Sen. Bernie Sanders outside his Burlington home in June Credit: File: Paul Heintz
He’ll give Trump a chance.

Hours after Hillary Clinton conceded to Donald Trump, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) vowed to work with the president-elect — under certain conditions.

The 75-year-old senator, who backed Clinton after losing a long-fought Democratic presidential primary, promised to play nice if Trump “is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country.”

Here’s Sanders’ full statement:

Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids — all while the very rich become much richer.

To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.

Sanders cast his ballot Tuesday morning at his polling place in Burlington’s New North End. He wasn’t heard from again until his office released a statement reacting to the results around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. Trump gave a victory speech shortly after 3 a.m., while Clinton gave her concession speech late Wednesday morning.

Even though Sanders didn’t appear on the presidential ballot, his ultra-blue home state still found a way to honor him: Some 17,590 Vermont voters, and counting, wrote in his name. That was approximately 5.5 percent of the statewide tally — more than the total for Libertarian Gary Johnson.

Updated at 4:05 p.m. November 10, 2016, to reflect the updated tally of write-in votes for Sanders. Results still unofficial. (and not all write-in ballots have been counted.)

Related Stories

Got something to say?

Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!

Sasha Goldstein is Seven Days' deputy news editor.

13 replies on “Sanders Breaks His Silence on Trump’s Election”

  1. Consult Federalist #68. I now favor the nullification, by the Electoral College, of the results of this election.

  3. Has anyone asked Sanders about the Podesta email leak that indicated there was an ‘Agreement’ between Sanders and Clinton’s campaigns? There was a thread released last week where Bernie was using the term ‘hustle’ to describe what Hillary was doing with the Wall Street Banks and Clinton’s campaign was upset and talked to Podesta about using the ‘leverage’ they had on Sanders to get him to stop disparaging the Queen. Mention was made of getting ‘Welch’ on it:

    From:re47@hillaryclinton.com
    To: john.podesta@gmail.com
    Date: 2015-05-26 12:04
    Subject: Fwd: Sanders criticism

    This isn’t in keeping w the agreement. Since we clearly have some
    leverage, would be good to flag this for him. I could send a signal via
    Welch–or did you establish a direct line w him?

  4. Bernie is a sell out. If he had really wanted to lead this country he would have just run as an independent and not become a Democrat puppet. If he had stayed truly independent he would be the next POTUS, but he showed his true colors and sold out. I hope he and his thieving wife are enjoying their new lake house paid for with money from the Clinton Foundation. Well now he will go back to doing nothing in D.C.. Thanks for nothing Bernie.

  5. It’s hard to know where to start a reply to the comments so far — first, if one assumes was the Bernie wanted to change federal policies, rather than just be The Leader, then what he did — move the Democratic party platform to the Left, was exactly what he meant to do. He could do that only by running as a Democrat. Second, he knows that an independent will never be elected President. It would have been a wasted run, and he would never have been in the televised debates or be able to build the excitement he did, by challenging the Dem. Third, their lake house has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation! Sheesh, conspiracies beyond conspiracies. Fourth, I would like to encourage people to cut back on “exaggerations.” EG: “a candidate nobody wanted,” “doing nothing,” “she never,” “he always.” These cut off meaningful discussion and debate, by staking an extreme position (which ofttimes is just incorrect anyway.) For example, by saying Clinton was “a candidate nobody wanted,” you are isolating, ignoring, and marginalizing people whom you might want as allies. If we are to rebuild ourselves after this brutal defeat, we need to quit demonizing our brothers and sisters on the Left. We have to start somewhere building the Resistance.

  6. “A candidate nobody wanted” is a hyperbole to make a greater point. Of course some people were happy with Hillary as a candidate. I’d wager a dozen donuts that far more voted for her because of fear of Trump. The DNC did not accurately take the pulse of its constituents before deciding on Hillary Clinton as the democratic representative. The DNC didn’t even wait to see who the other choices were going to be before deciding on Hillary Clinton. That’s what isolated, ignored, and marginalized people who might otherwise have voted for a democratic nominee.

  7. Mark Lade – Candidate that nobody wanted? Hmmmm… Apparently 3 million more people wanted Clinton during the primary than wanted Sanders and, the last report that I saw, she was leading in the popular vote I’m thinking that obviously many people wanted her. So, want to come up with something else to whinge about? Personally, I think that the Clinton campaign was able to withstand meddling in the election by the FBI, the Russian Government and Wikileaks is astounding and a pretty strong indicator that she had heavy duty support.

  8. Bernie was the Democrats’ sheepdog in this election. There’s always one progressive who sells out their ideas to win (the “spoiler” phenomenon). And then the Dems gobble him/her and their supporters into the gut of the corporate political status quo. He could have done good things, but instead cozies up to the establishment. Clearly, voters saw that Clinton was not the choice for everyday people and is the penultimate 1%-er.

  9. It’s politically incorrect to be white,MIDDLE aged, blue collar in the eyes of DNC. 20 years is too long. Good riddance-you reap what you sow.

  10. Instead of a resistance why not start working with everyone to rebuild our country into the shinning city on the hill the framers of this country envisioned. Trump won fare and square and if we don’t work together as a unified people our country will fail no matter who our leader is. The Dems. had 8 years to put their plans into effect and only left the citizens of this country deep in debt (20 trillion) and now deeply devided. Maybe it’s time to try a new path. Ask your self what can it hurt to try a new path at this time. Trump is not the monster the corrupt media has made him out to be. It’s time to heal and give him a chance to make real change. It’s time to replace the hate in our hearts and replace it with hope. Hope for a better America.

  11. One side note maybe Bernies house is not a gift from the Clintons but how does ” the poorest Senator in the country ” own multiple properties around the country? He must have just become greedy like the rest of the Washington elite and forgot that they work for the citizens of this country to make the citizens life better not make themselves rich. Maybe he will have a house warming party and invite all Vermonters to share in his poverty.

  12. I thought today that if Bernie had trusted us “the people” he might have run as an Independent and won. But he wouldn’t have gotten media coverage except repeating over and over that he was allowing Trump to win.
    We loved him and still do but he called it wrong. We would have worked hard this time and dug deep in our pockets for him. He never knew how much we loved him and wanted him to take
    us to power.
    Nation states don’t work.They’re all about war. I feel sorry for everyone and pray for everything. God, Donald Trump the Hitler loving shithead that he is can tap my fucking phone.

Comments are closed.