HAMPTON — U.S. Senator Al Franken said he agrees with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on almost every issue, but at the end of the day it’s Hillary Clinton who he supports to put into the White House this coming November.

“I love Bernie. I think what he’s doing, I think this has been good to get his ideas out there,” Franken said to a small group of Clinton canvassers in Hampton on Jan. 7, his third stop in the Seacoast that day. “But we need a progressive who can get elected, who can get things done. There are roles within the Senate… but the job for president, I feel that Hillary fits better.”

Franken, a Democratic senator from Minnesota since 2009, stopped into the home of Hampton Democratic leader Gary Patton to show support for Clinton before the Feb. 9 New Hampshire Primary. Patton was hosting a phone bank, making calls to gain votes for Clinton.

Franken said Clinton was the most experienced and tested candidate running for president. In an interview after his talk with canvassers, Franken said Clinton gathered that experience not only in the Senate and as secretary of state, but as first lady as well.

Franken cited her work on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children. SCHIP was an initiative of Clinton's when she was a first lady, and she worked with U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican, to pass the program through Congress. Franken commended her for her work ethic and ability to work across party lines.

“That was really significant,” Franken said. “And that was working in a bipartisan way.”

He also said Clinton gained experience watching her husband work for two terms as president. He said that’s experience no other candidate has in the 2016 election.

“She was there for eight years during the Clinton administration, did an awful lot,” Franken said. “There she saw very close firsthand what it means to be in the White House, what it means, what the job of president is. I think that experience... no one else has had in quite that way.”

Franken fielded one question from a canvasser about his own history, particularly how he changed his career as a writer for Saturday Night Live into a political one.

Franken said he’s always been politically minded, but as a writer on the hit television show that avoided political bias, he had no outlet to voice his opinions. It wasn’t until he left the show in 1995 that he decided to write his first political book, “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.” That book led to another book in 2003, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” as well as Air America, a liberal talk radio network that ran from 2004 to 2010.

Franken said he first seriously considered running for office shortly after U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, his home state, died in a 2002 plane crash. He said it was a statement in an interview by the senator who replaced Wellstone – Republican Norm Coleman – that inspired him to seek office.

“He said, ‘To be blunt, I’m a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone,’” Franken recalled. “And I said, ‘Hmm. Somebody should beat this guy.’”

Franken ran in 2008 against Coleman and won by just 312 votes. He said the close race taught him firsthand that every vote counts in an election.

In his interview after the talk with canvassers, Franken also touched on President Barack Obama’s Tuesday executive order to tighten loopholes on gun purchases. He said he can’t understand why Second Amendment proponents express outrage over attempts to tighten loopholes, saying the move is not an attempt to take away their right to bear arms.

“I don’t understand the objection to tightening the background checks,” Franken said. “It doesn’t in any way impinge on the rights of Americans under the second amendment. We have background checks now. This is just seeing to it that there aren’t these huge loopholes through which people who shouldn’t get guns (acquire them).”