Bernie Sanders Rallies Support In Miami
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - As we count down to Florida's Presidential Preference Primary on March 15th, expect to see the candidates crisscrossing the state to garner support.
Thousands lined up at the James L. Knight center Tuesday night to "Feel the Bern!"
Sen. Bernie Sanders was in town, campaigning for the first time in Miami.
"Thank you Miami! Whoa!" he started off.
The crowd was by far young with many first-time voters motivated to take action.
"He understands our views," said supporter and first-time voter Lizzie Marrero.
The rally lasted more than an hour.
It covered a gamut of Sanders' signature issues – including free healthcare for all, free education for all and citizenship for all.
Overall the event felt like a pep rally to re-enforce to his supporters he could win with their help.
"Let's show the world that democracy is alive and well with a young turnout… and I'm talking about a huge voter turnout," he told the crowd.
Prior to the rally, Sanders spoke one on one with CBS4 about immigration reform – an issue President Obama ran on but couldn't get through Congress.
"At the end of the day you still have deadlock here. How do you break through that?" CBS4's David Sutta asked.
"At the end of the day what is going to have to happen is the American people are going to have to stand up to the United States Congress and demand Congress starts representing all of us rather than just wealthy campaign contributors," Sanders responded. "And within that context, the America people understand we are not going to throw 11 million undocumented people out of this country."
Sanders said he and Hillary Clinton are similar with regard to immigration.
He also said he supports restoring relations with Cuba.
"I think it is pretty crazy as an American citizen you can go all over the world and somehow you couldn't go to this little island 90 miles away," he said.
Polls show Sanders has an uphill battle – one he's eager to prove wrong.
"Trust me. It's not going to end that way. It's going to be a fairly close race. At the end of the day I suspect if the election were held today we would lose," he said. "But fortunately for us not held today, it's held a week from today and I think we have momentum and I think we will do just fine."
On the GOP front, Donald Trump held a news conference in Jupiter on Tuesday evening at the Trump National Golf Club.
On Wednesday, Senator Marco Rubio will rally home state supporters in Hialeah before Thursday's CNN GOP Debate. Rubio's rally will be held at Milander Stadium at 4800 Palm Avenue; doors open at 4 p.m.
He'll need all the support he can get, according to a new Monmouth University poll which shows Trump leading Rubio 38 to 30 among primary voters in Florida. The rest of the field fell far behind; Ted Cruz at 17 percent and John Kasich at 10 percent.
Florida is a winner take all primary with 99 delegates up for grabs.
