Brian Sharp

@SharpRoc

With one week to go until the New York presidential primary, Bernie Sanders rallied supporters to show up in record numbers — telling a capacity crowd on Tuesday that with a large voter turnout "we're going to win."

"This is the political revolution," the Vermont senator said, touching off thunderous applause from the estimated 6,400 people who filled Bill Gray's Regional Iceplex in Brighton.

He spoke for about an hour, with a wide-ranging address that hit on familiar themes: guaranteed health care for all, a call for a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, making public colleges and universities tuition free, and reforming a "rigged economy" to restore the middle class.

During a later interview, he discussed helping minority businesses to address unemployment in the inner city, New York's SAFE Act and the need for "a revolution in mental health treatment in this country."

Sanders is the latest presidential candidate to visit the area during this unusual election year in which both the Republican and Democratic nominations are still in play. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was here last week. On the Republican side, Ohio Gov. John Kasich was here Saturday; GOP front-runner Donald Trump visited Sunday; and Sen.Ted Cruz of Texas is expected to hold a rally in the area on Friday.

Clinton still leads Sanders in New York by double digits (53 percent to 40 percent) in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. Trump, meanwhile leads with 55 percent of likely Republican voters, with Kasich at 20 percent, and Cruz at 19 percent.

► READ MORE: Sanders rally was logistical puzzle

The rallies are providing thousands of western New Yorkers with an experience many had only seen on television. Said Patty Preston, 41, an English teacher from Belfast, Allegany County, who hoisted a sign that read: "Teachers for Bernie": "It's the first chance we've had to have the candidates be this close to us." That excitement is spilling into her school, where students are wearing candidate T-shirts, recently held an election poll, and are writing papers about the election.

All this is new, she said. "It will be interesting to see how it goes once the primaries are over."

While Clinton and Trump sought to tailor their remarks to Rochester during their stump speeches, Sanders did not. He pledged, as he has in other stops around the state, to fight for a national ban on hydraulic fracturing, called action on climate change a "moral responsibility," and said he would use executive action if necessary to enact immigration reform.

He also promised to invest in inner cities, "instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires." In a later interview, he said his administration would review and likely increase federal contracting goals for small and disadvantaged businesses.

"What's most important is that you have to make sure that the federal money and the contracts that are out there go to those folks who need it the most," Sanders said.

Noting that youth unemployment and underemployment is highest among black people, he added: "If we want to put those young people to work, I think probably the most effective way is to provide support to small- and medium-sized African-American businesses."

Sanders said "there is no excuse" for the high levels of poverty, inadequate schools and lack of access to health care that exist in minority communities today: "This is America, and we cannot accept the status quo."

The rally drew a largely college-aged crowd, being held just off the Monroe Community College campus. Supporters chanted "Bernie! Bernie!" and hoisted signs that read, "Talk Bernie to me" or "Save the world, Bernie!"

Some, like Erik Mebust, 20, a junior at SUNY Geneseo, skipped class and arrived more than three hours early to see Sanders. Mebust wore a hoodie with the phrase "Taking back what's ours," and said Sanders has been "leading the conversation on income inequality before anyone heard of that issue."

Others, like Romell Reliford, 24, of Rochester and a junior at MCC, remained undecided, weighing Clinton's experience, being a one-time senator like Sanders, but also former Secretary of State, to Sanders' "fresh" approach. Beside him, Brittany Jordan, 20, who will graduate from MCC this semester, said she is the only one in her family backing Sanders, noting his history on civil rights and his attention to college students. The rest of her family backs Trump, she said.

► READ MORE: Sanders: 'Trump will not become president'

When Clinton stumped in upstate last week, she touted a $10 billion plan to bolster manufacturing.

"It might have helped before Hillary Clinton unveiled her manufacturing plan if she had not supported virtually every one of these trade agreements, which have cost us millions of decent paying jobs," Sanders said, referring specifically to agreements with Mexico and China, which he opposed.

Clinton's campaign responded in a statement that Sanders lacks a plan and a record on manufacturing while Clinton has both and "has underscored that it will be a priority as president."

For her part, Clinton this week ramped up criticism of Sanders on gun control, organizing an event dedicated to the subject on Monday in Port Washington, Nassau County. The focal point has been his Senate vote giving immunity to gun manufacturers.

Sanders notes his D-minus voting records from the National Rifle Association and long-standing opposition to assault weapons. Asked during the interview if New York's SAFE Act, considered one of the nation's toughest gun control measures, should be duplicated elsewhere, Sanders said, "states should have the right to do what they choose to do."

"Different communities will react differently. Different states will react differently" he said, while adding his support for President Obama's initiatives to tighten or expand existing regulations. "Being someone who comes from a state that has virtually no gun control, I think I am in a unique position to put together a consensus to make sure people in this country who should not have guns, do not have guns."

One provision of the SAFE Act established a database of people deemed too mentally unstable to carry firearms. While not addressing the New York law specifically, Sanders was asked and commented more broadly on reforms to ensure access to mental health care.

Sanders said that his call to guarantee health care comes with "the full understanding that mental health care is an integral part of what we should mean by health care."

"It is not just the need to provide treatment for the many, many people who are dealing with substance abuse or addiction," he said. "But also the thousands of people today ... who are walking the streets of America who are suicidal and/or homicidal. We need to make sure that people get the treatment that they need, when they need it, not six months from now.

"Bottom line is we need a revolution in mental health treatment in this country."

BDSHARP@Gannett.com

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