Of course, Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE is the big winner of the 2016 Democratic primaries. She won 34 states or territories. She got almost 17 million votes. She racked up 2,811 delegates. She will be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

But, no doubt about it, Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersNYT editorial board remembers Ginsburg: She 'will forever have two legacies' Two GOP governors urge Republicans to hold off on Supreme Court nominee Sanders knocks McConnell: He's going against Ginsburg's 'dying wishes' MORE was a big winner, too. He carried 23 contests, amassed 1,879 delegates and won more than 13 million votes.

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But his impact on the Democratic Party is much wider and deeper than that.

As he admitted from the outset, Sanders’s first goal as a candidate was not so much to win the nomination as to make the Democratic primary a debate over progressive issues. To that end, the Vermont senator succeeded hugely. Not only did he raise issues like breaking up the big banks and single-payer healthcare, he also forced Clinton to embrace progressive issues she’d either previously ignored or opposed.

As secretary of State, Clinton championed the Keystone oil pipeline; as candidate, she opposed it. At State, she hailed the Trans-Pacific Partnership as the “gold standard” of trade deals; as candidate, she rejected it. She started her campaign by calling for a $12 minimum wage; by the end of her campaign, she joined Sanders in urging a $15 wage floor. She also began talking about the issue of income inequality, which even Vice President Biden noted was a new issue for her.

Sanders’s influence didn’t diminish with the end of the primaries. Indeed, it increased. Even before the platform committee completed its deliberations, Clinton had embraced two of Sanders’s signature initiatives that she had earlier derided. On higher education, she called for tuition-free public college for all children of families earning less than $125,000 a year — or 83 percent of American students. On healthcare, she proposed allowing those older than 55 to participate in Medicare, resurrecting President Obama’s old idea of a public plan option for health insurance, and expanding community health centers. Score two more big wins for Sanders.

The next showdown: the party platform.

True, no party has ever won or lost an election based on what’s contained in the platform. Most candidates, let alone most voters, don’t even read it. But it is an important testament to what a party stands for and what it will fight for in the next session of Congress. Here, again, Sanders triumphed.

His supporters persuaded Clinton supporters on the platform committee to adopt what was immediately branded “the most progressive platform in the Democratic Party’s history.” Indeed, the draft platform, which will be presented in Philadelphia, reads like a blueprint of the Sanders campaign. Among other planks, it calls for a $15 minimum wage, tied to inflation; comprehensive immigration reform; legalization of recreational use of marijuana; breaking up too-big-to-fail financial institutions; banning private prisons; abolishing the death penalty; adopting a modern-day Glass-Steagall Act; calling on the Justice Department to investigate every police officer-involved shooting; and putting a price on carbon and methane to discourage use of fossil fuels.

Clearly, win or lose, Sanders was determined not to walk away from the 2016 primaries without continuing the battle. And, in the end, he set another record: Nobody ever lost a campaign while winning so much.

Press is host of “The Bill Press Show” on Free Speech TV and author of “Buyer’s Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down.”