Democrat Bernie Sanders will team up with Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for the first time on Tuesday, joining her in New Hampshire, where he is expected to endorse her White House campaign in a belated show of party unity.
Five weeks after Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, the US senator from Vermont is scheduled to join her at a rally designed to put their bitter primary campaign behind them and emphasize a shared commitment to beat Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the Nov. 8 election, Reuters reported.
The appearance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, concludes weeks of negotiations between the two camps and comes after Clinton last week adopted elements of Sanders’ plans for free in-state college tuition and expanded affordable healthcare coverage.
The event is also less than two weeks before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Clinton is expected to become the party’s official nominee.
Sanders also successfully pushed to include an array of liberal policy positions in the Democratic platform, which a committee approved on Saturday. His campaign described the platform in a statement as “the most progressive in party history”.
Sanders did not win all of his policy fights, most notably failing to win support for blocking a vote in Congress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. But he told reporters on Saturday that the two campaigns were “coming closer and closer together”.
Clinton hopes the joint appearance will help her win over Sanders’ supporters. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos polling, only about 40% of them said they would back her.
