OAKLAND — Bernie Sanders might have a new rallying cry for his longshot battle to wrest the Democratic nomination for president away from Hillary Clinton: “We Believe!”

Moments before he stepped outside Oakland City Hall to rally more than 11,000 adoring fans, Sanders pointed to the Golden State Warriors as proof that the final buzzer hadn’t yet sounded on his presidential campaign.

“They were down three games to one, and they came back,” said Sanders, who got to watch to watch the Warriors complete their comeback inside Oracle Arena.

“Well, we started out pretty far behind. And, I think we’re going to come back as well.”

California momentum

While Clinton has a seemingly insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, she still needs the backing of top Democratic Party officials, known as superdelegates, to secure the nomination. Sanders is soldiering on, insisting that he will make the case to those leaders that he is their best chance for beating Donald Trump.

That seems like fantasy, given that he’s been sparing sparring with party leaders for weeks. But his first official rally in Oakland offered him yet another chance to show them just how much passion is behind a campaign that he will take to the party convention in July whether or not he wins the California primary on June 7.

With the delegate math likely a lost cause, Sanders at times sounded like Trump during Monday’s rally touting polls that showed him far ahead of the presumptive Republican nominee across the country including in California.

“If the Democrats want a campaign that makes certain that … Donald Trump does not become President, we are that campaign,” he told the cheering crowd.

But in an earlier interview with this paper on Monday, Sanders acknowledged the seemingly undemocratic contradiction at the heart of his last-ditch strategy: After railing against a rigged election system, he is now banking on convincing party power-brokers to back him even though Clinton will likely finish with more delegates and popular votes.

“You could make that argument,” he said during the interview. “At the end of the day we are where we are, and the process has not been a process that we feel comfortable with. I don’t like the role that the super delegates play … but … where we are is that the superdelegates will make the decision.”

Sanders began his day in Oakland at Allen Temple, an influential black church where he held an invite-only discussion with Danny Glover, a supporter and activist actor, and Jane Kim, a supervisor from San Francisco who is running for state Senate against Supervisor Scott Wiener.

From there he headed to the rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, which five years ago doubled as the West Coast capital of Occupy Wall Street — a fact that was not lost on Sanders, who has taken up the Occupy movement’s call to arms against the nation’s richest 1 percent.

“I feel very good about that,” Sanders said, while quickly distancing himself from the violence that marred Occupy rallies in the city four years ago.

“I believe the most effective way of bringing about (real change) is when large numbers of people peacefully demonstrate and make it clear to the world what their goals are,” he said.

Sanders had to deal with some protesters himself during Monday’s rally. Secret Service officers briefly whisked him from the microphone as several animal rights protesters jumped a barricade and headed toward him before being arrested.

The hour leading up to the rally was pure festival as bands played, dancers performed, and “Disneyland lines” snaked around city streets.

“I was here for the Occupy movement and I think that Bernie Sanders coming to Oakland is the most important thing to happen here since,” said Vicky Lieberman, who helped serve food at the encampment that took over the plaza for months in 2011.

“Occupy was in the trenches, and he’s taking on the 1 percent from a political perspective.”

In perhaps a quiet nod to the movement, Sanders deviated briefly from recent stump speeches to talk about policing the local police in the same way he wants to police Wall Street.

Sanders drew big cheers when he called for an end to militarizing police departments and letting officers get off the hook with violent acts.

“We need to change law enforcement culture all over the country so the use of lethal force is the last response, not the first response,” Sanders said.

After holding his fire against Clinton during a rally earlier this month in San Jose, Sanders went back on the attack in Oakland. The crowd booed lustily as he mentioned her paid speaking engagements at Wall Street banks.

“I don’t know how someone is going to say they will stand up to Wall Street when they take Wall Street’s money,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Blue-and-gold spirits

Sanders bumped up his rally two hours to avoid a conflict with the Warriors’ Game 7 tussle about 10 miles away at Oracle Arena. After his 50-minute speech bled into the first quarter, the senator got to do what many of his blue-and-gold-clad supporters could only dream of — he went to the game to take in the second half.

And he made clear where his rooting interests lay at a time when the Golden State is at the center of the political world.

“Am I in California? We’re rooting for the Warriors,” said Sanders.

It was a fortuitous move. He and Glover arrived at Oracle during halftime and took two seats in the 15th row. There were a few “Bernie” chants from nearby fans and several selfies before play resumed.

Contact Matthew Artz at 510-208-6435. Follow him at Twitter at Matthew_Artz. Follow Katy Murphy at Twitter.com/katymurphy.