Vermont senator and prospective Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders has admitted that his campaign is currently lagging behind that of Hillary Clinton among African-American voters, but said that he saw “a real path” to winning the community’s support.

He has also drawn personal distinctions between himself and the former secretary of state, telling the Wall Street Journal that Clinton’s changing stance on issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal “does speak to the character of a person”. Sanders also said that despite his outburst at the first Democratic debate that everyone was “sick and tired” of hearing about the former secretary of state’s emails, he thought questions about her private server were “valid”.



“There’s an investigation going on right now. I did not say, ‘End the investigation,’” he said. “That’s silly. ... Let the investigation proceed unimpeded.”

Speaking to NPR’s Morning Edition on Thursday, Sanders said that “if the election were held today … just among the African-American vote, we would lose.” This is because he is “just not yet well-known” in the community, Sanders said.

“People will tell you that – it’s just the simple truth,” he said. “We have to do a better job of … discussing my record, which in the US Congress is one of the strongest records in terms of civil rights.”

Sanders said that “the African-American community and the Latino community are struggling, in a nation in which our middle class is struggling”. He pointed to America’s high incarceration rate as being “disproportionately black and Latino”.



“So I think the issues we are focussing on, rebuilding the economy, and in the process creating up to 13m decent-paying jobs, many of those jobs will be for minority communities,” Sanders continued. “Making public colleges and university tuition free will benefit everyone in America, but even more so in the African-American community.”



Pressed by Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep to explain his having voted for the infamous 1994 omnibus crime bill, which added a host of mandatory minimum sentences and is known to have contributed to a precipitous rise in the incarcerated population, Sanders admitted that “yes of course” the higher penalties in the bill were a mistake. He defended his vote, however, saying that “sometimes, [with omnibus bills], everything but the kitchen sink is in it”.



Sanders said his campaign has come “a very, very long way” since it began six months ago, and contrasted his contest with Hillary Clinton against the Republican primary race. “I do not want this to look like the Republican campaign, where it looks like a food-fight and they look like children,” he said.



In his interview with NPR, Sanders also highlighted that he had chosen not to have a Super Pac, and struck out at Clinton for taking donations from the wealthiest sectors of society, saying that he had been “walking the walk, not just talking the talk”.

“People should be suspect of candidates who receive large sums of money from Wall Street and then go out and say: ‘Trust me, I’m going to really regulate Wall Street,’” he told the Journal.