Bernie Sanders will try to dent Hillary Clinton’s momentum Tuesday at a CNN Democratic town hall meeting, as he faces pressure to change the dynamics of a presidential race that is starting to trend against him.
After losing to Clinton in Saturday’s Nevada Democratic caucuses and another loss likely looming this weekend in South Carolina, Sanders needs a confident performance to project strength going into the multiple state contests on Super Tuesday.
He will get the chance to draw sharper contrasts with his rival at the town hall meeting in South Carolina, from 8 p.m-10 p.m. ET, which will be moderated by Chris Cuomo and air on CNN, CNN International and CNN en Español and be streamed live online on CNNgo.
In the coming weeks, Clinton is counting on a strong showing in southern states likely to showcase her dominance among African-American voters, putting the onus on Sanders to try to broaden his support or face falling behind.
The Vermont senator clearly appreciates the urgency of his situation after adopting his toughest rhetoric in weeks against the former secretary of state, who has stabilized her campaign after Sanders swept to victory in New Hampshire two weeks ago.
“There are a lot of differences of opinion between Secretary Clinton and myself on major, major major issues,” Sanders told reporters on Monday. “But at the end of the day, this is the main one — what we are seeing is more and more power going into the hands of the few. Who’s life work is about standing up to the billionaire class, standing up to Wall Street?”
Clinton, who spent weeks struggling with how to respond to her rival’s self proclaimed grass-roots “revolution,” has adopted a more populist tone of late, seeking to shrug off claims by Sanders that her reliance on big money donors means she is a typical product of the political class in thrall to what he says is a “corrupt” campaign finance system.
“I want to knock down all the barriers that are holding people back,” Clinton said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, striking a message that is aimed at minority voters and members of the struggling middle class alike.
“We have spent a lot of time talking with voters in the last week about the barriers they felt did impede their getting ahead,” said Clinton, who has also been portraying Sanders as a single issue candidate — implicitly arguing that while his anti-Wall Street rhetoric might be popular, it cannot alone be the basis for an entire presidency.
Sanders is responding to Clinton by ratcheting up pressure on the links between the former secretary of state and the finance industry, and repeating his calls for her to release transcripts of her past paid speeches.
“Voters deserve to know what she told Wall Street and Big Pharma behind closed doors,” Sanders’ campaign tweeted Tuesday, foreshadowing a likely line of attack that he could use in the town hall meeting.
Clinton has said she will release transcripts of her speeches when other candidates open the record on remarks they have given in private.