Bernie Sanders ends his 2020 presidential campaign in livestreamed address

Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders of Ver­mont, who has helped ele­vate pro­gres­sive ideas to a high­er plane by mount­ing two suc­ces­sive cam­paigns for the pres­i­den­cy, announced today that he will no longer be seek­ing the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion. In a livestreamed address from Burling­ton, Sanders said he had con­clud­ed there was no path to vic­to­ry and acknowl­edged his rival, Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, as the par­ty’s pre­sump­tive nominee.

Despite choos­ing to end his cam­paign, Sanders said he would remain active in fight­ing for all of the caus­es he and sup­port­ers care so deeply about. As a Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor, Sanders is well posi­tioned to con­tin­ue to cham­pi­on good ideas the coun­try needs, like Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, and free college.

Said Sanders:

“I have con­clud­ed that this bat­tle for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion will not be suc­cess­ful. So today I’m announc­ing the sus­pen­sion of my campaign.”

“Please know that I do not make this deci­sion light­ly,” he emphasized.

“In fact, it has been a very dif­fi­cult and painful deci­sion. Over the past few weeks, Jane and I, in con­sul­ta­tion with top staff and many of our promi­nent sup­port­ers, have made an hon­est assess­ment of the prospects for victory.”

“If I believed we had a fea­si­ble path to the nom­i­na­tion, I would cer­tain­ly con­tin­ue the cam­paign. But it’s just not there.”

“I know there may be some in our move­ment who dis­agree with this deci­sion, who would like us to fight on until the last bal­lot cast at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion. I under­stand that posi­tion,” Sanders continued.

“But as I see the cri­sis grip­ping the nation, exac­er­bat­ed by a pres­i­dent unwill­ing or unable to pro­vide any kind of cred­i­ble lead­er­ship and the work that needs to be done to pro­tect peo­ple in this most des­per­ate hour, I could not in good con­science con­tin­ue to mount a cam­paign that can­not not win and which would inter­fere with the impor­tant work required by all of us in this dif­fi­cult hour.”

You can watch Bernie’s address in its entire­ty below.

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden respond­ed quick­ly with a lengthy state­ment prais­ing his for­mer rival and empha­siz­ing that he won’t take Sanders vot­ers’ sup­port for grant­ed. (A few of Sanders’ sup­port­ers are not Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers and have made it clear they aren’t inter­est­ed in sup­port­ing Biden under any circumstances.)

Here is that statement:

Today, Sen­a­tor Sanders announced he was sus­pend­ing his cam­paign. Bernie has put his heart and soul into not only run­ning for Pres­i­dent, but for the caus­es and issues he has been ded­i­cat­ed to his whole life.

So, I know how hard a deci­sion this was for him to make — and how hard it is for the mil­lions of his sup­port­ers — espe­cial­ly younger vot­ers — who have been inspired and ener­gized and brought into pol­i­tics by the pro­gres­sive agen­da he has championed.

Bernie has done some­thing rare in pol­i­tics. He hasn’t just run a polit­i­cal cam­paign; he’s cre­at­ed a move­ment. And make no mis­take about it, I believe it’s a move­ment that is as pow­er­ful today as it was yes­ter­day. That’s a good thing for our nation and our future.

Sen­a­tor Sanders and his sup­port­ers have changed the dia­logue in Amer­i­ca. Issues which had been giv­en lit­tle atten­tion — or lit­tle hope of ever pass­ing — are now at the cen­ter of the polit­i­cal debate. Income inequal­i­ty, uni­ver­sal health care, cli­mate change, free col­lege, reliev­ing stu­dents from the crush­ing debt of stu­dent loans. These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his sup­port­ers have giv­en life to. And while Bernie and I may not agree on how we might get there, we agree on the ulti­mate goal for these issues and many more.

But more than any one issue or set of issues, I want to com­mend Bernie for being a pow­er­ful voice for a fair­er and more just Amer­i­ca. It’s voic­es like Bernie’s that refuse to allow us to just accept what is — that refuse to accept we can’t change what’s wrong in our nation — that refuse to accept the health and well-being of our fel­low cit­i­zens and our plan­et isn’t our respon­si­bil­i­ty too. Bernie gets a lot of cred­it for his pas­sion­ate advo­ca­cy for the issues he cares about. But he doesn’t get enough cred­it for being a voice that forces us all to take a hard look in the mir­ror and ask if we’ve done enough.

