ORLANDO, Fla. — When Bernie Sanders appeared last week before an audience of 100 or so Democratic House members, the closed-door reception in a basement hearing room on Capitol Hill was distinctly cool.
Lawmakers shouted, “Timeline! Timeline!” — pressing him to hurry up and endorse the party’s presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton — and there were boos when the Vermont senator said his goal was “not to win elections” but “to transform America.”
After pulling Clinton leftward in the fight for the party’s nomination and pushing their contest to the very last day of voting — long after it was effectively decided — Sanders now faces calls for him to stand down, step aside and fall in line.
Sanders, whose influence wanes the longer he waits, suggests he will get around to endorsing Clinton before too much longer. He already has said he would vote for her over Donald Trump and would do everything he can to defeat the presumptive Republican nominee.
“Am I fighting to make sure that a Democrat is elected president? You bet your bottom dollar,” he said Wednesday on CNN.
The same day as his less-than-wild Capitol Hill reception, Sanders praised Clinton for a plan she announced to make higher education more affordable, calling it “a result of the work of both campaigns.”
On Saturday, he embraced another new Clinton proposal, to double federal support for primary care at community health centers serving low-income patients.
“It’s fair to say that the Clinton campaign and I are coming closer and closer together,” Sanders said.
Top aides to Clinton and Sanders have been in frequent contact, and an endorsement at a joint appearance in New Hampshire — where Sanders beat Clinton in the first primary contest — could take place on Tuesday.