Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Sunday dismissed criticism that he isn't capable of winning a general election, saying he could take on Republican front-runner Donald Trump and "beat him badly." Appearing on NBC's Meet The Press, Sanders responded to comments by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who called the Vermont senator unelectable.
"Well, what I say to her is that if she would look at the matchups that are taking place between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump right now, she would find that we were 15 points ahead of him nationally," said Sanders, according NBC News. He added: "In tossup states, battleground states like Iowa and New Hampshire, we are even further ahead of him," he added.
Sanders also pointed out how he believes his message, compared to Trump's, resonates with the overwhelming majority of Americans.
"I would very much look forward to a race against Donald Trump, a guy who does not want to raise the minimum wage, but wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the two two-tenths of one percent who thins wages in America are too high and who thinks that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese," he said, according to RealClear Politics.
Those proclivities, according to Sanders, will translate into a win if the two were to face off in the general election -- something the self-proclaimed socialist desperately welcomes. "There is nothing more in this world that I would like to take on more than Donald Trump," he added, according to The Hill. "We would beat him, and we would beat him badly."
In recent polling, Sanders is ahead in a head-to-head match-up with Donald Trump, with the Vermont senator garnering 46.8 percent support over the billionaire businessman, who has 41.5 percent, according to averages compiled by RealClear Politics.
