Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders emphasized Saturday morning that most Donald Trump supporters are not actually racist or sexist, in a bid to convert them over to the Democratic camp.
“I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist,” Sanders tweeted Saturday.
“Some are, but I think most are people who are hurting, they’re worried about their kids, they’re working longer hours for lower wages,” Sanders added.
Later in the day, he did make the point that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is, however, “running his campaign on bigotry.”
At an October rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sanders bashed Trump for being xenophobic, racist and sexist.
As poll numbers are tightening up, Sanders is trying to bridge the gap and convince populist Trump voters to switch parties for election day on Nov. 8.
“Our job is to reach out to Trump voters to tell them that we’re going to create an economy that works for all of us, not just a few,” he said.
In early September, Clinton inadvertently launched a new political subculture when she referred to half of Trump’s supporters during a fundraiser as belonging in the “basket of deplorables,” that is, people who are irredeemably racist, sexist, Islamophobic and xenophobic.
Although Clinton soon apologized after her remarks, they left a stain on her campaign and resulted in thousands of Trump supporters on social media proudly adopting the moniker “deplorable” as a sort of badge of honor.
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea,” Clinton said in a statement. “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.”
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