Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders' political rally in Seattle's Safeco Field on Friday showed a number of very notable things about the 2016 presidential elections. For one, it showed the candidate pushing his hardest yet to close the gap between him and current front-runner Hillary Clinton before the caucuses on Saturday.
Perhaps more significant, however, is that Sanders' rallies seem to be attracting more and more supporters over the months. Indeed, since beginning his campaign with near-marginal numbers, he has now closed in significantly on Clinton. His campaign alone drew more than 17,000 in Seattle, and his campaign also collected more than $140 million from about 2 million independent donors.
Currently, he still lags behind the powerful, yet controversial, female Democratic candidate, with Clinton having a delegate lead of 1,223 to 920 over Sanders. Once superdelegates are included, the gap could increase to 1,692 to 949.
Though such statistics are quite notable, the fact also remains that currently, Sanders' campaign is in a position that is far better than where he was months ago. Nevertheless, analysts believe that for Sanders to win the majority of delegates by June, he would need to win more than 67 percent of the remaining delegates overall.
With his campaign consistently closing in on Clinton's, and with Washington being a very important state in the battle between the two Democrats, Sanders urged his supporters to hear him speak on Saturday.
"Get there early. Let's have a record-breaking turnout," he said.
Clinton, for her part, is going for the win. In a speech in Everett, Washington this week, she urged her supporters to continue supporting her candidacy.
"I have gotten 2.6 million more votes than Bernie Sanders. We are on the path to the nomination, and I want Washington to be part of how we get there," she said.
For most of Sanders' supporters, however, such a thing would not happen. If any, most of Sanders' supporters state that only the veteran Democrat is capable of addressing the largest elephant in the presidential elections so far - the emergence of Republican Donald Trump.
Since announcing his candidacy last year, Trump has managed to keep a notable lead against his rivals through a series of controversial, albeit effective, strategies. However, his strong statements have also incited a lot of criticisms from the people that he targets in his campaigns, most of all include Latinos and Muslims, whom he all but promises to prosecute.
For Sanders' supporters, he is a much better matchup for Trump than Clinton is. After all, when it all comes down to records, Clinton's reputation has taken massive blows lately, with some voters already seeing her as the lesser evil compared to Trump, who grows more extreme and powerful by the day.
If there is one group that might very well make a difference in the elections, it would be those famous independents, who are noted to be a deciding factor for elections in the past. Among independents polled so far, or in battleground states, at least, Clinton has lost independents to Sanders by 35 to 40 points.
With the elections becoming more intense by the day, Sanders supporters are hoping that despite the relative lack of media coverage when it comes to the candidate's progress in his pursuit of the presidency, the Democrat would still win the all-important nomination this coming June.
After that, it would probably be against Trump.
