HUDSON, N.H. — Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is angry.

He admitted it in front of about 500 people in Hudson, N.H. on Friday, 18 days before Granite Staters hit the polls.

The Vermont senator is angry because “we’re living in a rigged economy.”

“There has been a redistribution of wealth in America. The problem is it’s going in the wrong direction,” Sanders said at Hudson Memorial School’s gym during Friday’s rally, as hundreds of enthusiastic supporters waved signs with the slogan, “A Future To Believe In.”

“It’s been redistributed to the top one-tenth of the 1 percent,” he added. “We need to make sure the redistribution of wealth goes in the right direction for the middle class.”

The rally included his typical calls for free tuition at public colleges, universal healthcare, breaking up the banks, raising the minimum wage, legislation for family and medical leave, attacking global warming head on, investing in infrastructure, and overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decision — which allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections.

“We need to transform our economy, and transform our political system,” he said. “And that’s what this campaign is all about.”

Just a little more than a week ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Sanders is now beating Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton in Iowa, according to a new CNN/ORC poll — a role reversal from December when Clinton had a significant lead there.

He’s also overtaken her in New Hampshire.

But could Sanders win a general election against the eventual Republican nominee? There are doubters saying he cannot make it to the White House, but a Sanders’ supporter quickly rejected that notion at the start of Friday’s rally.

“Bulls***,” the supporter shouted out as Sanders talked about his critics. Fans applauded her sentiment.

“That sounds like a highly technical sociological term,” Sanders responded to his supporter, as attendees laughed. “But I concur… The reason we can win a national election is this is the campaign that’s arousing the American people.”

Sanders touted that 2.5 million individual contributors have already donated to his campaign, and the average contribution is $27.

“This is a campaign of the people, by the people and for the people,” he said.

In addition to his typical verbiage, Sanders touched on the opiate crisis crippling Greater Lowell and beyond.

“It’s in your state (New Hampshire), and my state as well. It’s growing all over the country,” he said. “It’s a health issue, not a criminal issue.”

His economic analysis about the redistribution of wealth going in the wrong direction makes perfect sense, said Jim Nehring, an Ayer resident attending Friday’s rally with his wife and daughter.

“He talks the talk, and he walks the walk,” added Nehring, a UMass Lowell professor, pointing out that Sanders is not taking money from SuperPACs.

Sanders is the most sincere politician that John Poltrack has ever come across.

“(Donald) Trump is always using ‘I’ when speaking, but you don’t hear that from Bernie,” said Poltrack, from New Ipswich, N.H. “He says, ‘We,’ because this is a movement. He can’t do this alone.

“All these young people need to come out and vote to get it done,” he added.

The Kinder Morgan pipeline would go through Poltrack’s town. He was pleased when Sanders recently said he opposed the project.

Follow Rick Sobey on Twitter and Tout @rsobeyLSun.