‘It’s a rough map for us’ says candidate’s wife as votes in 11 states with diverse populations could leave the Vermont senator facing tough decisions

The Bernie Sanders campaign is bracing for a difficult national debut across the 11 states that vote for a Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday, despite a record-breaking haul of small donations that could give it the money to keep fighting against Hillary Clinton regardless of the result.



Notwithstanding surprise success among white voters in New Hampshire and Iowa, the insurgent “democratic socialist” has so far failed to make much headway with more diverse electorates in Nevada and South Carolina and risks being further exposed in delegate-rich southern states on Super Tuesday.

Super Tuesday cheat sheet: everything you need to know Read more

“It’s a rough map for us,” conceded the senator’s wife, Jane Sanders, as the campaign team returned to their home in Burlington, Vermont, on Monday night from a 6,200-mile trip to eight states in three days. “I wish 11 states weren’t up tomorrow. I wish there were 48 hours in the day.”

“The national media didn’t really start covering Bernie that much until the beginning of 2016, so they are not as familiar with him in the south,” Jane Sanders added. “Time has been against us. We have had two months for people to be familiar with Bernie’s message.”

The senator himself appeared less daunted by expected heavy losses in places like Georgia and Virginia, and vowed to continue running until the Democratic national convention this July in the hope that more favourable states such as California and New York will eventually come into play.

“At the end of tomorrow I think 15 states will have spoken,” Senator Sanders said after landing for a final rally in Boston. “Last I heard, we have a lot more than 15 states in the United States of America. I think it is more than appropriate to give all of those states and the people in them a chance to vote for the candidate of their choice.”

On Tuesday the campaign is particularly hopeful of wins in Vermont, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Colorado and possibly Massachusetts, and expects to run Clinton close in Texas thanks to support among Hispanic people and liberals in Austin.

Outward measures of enthusiasm also remain high. Nearly 40,000 people turned out to see the senator speak during his weekend whirlwind, packing venues in unlikely hot spots such as Dallas and Oklahoma City, which warmed to his message of tackling campaign finance corruption and reducing inequality.

Once more unto the breach. In three days, we will have travelled more than 6,200 miles and visited 9 cities in 8 states on a marathon designed to prove there is life in the revolution yet.

The campaign raised $6m in one day on Monday, bringing its monthly total to $42m from 1.4m small donations averaging just $30 apiece.



“Working Americans chipping in a few dollars every week are changing the way campaigns in our country are financed,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, in a statement.

But behind the scenes, campaign officials were nervous about the behaviour of voters in states where they have only recently begun to advertise and hire staff, and where what little polling there is, points to continued leads for Clinton.

Teams that had months to build a ground game in Iowa and New Hampshire have been parachuted into much larger states for Super Tuesday with as a little as a few weeks to prepare for the election, and are running up against the much more sophisticated national strategy of their opponent.

There is also mounting pressure to reconsider the impact of Donald Trump’s growing grip on the Republican primary and whether continuing to attack Clinton – once it becomes clear she will probably win the nomination – risks undermining the chances of stopping him.

This argument is rejected among those close to the senator who say it is important to keep giving Democratic voters a choice, especially given further revelations may emerge about Clinton that could damage her chances at the last minute.

“If you go to the rallies, you see the hope and the fervour and the expectation, Bernie’s not going to let those people down,” Jane Sanders told the Guardian on Monday night. “Every state should be able to voice their support for what they believe in. We know there is a significant amount of support for what Bernie stands for and for him as a candidate for president. We don’t know yet if it’s a majority, but we won’t know tomorrow either.”

Yet there were signs this weekend that the impact of the trademark rallies may be waning. Unusually for Sanders, none of the venues required overflow space. At an uncomfortably hot final rally in Boston, large numbers of supporters left the sports arena early and others told the Guardian they were there as interested spectators rather than committed voters.

Insiders are once again talking about the Sanders campaign primarily in terms of its ability project the messages of social justice and inequality on to the national stage, rather than as a serious presidential vehicle.

“We want to give people the opportunity to continue to focus on the issues and also to have the media and the other candidates to focus on the issues that we consider to be very important,” said Jane, who the senator has called his most trusted adviser. “No matter what happens with this presidential race, after the convention those issues and Bernie – they are not going away.”

Meanwhile, Clinton continued her tour of Super Tuesday states on Monday, holding rallies across Virginia and Massachusetts, but with her focus increasingly on gathering momentum against Trump.

Her camp expects Clinton to win big on Tuesday, buoyed by the same electorate that helped her rout Sanders in South Carolina on Saturday night.

Since her win there, Clinton has begun to pivot away from Sanders and the primary and instead toward Republicans and the general election.

On Monday, she criticised the Republicans for their “hateful rhetoric” and said they don’t “play well” with others.

“I really regret the language that is being used by Republicans, scapegoating people, finger-pointing, blaming,” she said during an event at George Mason University in Fairfax. There’s a different path Americans want to take.”

There she was joined by Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a longtime Clinton ally and rumoured to be a potential running mate, who declared: “Virginia is Clinton country.”

He urged the crowd of enthusiastic supporters to vote: “She is a progressive who gets results.”

On Monday, she visited Tennessee and her home state of Arkansas. Following that she will hold an election night party in Miami, Florida – a state that is not even voting on Super Tuesday.