaign from a delegate point of view.

We lost the largest state of the night, Michigan, but we won in North Dakota and currently lead in the state of Washington, the second largest state of the evening.

But what has become more and more apparent, with each passing primary, is that while we are currently trailing in the delegate count, we are strongly winning the debate about the future of our country.

In poll after poll after poll, including exit polls, a strong majority of the American people support our progressive agenda.

The American people are deeply concerned about the grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality in this country.

The American people believe it is time for the wealthy and profitable corporations to be paying their fair share.

The American people understand that the federal minimum wage is a starvation wage and that it is time to raise it to a living wage of $15 an hour – nothing less.

The American people understand that if our kids are going to make it into the middle class, we must make public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition free.

The American people understand that we cannot continue a cruel and dysfunctional health care system where we are spending twice as much per capita as any other nation, yet 87 million of our neighbors remain uninsured and underinsured.

And that last point is becoming more and more obvious to the American people as we face the challenge of the coronavirus. Imagine a pandemic where 87 million people have a difficult time going to a doctor.

The American people understand that climate change is an existential threat to our planet and we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels.

The American people understand that we need to transform our broken and racist criminal justice and immigration system that locks up four times as many people as communist China and leaves millions here at home living in fear.

But it is not just the ideological debate we are winning.

We are winning the generational debate as well.

While Joe Biden does well with older Americans, especially those over 65 years old, our campaign continues to win a vast majority of younger people in this country.

But while we are winning — very clearly — the ideological debate, we are losing, right now, the electability debate.

I cannot tell you how many people I and our campaign have spoken to that tell me that they like what our campaign stands for but they are going to vote for Joe Biden because they believe he is the best candidate to beat Trump.

Needless to say, I strongly disagree.

So, on Sunday, I very much look forward to debating Joe Biden about these issues in Arizona. This will be the first 1-on-1 debate of this campaign, and I am eager for the American people to see which candidate — which agenda — is best positioned to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history.

Thank you for reading, but before you go, I must ask:

Can you make a $2.70 contribution to our campaign as a way of not only saying we are the best campaign to defeat Trump, but that our agenda is the one this country needs going forward?

Thank you again for everything you have done to support our campaign so far. Let’s go forward together.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

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