Bernie Sanders to speak at Vallejo waterfront this week

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a rally at the Julian Carroll Convention Center in Paducah, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016. (Ryan Hermens/The Paducah Sun via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT less Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a rally at the Julian Carroll Convention Center in Paducah, Ky., Sunday, May 15, 2016. (Ryan Hermens/The Paducah Sun via AP) MANDATORY ... more Photo: Ryan Hermens, AP Photo: Ryan Hermens, AP Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Bernie Sanders to speak at Vallejo waterfront this week 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will speak at the Vallejo waterfront on Wednesday, May 18 at 7 p.m., per Sanders' press secretary. (Ed. Sanders has announced an additional rally to be held earlier that day in San Jose. Details here.)

The nearby Front Room restaurant has confirmed to SFGATE that Mare Island Way, where its establishment is located, will be closed by the city at 11 a.m. for Sanders' event. They believe he will deliver his speech at the grassy knoll just north of the Ferry Building (which has the technical name of Service Club Park).

Gates to the event will open at 4 p.m., according to Sanders' camp, and attendees are encouraged to arrive early.

Earlier this month, Sanders spoke to a stadium full of about 15,000 supporters in Sacramento, where he condemned fracking, pledged his efforts towards reforming college tuition, and vowed to protect the middle class from corporate interests.

"This campaign is doing well because we are doing something very unusual in contemporary politics," Sanders said at the rally. "We are telling the truth. And the truth is that not only do we have a corrupt campaign finance system, the truth is that we have a rigged economy."

Sanders later brought his campaign to the San Francisco Chronicle, wherein he reiterated his intent to tax the nation's wealthiest earners.

"Yes, we do raise taxes — rather substantially — on the wealthy. No apologies from me. That is exactly what I intend to do if elected president," he told a room of Chronicle journalists. "When you have a nation today when the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns as much wealth as as the bottom 90 percent, yeah, we need new tax reform."

Although Sanders won the last two state primaries in Indiana and West Virginia over competitor Hillary Clinton, he still trails the frontrunner by a significant margin. Both Politico and Bloomberg estimate his delegate and (unpledged) superdelegate count to be around 770 votes behind Clinton at the moment.

His California supporters, however, are hoping that his chances will improve when the state begins its primary election on June 7. California offers 475 delegates and 71 superdelegates to presidential candidates.

Alyssa Pereira is a pop culture writer for SFGATE. Follow her here on Twitter.