Bernie Sanders Draws His Biggest Crowd Ever in Phoenix

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is drawing bigger crowds on the campaign trail than any other candidate for president from either party.

In Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, the Vermont senator spoke to his biggest crowd ever: 11,000 people at the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday, according to reports.

The self-described independent socialist had appeared there earlier that day as part of the progressive Netroots Nation convention. The turnout broke Sanders's previous record, some 10,000 at an rally in Madison earlier this month, which was heralded as the largest crowd any 2016 candidate had attracted yet. 

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at the very same venue on Saturday, and drew roughly half as many attendees as Sanders did. 

Now, it's possible Sanders is drawing the most attendees because his chief rival, Hillary Clinton, is taking a distinctly different approach, preferring to meet with small groups of people at house parties and intimate sit-downs. That said, Clinton did have some empty space leftover at her official campaign launch event in New York City in June. About 5,500 people showed up, the New York Times reported, citing Clinton's campaign, but the space on Roosevelt Island's Four Freedoms Park could have held more. The Times reported that the area set up for overflow crowd was nearly empty. 

The other Sanders-level crowd of the cycle so far went to Ted Cruz, for his campaign launch, which drew some 11,00 attendees, but there was a catch. Cruz launched his campaign at Liberty University, a Christian school in Virginia. He was the weekly convocation speaker, and attendance was mandatory for students, under penalty of a fine.