LIVE from Tacoma: Bernie Sanders supporters stream into the Tacoma Dome for rally

Good evening from the City of Destiny!

NPI is cov­er­ing Bernie Sanders’ first major 2020 Wash­ing­ton State cam­paign ral­ly live from the Taco­ma Dome. As the sta­di­um (which can hold almost 23,000 peo­ple in its max­i­mum con­fig­u­ra­tion) slow­ly starts to fill up, local artists have been keep­ing the stage warm – and get­ting the crowd that way too.

The evening’s enter­tain­ment was kicked off by rap­per, and Burien-native, Travis Thomp­son. After him, the voice of Stephanie Ann John­son and the Blues-Rock music of her band, the HiDogs echoed through the stadium.

We’ve been watch­ing as the stands slow­ly fill with atten­dees, and the age range of the crowd might come as a sur­prise to some pun­dits and observers.

While many sup­port­ers are in Sanders’ typ­i­cal demo­graph­ic – mil­len­ni­als – there are a good num­ber of seniors (as well as sev­er­al par­ents with small chil­dren) who have braved the cool Feb­ru­ary weath­er to be here on Pres­i­dents Day.

The excite­ment is slow­ly build­ing as we move clos­er to Por­tu­gal. The Man’s per­for­mance – there is a ris­ing hub­bub of con­ver­sa­tion, and the low­er stands on two sides of the sta­di­um have filled almost completely.

Moments ago, the Chair of the Puyallup Trib­al Coun­cil, David Bean, walked on stage, the first speak­er of the night, to enthu­si­as­tic applause from the crowd.

As he praised Sen­a­tor Sanders’ approach to the threat of cli­mate dam­age, the crowd engaged enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. Joined by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from tribes around the Pacif­ic North­west, Bean denounced Puget Sound Ener­gy’s local LNG facil­i­ty and invit­ed Bernie sup­port­ers to stand for a prayer spo­ken in Lushootseed.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Pacif­ic North­west tribes next plan to per­form a song in hon­or of miss­ing and mur­dered indige­nous women.

Stay with us as we bring you live cov­er­age of Bernie Sanders’ first major cam­paign event in Wash­ing­ton State dur­ing the 2020 cam­paign cycle.