LIVE from Safeco Field: Bernie Sanders returns to Seattle for final rally on caucus eve

Good evening from Safe­co Field! It’s a beau­ti­ful spring evening here in Seat­tle’s SoDo neigh­bor­hood, where Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Bernie Sanders is mak­ing his final Ever­green State appear­ance ahead of Wash­ing­ton’s 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct cau­cus­es. Sanders is hop­ing for a big vic­to­ry in Wash­ing­ton to demon­strate that Hillary Clin­ton does­n’t have the nom­i­na­tion locked up yet.

Sanders greets the crowd with fresh humor, say­ing he had dreamed of stand­ing at home plate in a Major League Base­ball sta­di­um as a child, but thought he would be at bat rather than giv­ing a speech.

After thank­ing sup­port­ers for the mas­sive turnout, Sanders announces that he fore­sees the momen­tum from a vic­to­ry in Wash­ing­ton trans­lat­ing to sub­se­quent wins in Cal­i­for­nia and Oregon.

In his now famous call-and-repeat about the aver­age dona­tion of $27, Sanders announces that his cam­paign has now received over 6 mil­lion indi­vid­ual dona­tions, a new record for Amer­i­can polit­i­cal cam­paigns. Remind­ing vot­ers that Hillary Clin­ton’s cam­paign relies heav­i­ly on super PAC spend­ing, Sanders calls for his Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry oppo­nent to release the tran­scripts from her paid speech­es to large cor­po­ra­tions and Wall Street banks.

Sanders con­grat­u­lates the City of Seat­tle for pass­ing a $15 an hour min­i­mum wage, and calls on the nation as a whole to fol­low suit. With­out not­ing last years bal­lot mea­sure in Seat­tle, the can­di­date also calls for pub­lic cam­paign financ­ing nationwide.

The stump speech takes a somber tone as Sanders shifts from wealth inequal­i­ty to dis­crim­i­na­to­ry polic­ing, call­ing for demil­i­ta­riza­tion of police depart­ments and pros­e­cu­tion of offi­cers who break the law. He announces leg­is­la­tion that he has intro­duced to remove cannabis from its cur­rent sta­tus as a sched­ule I con­trolled substance.

“They deserve the whole damn dol­lar!” Sanders declares in ref­er­ence to the fact that women still make only 79 cents on the dol­lar com­pared with their male counterparts.

Empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of infra­struc­ture invest­ment, Sanders notes that Flint is just one of many cities where Amer­i­cans are being forced to endure con­di­tions that make aspects of the stan­dard of liv­ing (i.e water source) in the world’s most pros­per­ous nation com­pa­ra­ble to third world countries.

Remind­ing the crowd of a time before women had the right to vote, before same-sex cou­ples had the right to mar­ry, Sanders declares that there will always be those who say “think small­er.” Despite his detrac­tors with­in his own par­ty, Sanders dou­bles down on the impor­tance of tak­ing on the insur­ance lob­by to estab­lish a sin­gle pay­er health care sys­tem, and estab­lish­ing a $15 an hour fed­er­al min­i­mum wage.

“Real change comes from the bot­tom up… when mil­lions of peo­ple come togeth­er and say ‘enough’ with the sta­tus quo… if we stand togeth­er, there is noth­ing we can­not accomplish!”

In clos­ing, Sanders declares that with a high vot­er turnout, his cam­paign will secure a win in Wash­ing­ton on the way to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nomination.