While the Sanders cam­paign has been sus­pend­ed — its impact on this elec­tion and on elec­tions to come is far from over. We will address the exis­ten­tial cri­sis of cli­mate change. We will con­front income inequal­i­ty in our nation. We will make sure health­care is afford­able and acces­si­ble to every Amer­i­can. We will make edu­ca­tion at our pub­lic col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties free. We will ease the bur­den of stu­dent debt. And, most impor­tant of all, we will defeat Don­ald Trump.

At this moment, we are in the mid­dle of an unprece­dent­ed cri­sis in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. There is enor­mous fear and pain and loss being felt all across the coun­try. There are also untold sto­ries of hero­ism — of nurs­es and health care work­ers and doc­tors and first respon­ders and gro­cery store work­ers and truck dri­vers and so many oth­ers on the front lines of this cri­sis. Putting their own lives in dan­ger for the rest of us. If we didn’t know it before, we know it now: This is the back­bone of our nation.

Our first job is to get through the imme­di­ate cri­sis threat­en­ing the pub­lic health and get­ting into the pock­ets of America’s work­ers. But we also need to take a hard look at what we need to fix and change in this coun­try. Many of the biggest cracks in the social safe­ty net have been laid bare — from health care to paid sick leave to a more exten­sive and com­pre­hen­sive sys­tem of unem­ploy­ment benefits.

We will need to address these. Just as we need to address rebuild­ing our nation’s infra­struc­ture. And we all know — the clock is tick­ing — we don’t have a moment to waste in com­bat­ing the cli­mate crisis.

As friends, Jill and I want to say to Bernie and Jane, we know how hard this is. You have put the inter­est of the nation — and the need to defeat Don­ald Trump — above all else. And for that Jill and I are grate­ful. But we also want you to know: I’ll be reach­ing out to you. You will be heard by me. As you say: Not me, Us.

And to your sup­port­ers I make the same com­mit­ment: I see you, I hear you, and I under­stand the urgency of what it is we have to get done in this coun­try. I hope you will join us.

You are more than wel­come. You’re needed.

Togeth­er we will defeat Don­ald Trump. And when we do that, we’ll not only do the hard work of rebuild­ing this nation — we’ll trans­form it.

DNC Chair Tom Perez also issued a state­ment prais­ing both Sanders and Biden, who is as of today offi­cial­ly con­sid­ered to be the pre­sump­tive nominee.

This pri­ma­ry has been one of the most inclu­sive and trans­par­ent in our party’s his­to­ry. It has show­cased the best of our par­ty, and I’m so inspired by all of our can­di­dates. All of them brought integri­ty to this con­test. All of them brought tal­ent, dri­ve, and enthusiasm.

And most impor­tant­ly, all of them showed an unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to improv­ing the lives of the Amer­i­can people.

I want to con­grat­u­late Vice Pres­i­dent Biden and his team on their vic­to­ry, and I also want to con­grat­u­late Sen­a­tor Sanders and his team on theirs. His ener­gy, ideas, and lead­er­ship have strength­ened our Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, and we need Sen­a­tor Sanders and his team to con­tin­ue lead­ing in this fight.

Now it’s time to come togeth­er and unite around our pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee. It’s time to fin­ish the job and send Joe Biden to the White House. For more than half a cen­tu­ry, Joe Biden has fought for the under­dog – from lift­ing up work­ers and mid­dle-class fam­i­lies, to pro­tect­ing sur­vivors of domes­tic abuse through the land­mark Vio­lence Against Women Act, to lead­ing the fight against the NRA and the gun lob­by in the Unit­ed States Senate.

And as labor sec­re­tary under Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, I got to see Vice Pres­i­dent Biden’s invalu­able lead­er­ship first­hand as he helped to lift our econ­o­my out of a reces­sion, res­cue the auto indus­try from col­lapse, and expand health care cov­er­age for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans, includ­ing those with pre­ex­ist­ing conditions.

