Read Bernie Sanders’ Speech Vowing to Continue His Nomination Fight

6 minute read

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke to a crowd of supporters at a rally in California on Tuesday night, vowing to continue to “fight for every vote and every delegate,” shortly after Hillary Clinton declared victory in the Democratic primary during a speech in New York.

“We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C.,” Sanders said. “I am pretty good at arithmetic, and I know that the fight in front of us is a very, very steep fight. But we will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate we can get.”

Read more: Bernie Sanders Will Alone Decide What Happens Next. Here’s What He’s Thinking.

Clinton won voting contests in California, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota on Tuesday. Sanders won contests in Montana and North Dakota.

Here are his complete remarks from the rally in Santa Monica:

 

SANDERS: Thank you!

(APPLAUSE) Let me — let me thank — let me thank. Let me thank…

(APPLAUSE)

Let me thank…

(APPLAUSE)

Let me — let me thank all of you — let me thank all of you for being here tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

And let me thank all of you for being part of the political revolution.

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I especially want to thank the tens of thousands of volunteers here in the state of California.

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And I want to thank the people of California for their incredible hospitality.

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It has been one of the most moving moments of my life to be out throughout this state in beautiful evenings and seeing thousands and thousands of people coming out.

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People who are prepared to stand up and fight for real change in this country.

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All of you know, all of you know that when we began this campaign a little bit over a year ago, we were considered to be a fringe campaign.

(BOOING)

But over the last year I think that has changed just a little bit.

(APPLAUSE)

By the end of tonight, we’ll have won, I believe, 22 state primaries and caucuses.

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We will have received well over 10 million votes. (APPLAUSE)

And what is most extraordinary to me is the fact that in virtually every single state, we have won by big numbers. The votes of young people.

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Young people understand that they are the future of America and they intend to help shape that future.

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And I am enormously optimistic about the future of our country when so many young people have come on board and understand that our vision, a vision of social justice, economic justice…

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… racial justice and environmental justice…

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… must be the future of America. Our vision will be the future of America!

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Our campaign from day one has understood some very basic points and that is first, we will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our government.

(APPLAUSE)

And that is especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate.

(BOOING)

The American people, in my view, will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry…

(APPLAUSE)

… who insults Mexicans, who insults…

(BOOING)

… who insults Muslims and women, and African-Americans. We will not allow Donald Trump to become president of the United States.

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But we understand that our mission is more than just defeating Trump; it is transforming our country.

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The vast — the vast majority of the American people know that it is not acceptable that the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much as wealth as the bottom 90 percent. We are going to change that.

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And when millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, we will not allow 57 percent of all new income to go to the top 1 percent.

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And we will end a corrupt campaign finance system.

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Democracy is not about billionaires buying elections.

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And we will end a broken criminal justice system.

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And we will break up the major banks on Wall Street.

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And we will join in the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people as a right.

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And we will bring about real immigration reform and a path toward citizenship.

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And we will — and we will tell the billionaire class and corporate America that they will start paying their fair share of taxes.

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And what we understand, and what every one of us has always understood, is that real change never occurs from the top on down, always from the bottom on up.

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That is the history of the America, whether it is the creation of the trade union movement, the Civil Rights movement, the women’s movement, the gay movement.

(APPLAUSE) And that is what our movement is about.

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What — but you all know it is more than <Bernie. It is all of us, together.

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It is what this movement is about, is millions of people from coast to coast standing up and looking around them and knowing that we can do much, much better as a nation.

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That whether Wall Street likes it, whether corporate America likes it, whether wealthy campaign contributors like it, whether the corporate media likes it…

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We — together — together, we know what to our job is, and that is to bring the American people together to create a government that works for us, not the 1 percent.

(APPLAUSE)

Next Tuesday, we continue the fight in the last primary in Washington, D.C.

(APPLAUSE)

We are going — we are going — we are going to fight hard. We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C.

(APPLAUSE)

And then, we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(APPLAUSE)

I am — I am pretty good at arithmetic, and I know that the fight in front of us is a very, very steep fight. But we will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate we can get.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight, I had a very kind call from President Obama, and I look forward to working with him to make sure that we move this country forward.

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And tonight, I had a very gracious call from Secretary Clinton and congratulated her on her victories tonight. Our fight is to transform this country and to understand — and to understand that we are in this together.

(APPLAUSE)

To understand that all of what we believe is what the majority of the American people believe.

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And to understand that the struggle continues.

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I want to thank the people of North Dakota.

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It appears that we will likely win Montana as well.

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I don’t think anybody knows what will end up here in California, but I suspect the gap will significantly diminish.

(APPLAUSE)

If this campaign has proven anything, it has proven that millions of Americans who love this country are prepared to stand up and fight to make this country a much better place.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you all. The struggle continues.

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Write to Katie Reilly at Katie.Reilly@time.com