Senator acknowledges setback but says he still intends to confront former vice-president in debate on Sunday

A defiant Bernie Sanders has vowed to stay in the Democratic 2020 presidential race, breaking his silence after Joe Biden secured a commanding lead on Tuesday night.

The Vermont senator faces increasingly long odds after the former vice-president notched a string of victories in Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and Michigan, a state that four years ago helped revive his insurgent challenge to Hillary Clinton.

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Conceding that Tuesday was “not a good night” for his candidacy, the second major setback in as many weeks, Sanders said his campaign was “strongly winning” the contest of ideas taking place within the Democratic party.

“It is not just the ideological debate that our progressive movement is winning,” he said on Wednesday during a press conference in Burlington, billed as a “campaign update”. “We are winning the generational debate.”

Rejecting mounting pressure from within the Democratic party to end his presidential bid, Sanders signaled that he had more to say in this weekend’s one-on-one debate with Biden.

“On Sunday, I very much look forward to the debate in Arizona with my friend Joe Biden,” Sanders said.

In his brief remarks, Sanders offered a frank assessment of the state of his campaign. He acknowledged that he is “losing the debate over electability” to a candidate many Democrats believe is better suited to defeating Donald Trump in November. But he is not without leverage, a point he made clearly on Wednesday.

In the upcoming debate, Sanders said he intended to confront the former vice-president on a number of issues from economic inequality to Medicare for All to the climate crisis that are priorities for his supporters.

“Joe, what are you gonna do?” Sanders repeated, previewing the series of questions he would ask Biden at the debate. “Are you really going to veto a Medicare for All bill if it is passed in Congress?” Sanders asked, referring to Biden’s comments on MSNBC earlier this week in which he cited costs as a reason he would not sign the legislation into law in the highly unlikely scenario such a proposal reached the president’s desk.

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Sanders did not soften his critique of the “Democratic establishment”, a foil in both of his presidential campaigns. Touting a number of polls that show Sanders’ ideas on health care and minimum wage are popular even among Americans who did not vote for him, Sanders implored the party to adopt these proposals and widen its appeal to the legions of young people who have flocked to his campaign.

“Today I say to the Democratic establishment: in order to win in the future you need to win the voters who represent the future of our country and you must speak to the issues of concern to them,” he said. “You cannot simply be satisfied by winning the votes of people who are older.”

The next few days will be critical for Sanders campaign, with Biden poised to build what could be an insurmountable lead in the coming contests, which are less favorable to the senator. A strong debate performance could boost Sanders’ standing ahead of consequential contests in Arizona, Illinois, Ohio and Florida, all states that he lost in 2016. But what he does next will also have implications for the progressive movement he has led since his unexpectedly vigorous challenge in 2016.

On Tuesday, Sanders returned to his home in Vermont after being forced to cancel an election night rally in Cleveland due to concern over the coronavirus. From Burlington, where he began his political career as mayor, he deliberated with his wife, Jane, and senior advisers and aides about the next steps for the campaign. He made no public comments on Tuesday, ceding the stage to his rival. Biden used the opportunity to extend an olive branch to Sanders and his supporters: “There’s a place in our campaign for each of you.”