Joe Biden is Don­ald Trump’s worst night­mare. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Even Trump’s own advi­sors have admit­ted Trump is ter­ri­fied of run­ning against Vice Pres­i­dent Biden.

The choice for the Amer­i­can peo­ple could not be clear­er: Don­ald Trump is a man of chaos and cru­el­ty; Joe Biden is a man of char­ac­ter and com­pas­sion. Don­ald Trump has failed every test of pres­i­den­tial lead­er­ship and bro­ken just about every promise he’s made, includ­ing dur­ing this pub­lic health cri­sis; Joe Biden has a decades-long record of deliv­er­ing results for the Amer­i­can people.

Now more than ever, we need a change in lead­er­ship to get our coun­try on the right track. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has laid bare the utter incom­pe­tence, inex­pe­ri­ence, and inef­fec­tive­ness of Don­ald Trump. His fail­ure to pre­pare for this cri­sis and to lis­ten to health experts has cost peo­ple their jobs, their sav­ings, and even their lives. In times of cri­sis, we need a pres­i­dent with the expe­ri­ence and empa­thy to lead the way for­ward. We need Joe Biden.

The Amer­i­can peo­ple know the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has their back.

They know Democ­rats are the only par­ty fight­ing to pro­tect their health care, their jobs, their homes, and their future.

They know Democ­rats are the only par­ty fight­ing to end gun vio­lence, com­bat cli­mate change, and pro­tect repro­duc­tive rights.

They know Democ­rats are the only par­ty who will give them a fair shake – no mat­ter what they look like, where they come from, who they love, or how they pray. That’s why they’re ready to elect Joe Biden as the next pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

As a 2016 Bernie Sanders nation­al del­e­gate, I con­grat­u­late Bernie on hav­ing once again run a classy cam­paign that was pow­ered by ideas and grass­roots con­tri­bu­tions. The cam­paign did not secure the nom­i­na­tion, but that does­n’t mean it was not suc­cess­ful. A cam­paign does not need to ful­fill its ulti­mate and over­rid­ing objec­tive to be vic­to­ri­ous because it can have more than one objective.

As a strate­gist and a long-term thinker, I don’t eval­u­ate cam­paigns sole­ly on the basis of whether they result in an elec­toral vic­to­ry. It is pos­si­ble to win just by run­ning. Just by con­tend­ing. Just by show­ing up. It matters.

Bernie’s slo­gan has long been #Not­MeUs.

If ever there was a cam­paign that had more than one objec­tive, it was this one.

At its heart, Bernie’s cam­paign has always been about trans­form­ing the coun­try and rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing grass­roots pol­i­tics (which, inci­den­tal­ly, is the NPI mot­to.) As Bernie said in his remarks, his cam­paign is a cam­paign that was fun­da­men­tal­ly about the future. It sought to build a mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional, mul­ti-racial move­ment for sore­ly need­ed change. And it has affect­ed the tra­jec­to­ry of Amer­i­can politics.

That mat­ters. Like Bernie said, pro­gres­sive ideas that weren’t con­sid­ered “main­stream” just a few years ago are now increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar and cred­i­ble. That did­n’t hap­pen by acci­dent. It took hard work and perseverance.

Over the course of two pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, Bernie Sanders has reshaped Demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics and the wider Amer­i­can polit­i­cal landscape.

One way to put the impact that Sanders has had in its prop­er per­spec­tive is to think back to what Amer­i­can pol­i­tics was like in 2014, the year before the Sen­a­tor announced his first cam­paign. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was dis­in­te­grat­ing almost every­where and its per­for­mance in the 2014 midterms was abysmal.

Vot­er turnout was declin­ing. The pow­er­ful coali­tion that had car­ried Barack Oba­ma into the White House in 2008 had van­ished as a polit­i­cal force, with omi­nous impli­ca­tions for the par­ty’s per­for­mance in the ensu­ing 2016 cycle.

Into the void stepped Bernie Sanders. He declared that nom­i­na­tions should not be coro­na­tions, and he said that he would run for Pres­i­dent in order to give Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers a choice. And he did exact­ly that, to the aston­ish­ment of many jour­nal­ists and pun­dits who did not take him seri­ous­ly at first.

