CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Several volunteers of the Bernie Sanders for West Virginia Campaign were “feeling the Bern” in Charleston Tuesday night when they heard the Vermont senator was the projected Democratic presidential winner over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
A small group gathered at the Tricky Fish restaurant on the city’s East End to watch the poll results as the came in during Primary Election Night in West Virginia.
Amanda Goines, a Sanders supporter, said she believes the senator is specifically good for West Virginia because he cares about the low poverty rate.
“He understands that we need to even the playing field. There doesn’t need to be a few people that are controlling all of the wealth, not in this state or any state,” Goines said.
Sanders “wants to help out the working man,” said Daniel Falsafi, of South Charleston, who also attended Tuesday’s event.
“For me, since I’m in college, I have lots of debt right now and he wants to help me out with my student loan debt, which I think is amazing,” he said.
Berenice Tompkins, another supporter of Sanders, called him “an actual representative of the people.”
“He’s being saying the same stuff for the last 40 years his entire political career and he has a chance,” she said.
Tompkins said she liked that Sanders was for legalizing medical marijuana to combat substance abuse in West Virginia. Sanders views on renewable energy was also a topic she supported.
“As the coal industry drives up obviously that’s leaving a lot of people without work and without good work and Bernie is really dedicated to retraining people and providing them support for his reinvestment in renewable energy and for replacing those coal jobs with renewable energy jobs, which will be higher paying, better jobs for people,” she said.
Calling herself a “Bernie or bust” supporter, like many others at Tuesday’s watch party, Tompkins said she was undecided of who she would vote for if Clinton were to clinch the Democratic nomination against presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“I might vote for the Green party or working families if Bernie does not get the nomination,” she said.
But one thing supporters agreed on Tuesday night was that Sanders has already created a political revolution in West Virginia and nationwide.
“If Bernie doesn’t win even, this movement has resonated with so many people that it’s going to inspire change regardless,” Goines said.
MetroNews projected Sanders as the winner of the Democratic presidential race.