Michael Bonfigli/The Christian Science Monitor Bernie Sanders insists his momentum is no fluke

Bernie Sanders, enjoying a rise in early-state and national polls and attracting large crowds at his rallies, has a message for voters: believe the hype.

The Vermont senator, an Independent who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, said on Thursday he has no illusions about the gap between himself and far-and-away front-runner Hillary Clinton.


But the self-described democratic socialist said his promising early returns aren’t a fluke.

“This is not an educational campaign. This is not a protest campaign. This is a campaign to win,” said a confident Sanders to a group of reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Sanders has fashioned himself as the authentic progressive and the preferred liberal alternative to Clinton, who herself has been veering leftward, promoting grassroots issues such as college affordability and criminal justice reform.

On Thursday, Sanders acknowledged, as he has in the past, that Clinton is a “heavy favorite,” but argued that he’s making ground and that name recognition plays a big role in polling.

“I think the secretary may well be one of the best-known people in the United States of America. I am not,” Sanders said.

Sanders grabbed attention this week for scoring over the weekend a surprising 41 percent in an official Wisconsin Democratic Party straw poll at the state convention, losing to Clinton by just eight points.

The Vermont senator has also been creeping up in the national polls. He’s climbed to 15 percent in the Democratic field, up from single digits before his kickoff rally in Vermont on May 26. And the most recent Iowa and New Hampshire polls showed him at 16 and 18 percent, respectively — also a jump from earlier polling.

Sanders, the longest-serving independent in congressional history, has also been drawing pretty impressive crowds. More than 3,000 supporters showed up to a fiery Sanders rally on a Sunday in Minneapolis. Last week, an estimated 1,000 people showed up in Keene, New Hampshire, and most events in his recent trips to Iowa were standing-room only, including 700 people who showed up in Davenport, the largest Iowa rally for a candidate in either race.

Sanders said on Thursday that his campaign has at least 200,000 campaign contributors and that his team is staffing up in Iowa and New Hampshire. His team is expected to open its Iowa office shortly.

“We have momentum. Our numbers are growing,” said Sanders, adding that his campaign is less than two months old and still in its early stages.

During the breakfast meeting, Sanders continued to pressure Clinton on several policy areas, notably on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the free-trade deal opposed by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He said Clinton’s failure to take a stand on the issue offends him.

“If she’s against this, we need her to speak out right now. Right now,” he said.

He also contrasted his leadership on several core progressive issues with Clinton — noting his efforts taking on corporate interests, in trying to block the Keystone XL pipeline and speaking out against the PATRIOT Act.

“Where is the secretary on that?” he asked.

The senator also offered some kind words for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a progressive leader who has declined several times to endorse Clinton despite running her 2000 Senate campaign. De Blasio at a press conference this week called Sanders a “great senator” and confirmed that he wouldn’t attend Clinton’s campaign kickoff rally on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.

“I have a lot of respect for Mayor de Blasio,” Sanders said, calling the mayor one of the nation’s “leaders” on income inequality. He said that he would call de Blasio at a certain point and that he’d love to have his endorsement.

Still, Sanders avoided attacking Clinton too harshly. Unlike fellow Democratic presidential hopeful former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, he said her vote for the Iraq War was not disqualifying — “everybody makes bad votes.”

And asked about contributions to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments, Sanders pivoted to the Koch brothers, the GOP mega-donors who he argued were having a more corrosive impact on the democratic process.

In calling for more presidential debates, including those with Republicans, he called on Democrats to have a 50-state strategy — part of a larger argument that his progressive policies will play well with a majority of Americans and even traditionally conservative voters.

“It is not a radical agenda. In virtually every instance, what I’m saying is supported by a significant majority of the American people,” Sanders said, calling out Republican candidates former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry by name for wanting to cut Social Security.

Sanders, who wrote Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to call for more debates earlier in the cycle, called the current structure “much too limited” and said he regretted that the DNC didn’t consult his campaign before rolling it out.

One of Sanders’ most direct contrasts with Republicans came during his initial discussion about paid sick leave, maternity leave and vacations — labor protections he said are central to his new “family values” agenda.

The senator, who is laying out his plan more specifically later on Thursday, said he borrowed the phrase from Republicans who have used it to restrict reproductive rights for women. Sanders, who has visited several union halls since announcing his candidacy and is a favorite of organized labor, said he will introduce legislation to guarantee ten days of vacation time for workers and keep working to institute the 40-hour work week.

Elsewhere on policy, Sanders, who has called for a single-payer health care system and typically offers only mild praise for the Affordable Care Act, confirmed that he would try to “move away from the ACA” toward a Medicare-for-all system if he were to become president.

He also added that he’d soon be unveiling a comprehensive tax plan — including a tax on Wall Street speculation and ending loopholes that allow corporations to stash income in tax havens abroad. Sanders said that those moves, plus an unspecified increase in taxes on wealthy individuals, would help pay for his investments in health care and education, including his recently introduced bill to have tuition-free four-year public college.

“I believe the overwhelming majority of Americans support it. I suspect Wall Street does not,” he said of a tax on Wall Street speculation.

Sanders will head to Iowa this weekend for a three-day swing through the Hawkeye State, and will be there at the same time as Clinton, who kicks off her Iowa campaign Saturday and Sunday.