The 2016 Sanders cam­paign helped lay the ground­work for the rebirth of Demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics in the ash­es of the cat­a­stroph­ic loss­es of 2016.

The 2020 Sanders cam­paign affirmed that pro­gres­sive ideas were here to stay, car­ry­ing for­ward the work of the 2016 campaign.

It was evi­dent from the very first 2020 debates that the 2016 Sanders cam­paign had influ­enced the ideas of almost every­one in the entire Demo­c­ra­t­ic field this cycle. The total lack of inter­est in the cam­paigns of can­di­dates like John Delaney, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­torate’s emphat­ic rejec­tion of Michael Bloomberg’s can­di­da­cy, has demon­strat­ed that Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers don’t want a rich, unapolo­getic neolib­er­al or for­mer Repub­li­can as the head of the party.

What lega­cy will Sanders’ 2020 cam­paign leave? It’s hard to know exact­ly at this junc­ture, as the cam­paign has only just come to an end. With the pas­sage of time, it will be eas­i­er to dis­cern what effects it has had on Amer­i­can politics.

But I believe the Sanders cam­paign will be judged favor­ably and kind­ly by his­to­ri­ans and schol­ars and oth­ers who study Amer­i­can politics.

I imag­ine a great many Bernie Sanders sup­port­ers are feel­ing dis­ap­point­ed right now. Maybe even heart­bro­ken. And it’s okay to feel that. Real­ly, it is.

But dis­ap­point­ment should also be mixed with pride. And hap­pi­ness. Again, this cam­paign can­not and should not be mea­sured sole­ly by whether it secured a pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion because it was always about so much more than that.

It’s tempt­ing, on a day like today, to feel like pick­ing up your ball and going home. But, if you sup­port­ed Bernie Sanders and tru­ly believe this coun­try needs a polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion, then your path for­ward is clear. You owe it to your­self and the com­mu­ni­ty you’re a part of to con­tin­ue your polit­i­cal involvement.

And there are many ways in which you can do that.

For instance, you can join an exist­ing pro­gres­sive non­prof­it like this one. (We’re recruit­ing for sev­er­al staff posi­tions!) You can build new pro­gres­sive infra­struc­ture in your com­mu­ni­ty. Or, you can remain focused on elec­toral pol­i­tics and piv­ot to work­ing on a down­bal­lot cam­paign. There are a lot of can­di­dates run­ning for oth­er offices who would like your time, tal­ent, and treasure.

On the elec­toral front, think about how many posi­tions the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States elect in a giv­en four year peri­od. We don’t just choose slates of elec­tors for the Elec­toral Col­lege every four years. We elect Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors. Gov­er­nors. Attor­neys gen­er­al. Sec­re­taries of state. State leg­is­la­tors. May­ors. City coun­cilmem­bers. Coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers. School board mem­bers. Even judges and jus­tices in many states are elected.

If you have enjoyed see­ing Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez, Rashi­da Tlaib, Ayan­na Press­ley, and Ilhan Omar at work in Con­gress for the last fif­teen months, then con­sid­er com­mit­ting your­self to get­ting more can­di­dates like them elect­ed. It’s a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year, but again, there’s so much more that is on the ballot.

While this orga­ni­za­tion does not endorse can­di­dates or engage in elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any can­di­date — it’s out­side the scope of what we do at NPI — I per­son­al­ly want to defeat Don­ald Trump this autumn, so I’ll be vot­ing for Joe Biden with­out reser­va­tion, and I encour­age every­one else to do the same.

But I don’t just want to win the Elec­toral Col­lege this year. I want to see vic­to­ries for Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates and pro­gres­sive caus­es up and down the ballot.

Being able to reflect and take stock is an impor­tant skill. Bernie Sanders set a real­ly good exam­ple for his sup­port­ers today with his remarks with­draw­ing from the race. He was thought­ful and con­tem­pla­tive. The Sen­a­tor did not trash Joe Biden, or say he could nev­er sup­port him. He did not say he was exit­ing pol­i­tics, or ceas­ing his involve­ment in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Quite the opposite.

Fol­low the exam­ple he is set­ting if you want to be a leader who gets results.

As he said: “Let us go for­ward togeth­er. The strug­gle continues.”