MANCHESTER, N.H. — Bernie Sanders wore a tie. On the campaign trail, the candidate typically wears comfortable and somewhat informal attire. A collared shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, and a sweater underneath a navy blazer have been wardrobe staples over the past months as he has crisscrossed the country in his second run for president.
But Wednesday in Derry, New Hampshire, hours before the Vermont senator would fly to Washington, D.C., to cast what would be a futile vote in favor of removing President Donald Trump from office, Sanders’ garb struck a somber tone, as did he.
“Today is a kind of serious and solemn day for the country,” Sanders said. “And the reason I’m wearing a tie is, I’m going to be on a plane in a few minutes, going to Washington, D.C., to vote for the impeachment of President Trump.”
“This is serious business. Something I have taken seriously, and frankly I would have preferred to be campaigning in New Hampshire and Iowa during during the period, but impeachment is a rarity,” the Vermont senator added.
Sanders went on to commit 10 minutes of his stump speech to criticizing the president — a topic he has rarely lingered on for more than a minute or more during many of his events over 11 months.
“This impeachment vote is not about policy, this is about abuse of power,” he said.
Sanders also borrowed an analogy from Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., asking if it would be acceptable for anyone in elected office to withhold funding unless an entity agreed to investigate a private citizen for personal gain.
“Every member of the Congress and the president swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. When you’re not respecting the Constitution, when you think you are above the law,” Sanders said, “that is what the vote today is about.”
Sanders’ comments came just 12 hours after he delivered a fiery response to Trump’s State of the Union late Tuesday night, and outlined the difference between his vision for the country and the president’s.
The 78-year-old looked tired as he read his remarks using teleprompters, a rare sight at a Sanders event. He stumbled over a few words. At one point, he slowed down and restated sentences from the beginning again.
The next day it was back-to-back late nights after the chaos in Iowa with the results and the winners unclear.
As he spoke, Jane Sanders sat in the front row of the small auditorium in the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester. She kept her eyes on her husband — a posture she’s maintained during campaign events in the week leading up to the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
The uncertainty earlier in the week about who had won the Iowa caucuses had not stopped former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg from declaring victory Monday evening with only 2% of precincts reporting vote tallies.
While Buttigieg claimed to have won Iowa, Sanders had already turned his attention to New Hampshire and early Tuesday afternoon he boarded his campaign chartered flight and traveled to the Granite State for an evening event in Milford.
With seven days until the primary, Sanders arrived in New Hampshire as the frontrunner, after surging in the polls over the past month — gaining more than double the support on his closest rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“In just seven days New Hampshire is going to make Bernie Sanders the next president of the United States,” Shaun King, a writer and civil rights activist, told a crowd of more than 1,300 people in Milford.
Alaina Stamatis, a young Sanders supporter, said Tuesday evening that after Iowa, she and others were planning on a strong effort in the last week before the primary to ensure a Sanders victory.
“There’s a big push to knock doors for him, but in a lot of ways New Hampshire has been seen as in the bag,” she said.
“We know he is going to come in first in New Hampshire,” said Stamatis.
However, over the next two days, as the partial results in Iowa kept coming in, Buttigieg steadily climbed in the New Hampshire polls — overtaking Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Biden. And by Wednesday Buttigieg was in striking distance of Sanders.
“Those are probably the top two,” Paul Keriazes said Wednesday of Sanders and Buttigieg.
“I always felt I wanted the best candidate, I want the best candidate, now I’m starting to feel I want the best one who can beat Trump,” he added.
“It may come down to that for me, who I think can beat Trump, and I’m not sure yet,” Keriazes said about his deliberations. “I may go Pete.”
Sri Duvvuri, who had traveled north from Massachusetts to hear the Vermont senator, said she is still deciding about whether to support Warren or Sanders, but added she likes Buttigieg as well.
“Honestly I want just any Democrat to win, that’s my thing,” she said. “I like Pete, too, but honestly right now with the political situation I think he has maybe a big chance because he can connect with the moderates, red states.”
“But for me I need somebody who can fight for me. And between Pete and Bernie, I think Bernie cares more about underprivileged people,” Duvvuri added.
On Thursday, after his brief interlude in Washington, D.C., Sanders was back in New Hampshire. In a day spent preparing for Friday’s Democratic debate, the only campaign event was a press conference in which he announced that he, not Buttigieg, was the winner in Iowa.
Sanders’ announcement came as 97% of the precincts reported he had a 6,000 vote lead over Buttigieg. However, the former South Bend mayor maintained a slight lead in state delegate equivalents — another indicator used to determine victory.
“What I want to do today, three days late, is I want to thank the people of Iowa for the very strong victory they gave us at the Iowa caucuses on Monday night,” Sanders said.
That same day, a Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll had Sanders up by just 1 point on Buttigieg in New Hampshire while an Emerson College poll, conducted at the same time, gave Sanders a more substantial lead of 9 points.
By Friday, addressing corporate guests at a breakfast at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics on the St. Anselm College campus, Sanders — again with a tie — would name both Trump and Buttigieg as he criticized how “big money interests” have taken over the economy and the political system in the U.S.
“Right now you have a billionaire president who is a pathological liar, who is corrupt, who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot,” Sanders said.
“But big money interests are not unhappy with this guy — he’s OK. Many of these corporations are not unhappy with him because he gave them huge tax breaks,” he added gesturing at the signs around the room depicting sponsors that included, NBC Universal; Bank of America; Sig Sauer, the firearm manufacturer; and Liberty Mutual.
Above Sanders as he spoke were the photographs of former Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, both George H. W. and George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and others.
The Vermont senator then called out the billionaire former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, for attempting to “buy the election” with his hundreds of millions of dollars in television ad-buys, before turning his attention to Buttigieg.
Sanders read off a list of headlines from Forbes, the Washington Post and other publications outlining how Buttigieg relies on super PAC support and financial contributions from corporate entities.
“I like Pete Buttigieg, nice guy, but we are in a moment where billionaires control not only our economy but our political life,” Sanders said.
As the Vermont independent railed against Bloomberg and Buttigieg, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who has been a Sanders critic, sat at a table to the left of the stage, squinting his eyes at the senator and yawning.
“Which side are you on?” Sanders asked the crowd. “Are you on the side of a working class of this country which has been battered for the last 35 years? Are you willing to take on the greed and corruption of the billionaire class, or will you continue to stand with the big money interests?”
As Sanders finished the campaign pitch, he exited the room walking past a photograph of a smiling Trump on the wall near the door.
