Bernie Sanders vows to fight until ‘the last vote is cast’

Sen. Bernard Sanders vowed on Tuesday to fight on in the Democratic presidential primary contest until “the last vote is cast” but also hinted at a possible looming battle to shape the Democratic platform at the party’s convention this summer in Philadelphia.

“We have won 16 states so far, and I’m looking forward to winning a number more. I think [we’ve] got a path to victory, and we’re going to fight this [until] the last vote is cast,” Mr. Sanders said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“The idea that we should not contest in California, our largest state, let the people of California determine what the agenda of the Democratic party is and who the candidate for president should be is pretty crazy,” he said.

Mr. Sanders said some superdelegates might look to national polls that show him running better against Republican candidates than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.

Mrs. Clinton’s win in New York last week halted some of Mr. Sanders’ momentum in the race, and most recent polling shows her with an edge in the handful of states that are voting on Tuesday: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.

Asked if he would support Mrs. Clinton as the Democratic nominee without conditions, Mr. Sanders said: “Well, I think what the democratic process is about … is going to the convention and arguing about what the platform should be.”

“Media spends too much time speculating. Let’s see what happens,” he said. “If we don’t win this thing, we’re going to have a lot of delegates in Philadelphia fighting that fight, and I’m not convinced, and you don’t know what the delegates there will do.”

“So we are going to go to the American people [saying] this is the agenda for the working people,” Mr. Sanders said, naming increased taxes for the “billionaire class” and closing corporate loopholes as examples.

“And I think that we can win some of these platform fights,” he said. “The winner, whether it’s Secretary Clinton or myself, our job is then to go out to the American people on a platform that makes sense to the working families of this country, and then we win with a large voter turnout.”