Bernie Sanders Rallies In North Texas Ahead Of Primary
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11) — More than 7,000 people treated Bernie Sanders like a rock star. He seemed amazed by it all.
"This is a large, loud, raucous crowd," he said.
In conservative Texas, this large crowd waited hours inside on a sunny Saturday to see the Vermont senator, a socialist.
He told them, "It looks like Dallas is ready for a political revolution."
Sanders repeated his call for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, medicare for all and four-year tuition at public colleges and universities.
His ideas resonated with Kayla Anderson of Kennedale.
"I've never paid attention to politics," she said. "I've never been very excited, and then he started talking about things that mattered to me about college education. I don't know how I'm going to send my kids to college."
Sanders told CBS 11 he'll pay for it by raising taxes on Wall Street. Is there enough revenue in these tax increases to pay for everything that he's suggesting?
"Well, in fact, of course," he answered. "Because if you have a tax on Wall Street speculation, you bring in far more than $70 billion that we believe [it] will cost to provide free tuition at public colleges and universities."
Despite the enthusiasm here, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is an average of 26 points ahead of him in the polls in Texas.
Sanders rejected the surveys.
"I don't believe that at all," he said. "Don't believe everything you read in the papers. No, we think we're going to do much better than that. In fact, I think we have a shot to win."
When asked why, Sanders said, "You just saw why. You just saw 7,000 enthusiastic people. We have so many thousands of great volunteers."
Every time Sanders mentioned Mrs. Clinton's name, the crowd booed loudly.
Former President Bill Clinton returns to North Texas Monday. He'll campaign for his wife in Fort Worth.
The former president did the same thing in Dallas last week.
Follow Jack on Twitter: @cbs11jack
(©2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)