Sanders ad touts opposition to 'big oil companies'

Bernie Sanders is out with a new TV ad in Iowa, touting his stance against the proposed Bakken oil pipeline, a controversial 1,100-mile, $3.8 billion pipeline that would run across the state and connect oil fields in South Dakota with facilities in Illinois.

The ad features two Iowa farmers, Patti Edwardson and George Naylor, talking about the pipeline and how Sanders is fighting against it.


“The fact that Bernie Sanders stands up against the pipeline is one of the reasons we support him,” Edwardson says. “Bernie Sanders has just the guts to stand up for what he believes in,” she continues.

Naylor says that Sanders “didn’t hesitate to say no to the big oil companies” — a reference, perhaps, to Clinton's months of silence on the Keystone XL Pipeline, which she eventually said she opposed.

Clinton leads Sanders by 4 percentage points in the current RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley trailing badly behind. Her lead in the state was around 30 percentage points at its peak in early November.