Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

jfitzgib@lohud.com

Through early January, reporters will be looking back at and following up on stories and topics that were the most popular with our readers in 2016, according to metrics on lohud.com. This story is part of that series.

For Roger Fox, the Bernie Sanders revolution didn't end with the presidential primaries, nor even at the Democratic National Convention or Election Day.

In fact, Fox, executive director of Westchester 4 Bernie, says the effort is still going.

The 58-year-old Harrison resident was among the Lower Hudson Valley residents swept up in Sanders' run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now, they continue a grassroots push of his reform agenda — even after Sanders lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton and billionaire Donald Trump won the White House.

"I think we all understood that this was never going to be a lock as far as Hillary winning," Fox said. “So, my emotions were, ‘Oh damn. She is going to lose.' But then the next morning, it was like, ‘Alright, who are we going to get to run for county leg in 2017? What towns can we get candidates for town council or city council?’ And, ‘Where can we fill district leader vacancies in my town and in Westchester County?’ ”

LOOK BACK: Primaries off to quick start

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Sanders' primary loss posed a dilemma for many Sanders supporters. Fox said he still voted for Sanders as a write-in candidate on Election Day, while some interviewed for this report said they didn't vote at all and others said they voted and even campaigned for Clinton.

Now, they all seem to agree that Sanders' progressive agenda is their best response to Trump's victory.

"We got inspired by Bernie" said Gina Ironside, a Sanders supporter from Tappan. “The Democratic Party needs to listen to the grass roots and not be top-down anymore. These are the kinds of things that the Bernie supporters, they believe in and they’re motivated to take action. So, absolutely this is not all for naught.”

And it's hardly just a local phenomenon.

'It really took off'

Two national splinter groups from the Sanders campaign have continued to gain momentum: Brand New Congress and Our Revolution.

Last Sunday, more than 20 grassroots groups inspired by his campaign gathered at the former Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan for the inaugural conference of the New York Progressive Action Network, a statewide group that will push the Sanders platform in the Empire State.

“It’s kind of like, ‘What would Bernie do?’ Well, Bernie would stay active. Bernie would continue the revolution," said Ray Russell of Yonkers, a volunteer organizer for the Sanders campaign. “It was a huge lesson in civics for a lot of people, and it’s a huge lesson in how to get personally involved with politics and how you should stay involved."

The Brooklyn-born Sanders officially launched his presidential campaign in May 2015. He quickly roused the political passions of voters who had come to feel disillusioned with the political party machine and wanted an alternative to Clinton, former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State.

Sanders shunned corporate campaign contributions and raised millions through small, individual contributions from supporters. He spoke of income equality, the influence of big money in politics and of climate change. His agenda resonated with voters ranging from young and first-time millennial voters, to baby boomers who got their political feet wet during George McGovern's 1972 presidential run.

Sanders also appealed to supporters of the Occupy movement, a series of worldwide protests against social and income inequality that grew out of a 2011 demonstration in New York City's financial district known as Occupy Wall Street.

“The Occupy movement really changed the level of political discourse in the country back to income inequality, but people felt it wasn’t politically feasible," said Steven White, a Sanders supporter from Spring Valley. “Bernie showed that, yes, it is politically feasible and practical to run on a platform of correcting income inequality. And that’s when it really took off."

He drew thousands to rallies in New York, including a March 31 event at St. Mary's Park in the Bronx that kicked off his primary campaign. Sanders spent an estimated $6.8 million on his campaign in the Empire State, the most of any campaign on either side of the aisle.

But when the votes were tallied after the April 19 New York primary, Clinton won the state with 58 percent of the Democratic vote, as well as the vote in the Lower Hudson Valley — including 67 percent of the ballot in Westchester and 60 percent in Rockland.

To vote or not to vote

After Clinton won the nomination, many Sanders supporters remained active in the campaign and voted for Clinton, although grudgingly in some cases.

On Election Day, Clinton won New York state over Trump with 58 percent of the vote. But despite losing his home state, Trump went on to win the presidency with 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232, although Clinton won the popular vote.

For many Sanders supporters, it was a tough pill to swallow.

"By Election Day, I was so deflated and disgusted that I almost didn’t bother to vote," said Carolyn Forbes, a Sanders supporter from Rye. "But, in the end, I voted for (Green Party candidate) Jill Stein, as did my husband."

Forbes said her son, a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., was so discouraged that he didn't bother to vote. She said that after the election her son received an email blast form the university offering students grief counseling.

Sarah Aftergood, a recent Skidmore College graduate from New Rochelle, said she was "completely disheartened" by the outcome of the Democratic primaries. But she was among the Sanders supporters who did vote for Clinton in the general election.

"Do I think Bernie would have been elected had he won the Democratic nomination? Yes," said Aftergood, who is now studying in Denmark. "But like Bernie has been saying, that is a moot point. What is important now is that all the people who supported Bernie continue to push forward in trying to reform the system."

Ironside, the Sanders supporter from Tappan, said she continued to campaign for the Democratic party after the primaries and even "eagerly" voted for Clinton on Election Day. But she conceded that many others in the Sanders camp "really, really had to try very hard to get themselves to vote for her.”

“What I’ve learned through this process is how very vulnerable the election system is," she said. "All the people that I met and worked with during Bernie’s campaign, they’ve been working on these things for a long time. But many of were so inspired by Bernie that it really activated us. And now we’re not giving up."

After Bernie

Fox, the Westchester 4 Bernie director, was back at the Harrison Public Library on Dec. 1, in the same conference room where the Sanders campaign held a strategy session for local volunteers nearly seven months earlier. So many showed up that the meeting was moved to a bigger conference room.

This time, the small room was more than sufficient, with Fox, Russell, the Yonkers volunteer, and Jason Mandella, a New Rochelle organizer for Sanders, sitting alongside stacks of campaign posters and literature as they discussed the race.

“I supported Hillary after the convention, but I wasn’t shocked at all," Mandella said. "It was always a possibility.”

Mandella said he was surprised at how inefficient the Clinton ground game was compared to the well-organized Sanders primary campaign he helped run locally.

Russell won't say who he voted for, saying only that it was one of the two women on the ballot — Clinton or Stein. He said he was loosely involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement and President Barrack Obama's 2012 campaign. But Sanders lured him into politics full-bore: He went to work on state Sen. George Lattimer's campaign after the primaries, helping the Rye Democrat win re-election.

“It’s something that Sanders said and something that I believe in: It’s not a spectator sport," he said. "You have to actually get involved and you’re supposed to get involved.”

As for Fox, he said he's already working with local campaigns, starting with races in his hometown of Harrison. It's been years and miles since he was a 14-year-old volunteer for George McGovern in 1972, and his first paid campaign position for John Kerry in Florida in 2004.

"I've been running my own personal revolution since 2004," he said.

It's a revolution, all three contend, that's really just getting underway.

“I think it’s just a matter of time before the right politician is going to step into Bernie’s place, or where Bernie takes this on again, or whatever it’s going to be," Mandella said. "The fire’s sort of been lit.”

Twitter: @jfitzgibbon