The Democratic Party's business model needs revamping if it wants to win more elections moving forward, Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., said this week.
According to a clip posted by the right-leaning America Rising political action committee, Sanders answered questions in front of a crowd in Mississippi Wednesday.
"The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure," Sanders said.
"People sometimes don't see that because of the charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012. He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant man. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country."
Sanders then took a shot at the Republican Party, saying it is in bed with the rich and is not looking out for middle-class Americans.
"And you've got significant numbers of states like Mississippi where the governor, the legislature, the senators are all Republicans," he said. "Now how does this happen at a time when the Republican agenda is the agenda of the billionaire class and is at war with working people? How does it happen that a party that wants to give tax breaks to billionaires and throw millions of people off the health insurance they have actually wins elections?
"One of the things that we've got to do, as I mentioned earlier, is make sure that the Democrats — you don't win elections unless you show up."
The Democratic Party was stunned after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump and spent much of last year licking its wounds and strategizing for the 2018 midterms. The party is now expected to challenge Republicans for the majority in the House — and maybe even the Senate.
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