In an online video on 16 June, Bernie Sanders has promised to work with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, but did not pull out of the race for the White House.
In the video he did not formally endorse Clinton, but made it clear that defeating Donald Trump was the major goal. He talked about shifting focus to building a movement to fight for a Liberal agenda and making sure his campaign influenced the Democratic Party.
The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly, and I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time, the US senator from Vermont said.
I look forward in the coming weeks to continue discussion between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda.
Sanders has resisted pressure from other Democratic members to call off his campaign and back Clinton. He is hoping to force concessions from Clinton on certain policies the Democratic Party runs on, as well as reforms to the Democratic Partys nomination process.
But some staff in the Bernie camp have been laid off, with campaigning stopping. Sanders has also dropped plans to try and persuade unbound delegates to vote for him at the Democratic National Convention on 25 July.
An online survey by Reuters/Ipsos, showed 46% of likely voters will support Clinton in the upcoming presidential election, while 34.8% will back Trump. 19.2% of the 1,276 respondents do not support either of the presumptive candidates. Trump, who became the presumptive Republican candidate in May, has been trailing behind Clinton for most of the year, but with the election drawing closer, he has closed the double-digit gap.
