Bernie Sanders Warns Democrats They May Not Win in 2016 Without Him

MINNEAPOLIS – Taking his outsider message into the heart of the Democratic establishment, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, challenged hundreds of the party’s leaders on Friday to embrace his candidacy, warning that the huge crowds of supporters he has drawn may not vote for Democratic candidates in 2016 unless he is at the top of the ticket.

Mr. Sanders, who has been gaining ground in the polls, was warmly complimentary at first in addressing the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting here, crediting the party faithful for fighting on behalf of working people and low-income Americans.

But he soon turned pointed, suggesting that the Democrats’ electoral losses in 2014 – when Republicans won control of the Senate – could be repeated if the party nominated a traditional politician.

“My friends, the Republican Party did not win the midterm election in November: We lost that election,” Mr. Sanders said. “We lost because voter turnout was abysmally, embarrassingly low, and millions of working people, young people and people of color gave up on politics as usual and they stayed home. That’s a fact.”

As the audience sat largely in silence, Mr. Sanders continued: “In my view, Democrats will not retain the White House, will not regain the Senate or the U.S. House, will not be successful in dozens of governor races across the country, unless we generate excitement and momentum and produce a huge voter turnout.”

While he did not criticize his leading rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, by name, Mr. Sanders argued that “establishment” politicians like her – and like the very Democrats he was speaking to – were uninspiring to voters.

“With all due respect – and I do not mean to insult anyone here – that turnout, that enthusiasm, will not happen with politics as usual,” Mr. Sanders said. “The people of our country understand that given the collapse of the American middle class, and given the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality we are experiencing, we do not need more establishment politics or establishment economics.”

That pivot to the issue of income inequality appeared to rally some audience members, who increasingly cheered Mr. Sanders’s comments as his speech went on. His call for “a political movement which is prepared to take on the billionaire class,” for instance, led a clutch of Democrats to begin cheering “Bernie, Bernie!”