Bernie Sanders will visit Kansas City to get out the vote ahead of Missouri primary
Sen. Bernie Sanders will visit Kansas City Monday in an effort to turn out votes in Missouri, a state he narrowly lost in 2016.
The Vermont senator will hold a 1 p.m. rally at the Midland Theatre a day before Missouri voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s presidential primary. Sanders’ main rival for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden, will visit the city on Saturday for a rally with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
A statement from Sanders’ campaign described his Monday rally as a free event, which will be first come, first served. Doors will open at 11:30 a.m. A St. Louis campaign event is also expected, but has not yet been announced.
Sanders garnered 49.3 percent of the vote in Missouri in 2016, essentially splitting the state’s delegates with the party’s eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton. Sanders’ supporters are hopeful he can improve on that total this year and win a majority of Missouri’s 68 delegates.
Dylan Burd, the vice president for the pro-Sanders group Our Revolution KC, said there will be canvassing events every day between now and the Tuesday primary, including events this weekend targeting Spanish-speaking and rural voters.
Sanders currently trails Biden in the delegate count after the former vice president won 10 states on Super Tuesday. Biden leads Sanders 527 delegates to 475 as of Wednesday, according to NBC. A total of 1,991 are needed to secure the nomination.
Burd said his organization is optimistic Sanders’ can close the gap next week as the race becomes more of a one-on-one battle with Biden.
“Of course it would’ve been nice for there to be more states, but Bernie’s definitely not in a bad position by any means,” Burd said. “While things might not have been as positive we’re definitely not thrown off course.”
Jeff Smith, a former state senator who backed former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, said in an email that Biden’s Missouri campaign only launched in earnest this week “whereas Bernie’s allies have been organizing for months. But Biden won several Super Tuesday states where he had no campaign apparatus and aired no ads, so momentum seems to be trumping organization this cycle.”
The Star’s Jason Hancock contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 9:50 PM.
