Supporters of Sanders react to his call for unity behind Clinton

It should have been a triumphant night for Hillary Clinton when her rival Bernie Sanders gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Monday (July 25), urging his supporters to vote for her in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.

Instead it turned into a sign of potential trouble for her White House bid. His speech in Philadelphia urging the party to unite against Republican Donald Trump was met with some jeers when he endorsed Clinton – a sign he had lost control of his own movement.

With opinion polls showing the Clinton-Trump race tightening, Clinton needs Sanders’ voters more than ever. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, arrived in Philadelphia with 1,894 of 4,763 delegates after winning 13 million votes in the Democratic nominating contest.

Supporters chanted and cheered as the Vermont senator addressed a full house of democrats many of them Sanders delegates who are not yet on board with the Clinton Kaine ticket.

“I don’t think that Hillary is a strong supporter of racial justice, economic justice or world peace, and so am not going to fall in line and vote for her,” Mia Satya, transgender delegate from San Francisco California said.

“To unite the party Hillary Clinton has to make a big bold move to extend an olive branch to progressives and all independents and prove once and for all that she is going to follow up on what senator Sanders was fighting for and that we are actually going to accomplish these things” Jon Schnitzer, a Sanders delegate said.

Former president Bill Clinton attended the speech given by Bernie and stood and applauded on several occasions as Sanders went on to list his achievements urging his followers to be proud of what they together were able to get.

“Talking about the truth you know we have this Wikileaks that has come out and now Debbie Wasserman Shultz has resigned the CFO has apologized and more stuff is coming we need to have an honest conversation about what happened during the primary race, I mean look at what happened in the past 48 hours, it’s been a lot of information things can change, thats why art of me says lets stay open because anything can happen,” Stephanie Quilo a Sanders delegate said.

Roll Call is scheduled for Tuesday (July 26) and with polls showing less of a gap between Trump and Clinton, many Sanders delegates are convinced that turning the tables and nominating Sanders is the best way to unite against the republican nominee Donald Trump.

“You know it’s not a thing about what I want to unite the party, the one important thing that does unite the party is against Trump, but the Hillary people can’t get it in their minds that the superdelegates, that Hillary can’t beat Trump. The superdelegates are being bought and the democratic party is being highjacked by the alarchy that is corrupt and it stretches form the Clintons on down. The Democratic party stands for the right things it is being highjacked by the wrong people,” Alexis Adelstein, a Sanders delegate form District 33 in Califronia said.

Clinton’s campaign had hoped in Philadelphia to put the bare-knuckle primary fight behind it, but Sanders’ voters were enraged by Friday’s embarrassing release of internal party emails by the activist group WikiLeaks showing party officials clearly favored Clinton over their candidate.

Sanders supporters seemed to be everywhere, often with a bigger presence than Clinton supporters, a jarring sight at an event where she is due to be formally nominated as the party’s presidential candidate.