At a campaign event in Sioux City, Iowa, on Tuesday evening, the Vermont senator said his campaign is raising enough money to run a winning national campaign without "begging corporate America or millionaires for their support."

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"I pride myself and our campaign on the fact that our average campaign contribution is $27," Sanders said.

"We're rolling out the names of hundreds of thousands of working people who support us with individual contributions," he added.

Sanders pledged to focus on the most important issues to him, saying he wouldn’t let the media dictate his topics.

"I'm going to let the American people determine what the major issues are," he said. "These are the issues that not only will we talk about; these are the issues that together we will resolve."

The senator added that, compared to seven years ago, the country is in a much better place now — though you wouldn’t know it from listening to Republicans.

“We should be very sympathetic from our Republican friends who suffer from a very serious illness called amnesia. Amnesia results in memory loss. And they forgot where we were seven years ago," he said.

Sanders vowed to work for criminal justice reform.

"In my view, it makes a lot more sense for our country to be investing in education and jobs," he said, "rather than jails and incarceration."