Bernie Sanders Is Making Two Chicago Campaign Stops Thursday

By aaroncynic in News on Feb 24, 2016 6:43PM

Bernie Sanders (Photo by aaron cynic/Chicagoist)

Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will swoop through Chicago Thursday for two evening campaign events. The Vermont senator, who’s ran neck and neck in the first few primary elections with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, will appear at both the University of Chicago and Chicago State University. The events come less than three weeks before the March 15 primary.

Sanders will appear at the University of Chicago for MSNBC Hardball’s “college tour,” which will be limited to University of Chicago students. The event open to the general public, dubbed “a future to believe in,” will be at Chicago State University’s Emil & Patricia Jones Convocation Center, with doors opening at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are free but the campaign is strongly urging attendees to RSVP.

Sanders is expected to discuss a “wide range of issues important to the people of Illinois, including making college affordable, getting big money out of politics, combating climate change, and criminal justice reform.” He also will likely lean heavily on college affordability, particularly as CSU has been beleaguered with financial troubles and could very well close down due to a lack of state funding. According to the Tribune, the school cancelled its spring break and will end its semester early t his year.

The Vermont senator has been ramping up his campaign in Illinois, opening nearly a dozen offices statewide so far, with two in Chicago and others in several in the suburbs, as well as Rockford, Dekalb, Springfield and Champaign-Urbana.

Clinton meanwhile has also been courting Illinoisans by opening her own offices and appearing at a rally in Bronzeville last week, along with three high-dollar fundraisers.

Recent polling shows Clinton leading Sanders in Illinois. A poll published by the conservative Daily Caller website showed her with an 11 point lead, and NBC5 reports a Paul Simon Policy Institute at Southern Illinois poll shows her with a larger lead of 51 to 32, with 16 percent undecided. Nationally however, the two candidates are nearly tied—with Clinton at 44 percent and Sanders at 42 according to a Quinnipac University poll.