UPDATE: After this story was published, organizers said 25,000 people attended the Sanders rally.
QUEENS, NEW YORK — A crowd of more than 25,000 roared in approval as Sen. Bernie Sanders boomed to a cheering crowd that he is ready to get back to work.
“To put it bluntly,” Sanders said. “I am back.”
Sanders struck a triumphant tone as he returned to the campaign trail with a star-studded supporting cast of progressive figures and a new endorsement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 30-year-old New York representative who has become a firebrand of the far left.
Seventeen days ago, Sanders suffered a heart attack while at a Las Vegas campaign event. He was sidelined until the Democratic primary debate Tuesday.
In the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge, Sanders returned to the trail Saturday with a defiant tone, insisting that he is ready to be the next president.
Filmmaker Michael Moore, San Juan Mayor Carmen Cruz and other New York officials threw their weight behind the Vermont independent’s White House bid this week.
Ocasio-Cortez praised the senator for his support of universal health care, student debt forgiveness and child health programs.
“In 2016,” she said, “he fundamentally changed politics in America.”
Ocasio-Cortez credited Sanders with inspiring her run for Congress in 2018, in which she unseated longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in the primary. AOC’s endorsement of Sanders is expected to attract more young and progressive voters to the senior sentaor’s camp. Sanders, at 78, is the oldest presidential candidate in the 2020 race.
“I’m proud to say that the only reason that I had any hope in launching a longshot campaign for Congress is because Bernie Sanders proved that you can run a grassroots campaign and win in an America where we almost thought it was impossible,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
AOC is the second member of the so-called “Squad,” a group of young progressive women, to back Sanders this week. (Though she never used the word “endorse” on stage, she later made it explicit on Twitter.) Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, also backed Sanders this week.
Taking the stage to opening licks of ACDC’s Back in Black, Sanders delivered an hour-long, high-energy speech, that hit on central tenets of his campaign, including health care and wealth inequality.
Just a few miles away, he said, as he looked south on the edge of the East River, “people on Wall Street make unbelievable amounts of money and live in incredible and ostentatious luxury while right here, across the street from us, people are struggling day after day just to survive,” Sanders said, referencing the Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing project in the country.
Without naming names, Sanders swung at his competitors in the Democratic presidential primary, when several candidates took aim at the proposal of a Medicare-for-all system.
“They want us to believe that the only reality that we can live under is the status quo — real change is impossible,” Sanders said. “And by the way, it’s not just the Republicans who give us that line. That is exactly what I heard on the stage of the Democratic debate in Ohio a few nights ago.”
The rally and new endorsements come as Sanders has been holding in third place in the polls, ranking behind Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose progressive stances overlap with Sanders.
Rachel Rowan-Duggan, a teacher who lives in Brooklyn, said that as long as he picks a younger vice president with similar policy goals, she’s not concerned about his recent health event. Rowan-Duggan has supported Sanders with contributions, but this was the first event she attended.
Attendees praised his consistency, celebrated his vocal opposition to wealth inequality, and pointed to his support of universal health care — one of his longtime signature initiatives — as reasons for their continued support of the senator, and said they felt the Ocasio-Cortez endorsement could help solidify progressive support behind Sanders.
“I think it will reinforce that this is sort of a movement, it’s not just about one person,” Rowan-Duggan said.
Yeukai Zimbwa, 17, happened to be in the city from Minneapolis with her mother looking at colleges when the rally was planned. After she celebrates her birthday next June, she hopes to cast her vote for Sanders.
Zimbwa hopes Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement will bring more people to support Sanders, rather than Warren.
Both she and her mother just became naturalized U.S. citizens earlier this month. Her mother, Margaret, however, hasn’t made up her mind who she is supporting yet. But, she was interested in learning more about Sanders.
“I feel one of my duties as a citizen is to, you know, pay attention to what’s going on,” Margaret Zimbwa said. “I am not really endorsing Bernie Sanders today, but I’m here to listen, see what he’s saying.”
