The Atlantic

The Best Thing to Happen to Bernie Sanders’s Campaign

His recent heart attack has given his effort a new message—and has brought his supporters home.
Source: Andrew Kelly / Reuters

NEW YORK, N.Y.—Bernie Sanders’s heart attack may have been the best thing to happen to his campaign.

“Imagine,” the top adviser Jeff Weaver joked to me ahead of the senator’s rally in Queens yesterday, “Bernie with full blood flow.”

What that looked like: a speech that stretched for nearly an hour, with only a few croaks of his voice, coupled with a deeply personal endorsement from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who said her ascension in American politics was only possible because of Sanders. It all went down in front of the biggest crowd Sanders has drawn in this campaign so far—and at 25,000 people strong, it was the biggest crowd any Democratic candidate has drawn all year.

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