In New Hampshire, where Sanders spent the weekend campaigning, one survey shows him to be within eight percentage points of Clinton.
Despite Sanders’ long history of civil rights work, he had been largely going unnoticed among black voters, perhaps because of the fact that, in the US Senate, he represents a state that is 95% white. That appears to be changing, however.
Rapper Killer Mike of Run the Jewels took to twitter on Monday to endorse Sanders, citing the senator’s call to restore the Voting Rights Act. He also responded to a twitter user who worried that a vote for Sanders would be a vote taken from Clinton.
“I cannot support another Clinton or Bush ever,” Killer Mike tweeted.
“I am beginning to see American political families like monarchs and I have no affection for monarchs,” he added.
Sanders’ growing momentum is not being overlooked by his colleagues, either.
“He’s connecting in a way that Hillary Clinton is not,” Burt Cohen, a former New Hampshire state senator and Sanders supporter who attended Sunday morning’s event, told the Guardian.
“He’s talking about things people want to hear. People are used to candidates who are calculated, produced and measured, and they see through that. Bernie’s different.”
During a speech in New Hampshire on Sunday, Sanders spoke of the “billionaire class,” vowing to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes should he be elected. He also spoke on many issues that concern lower to middle class families, such as providing free tuition for college students and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“I don’t believe it is a terribly radical idea to say that someone who works 40 hours a week should not be living in poverty,” Sanders stated.
Clinton has so far not bothered to acknowledge Sanders, seeming to take the “if I ignore him, he will go away,” route with her biggest competition.
“The truth is, the vast majority of the voters in this country are middle-class and working-class people,” Sanders told the Guardian.
“I think the vast majority of those people are totally frustrated with a political system in which big money buys elections, and they’re totally disgusted with our country’s economics.. . . If we can get through to those people, not only will we win the Democratic nomination, we’re going to win the general election as well.”
