We Asked Bernie Sanders Die-Hards, “Who Will You Vote for in November?”

“I’ll even vote for Trump before I vote for her. I’m so anti-Hillary.”


Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders booed the mention of Hillary Clinton’s name on the floor of the Wells Fargo Center on Monday, the opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “Only you! Only you!” chanted some of his delegates during a speech by the onetime presidential hopeful, who pleaded for party unity. “Immediately, right now, we have got to defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said in a special speech to delegates Monday afternoon, “and we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine.”

In the streets, the atmosphere was no less restless and no less resistant to Clinton’s likely nomination. I wanted to know from Sanders’ most die-hard supporters who gathered around Marconi Plaza for a rally: If Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, how will you vote in November?

Those who responded ranged from voters who had, grudgingly and with a heavy sense of grief, swung their support behind Clinton to defeat Donald Trump, to others who said they would simply vote for Trump.

“We’re tired of being put in a corner,” said Gail Gouveia, from Massachusetts. Gouveia won’t vote for Clinton and remains undecided. “I was surprised the way people caved in,” she said, “and said they were going to vote for Hillary.”

“I am so anti-Hillary,” said LaShanda Parker, who entertained voting for Trump over Clinton. “Pick your poison. Do you want to get shot in the foot, or in the head?”

Watch the full video above.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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