Josh Hafner

USA TODAY

Bernie Sanders told a crowd of college students Wednesday that he’s “in this campaign to win," even as he further cast a vision for a future in which he does not. His words, in a speech at Indiana, came the same day that he confirmed to the New York Times that he planned to cut "hundreds" of campaign staffers nationwide.

"We are in this campaign to win, but if we do not win, we intend to win every delegate that we can, so that when we go to Philadelphia in July, we're going to have the votes to put together the strongest progressive agenda that any political party has ever seen," Sanders said, per CNN.

The speech came the day after his campaign dropped four out of Tuesday’s five primaries across the Northeast to Hillary Clinton (and won one, Rhode Island).

Earlier in the week, Sanders’ campaign manager stressed that he would arrive at July’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia with enough sway in the form of pledged delegates to force debate on the issues dear to him. Those include raising the minimum wage to $15, establishing Medicare for all and ending fracking in the U.S.

Sanders himself has described how he wanted Clinton to take on some of his priorities should she become the nominee.

On Wednesday, Sanders told the Times that he was letting go "hundreds" of staff members in states whose primaries and caucuses had already passed, streamlining his campaign to focus on California. “If we win this, every one of those great people who have helped us get this far, they will be rehired,” Sanders said, according to the newspaper. “But right now, we have to use all of the resources we have and focus them on the remaining states.”

He'll move staffers to the California, too, he said, describing a primary win there as both a symbolic and practical goal.

Even so, Sanders' speech Wednesday at Purdue University in West Lafayette signaled an acknowledgment that his campaign’s way forward might be influencing the next presidency rather than winning it.

“And our job, whether we win or whether we do not win, is to transform not only our country, but the Democratic Party—to open the doors of the Democratic Party to working people and young people and senior citizens in a way that does not exist today,” Sanders said, according to CNN.

[h/t CNN, the Times]

Plan B for Bernie Sanders: Make the Democratic Party more progressive