AUSTIN — Bernie Sanders brought his anti-Trump road show to South by Southwest Friday on the way to San Antonio and Lubbock, proclaiming that Texas can turn blue if Democrats are willing to put in a phenomenal amount of work to make it happen.

“If you in Texas are prepared to work hard, stand up, fight back, go out to your neighbors, talk to those people who voted for Trump, make sure that every friend you have, and family member that you have, comes out and votes — yeah, I believe that Texas can go blue,” the Vermont senator and 2016 Democratic presidential contender said to applause.

Sanders set a goal of 50 percent voter turnout, a high bar in a mid-term election. Turnout in Texas was under 34 percent in the 2014 general election and 38 percent in 2010. And while Democrats had a surge in turnout in Texas primary elections this year, Republicans still outnumbered them.

“The way we defeat Trump is for every person in this room, and all of us, … to get involved in the political process in a way that we have never done in the modern history of this county,” he said.

“I congratulate the people in Texas who just had primaries the other day. Your voter turnout was significantly higher than it has been in recent years, but we have got to do more than that,” Sanders said.

Asked whether he will run again for president in 2020, Sanders said that is “a long, long way away.” He said his travels to around the country are an effort to rally working people around a progressive agenda in the effort to seize the House and Senate from Republicans.

Sanders’ visit to Texas comes after trips to Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and he is headed to Arizona when he leaves the Lone Star State.

Characteristically harsh in his criticism of President Donald Trump, Sanders said when asked by his SXSW interviewer, CNN’s Jake Tapper, about the president’s assertions that he wants an immigration deal, “One of the many problems with Donald Trump … He lies all of the time.”

Sanders said Democrats are focused on protecting and finding a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, immigrants brought here as children without documentation.

While expressing dismay over divisions stirred by Trump, Sanders said that Americans nevertheless “are, by and large, not divided” on many major economic and social issues, including the need for immigration reform, a desire to end gun violence and support for access to health care.

Sanders gave no quarter to his own party regarding efforts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to undermine Congressional District 7 candidate Laura Moser in the Houston area. The senator called it “absolutely unacceptable” and drew a parallel to national Democrats’ efforts to thwart him in his primary battle with Hillary Clinton. Sanders rejected the idea that the national party should steer what it believes to be the strongest candidate to victory.

“Let me get a little bit personal here, having gone through a little bit of that myself. You want to know who the strongest candidate in that district is? Let the people of that district make that decision. You want to know who the strongest candidate in the Democratic presidential primary is? Let the people of America make that decision, not a handful of people in Washington,” he said.

With regard to battling Trump, Sanders urged respect when people who oppose the president talk to his supporters.

“Our job is to talk to people, people who voted for Trump, respectfully. I do not believe that in Texas, or any place else, that most people who supported Trump are racists or sexists or xenophobes,” Sanders said. “I think they are people who are hurting, who want real change in the way our government works in terms of the needs of the middle class.”