Mr. Sanders, the upstart Democratic presidential candidate who has steadily been gaining ground in the polls but remains a distinct underdog, outlined an unabashedly liberal agenda for the raucous Wisconsin crowd, advocating a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a single-payer health-care system and free tuition at public universities.
In Madison, Mr. Sanders was greeted by a roaring crowd that filled a 10,000 seat arena to the rafters. He told supporters that this was the largest rally yet for any candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Tonight, we have made a little bit of history,” Mr. Sanders said.
Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, drew about 5,500 supporters to New York’s Roosevelt Island when she kicked off her campaign last month.
Mr. Sanders, a 73-year-old Democratic socialist, has emerged as an increasingly popular alternative to Mrs. Clinton, appealing to the left flank of the party in the wake of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s decision not to run.
A recent CNN/WMUR poll showed Mr. Sanders closing the gap with Mrs. Clinton in the early primary state of New Hampshire, winning support from 35% of likely voters, compared with 43% for Mrs. Clinton. National polls still show Mrs. Clinton with a commanding lead, up more than 40 points on Mr. Sanders and other Democrats.
Mrs. Clinton has avoided criticizing Mr. Sanders, instead focusing her fire on the GOP field.
Mr. Sanders, who is an advocate of public funding for elections, told supporters that his opponents surely would outspend him. On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign announced that it had raised more than $45 million in the second quarter, essentially matching President Barack Obama’s fundraising pace during the same quarter of his re-election bid in 2011.
“They may have the money, but we have the people,” Mr. Sanders said of other presidential candidates.
In his remarks, Mr. Sanders railed against what he called the “billionaire class,” saying that most people in the U.S. don’t feel like they live in the richest country on earth because the wealth is concentrated among very few people.
“The issue of wealth and income inequality, to my mind, is the great moral issue of our time,” he said. “It is the greatest economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time.”
Mr. Sanders pledged to fight on behalf of workers, calling for guaranteed family and medical leave, paid vacation and a renewed union movement. He also said he would break up the largest financial institutions in the country, telling supporters that “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”
The crowd in Madison was populated with intense Sanders backers who praised his candor and his disdain for Wall Street. While many Sanders backers they likely would support Mrs. Clinton if she emerged as the Democratic nominee, they said they were determined to build momentum for Mr. Sanders and deliver an upset in the Democratic primary.
David Shuck, a Vanderbilt University student from Green Bay, Wis., said he hadn’t expected a viable Democratic alternative to Mrs. Clinton to emerge in this primary. Now, he’s a Sanders supporter because the Vermont senator “owns up to his own progressivism.”
“As a young person, I finally get to feel hope for a candidate,” he said.
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