Bernie Sanders Says 'It's Good to Be Home' After Projected Vermont Win

Sanders was projected to beat Hillary Clinton in Vermont.

ByABC News
March 1, 2016, 8:07 PM

— -- Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders thanked his home state for a projected Super Tuesday victory there tonight.

“It is good to be home,” the Vermont senator said. “I have been all over the country, but the truth is it is great and great to come home.”

Sanders got a hometown hero welcome in Essex Junction, Vermont, taking the stage to thunderous cheering and chants of “We love Bernie!” A beaming Sanders told the crowd of 4,000 how honored he was to earn their vote and bring "Vermont values all across this country."

“It does say something and means so much to me that the people who know me best, the people who knew me before I was elected, knew me as mayor, knew me as congressman and knew me as senator have voted so strongly to put us in the White House,” Sanders said. “Thank you so much.”

The tone of the night seemed to be one of victory not only for his projected Vermont win, but for his campaign coming so far. He called his campaign one "not just about electing a president," but "about transforming America." Sanders predicted that by the end of the night he would win “many hundreds of delegates” but seemed to downplay the importance of Super Tuesday.

“At the end of tonight, 15 states will have voted, 35 states remain. And let me assure you that we are going to take our fight for economic justice, for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of peace to every one of those states,” he said. After speaking about his platform of getting corporate money out politics and providing universal health care, Sanders joined with local musicians to sing one of his favorites: “This Land is Our Land.”

Sanders also took a moment in his speech to call out the GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump.

"We bring our people together when we do not allow the Donald Trumps of the world to divide us up," he said.

Despite his projected win in Vermont, Tuesday was shaping up to be a bigger night for Sanders’ rival, Hillary Clinton.

Based on exit polls, ABC News projects that Clinton will win the Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia Democratic primaries. And she won the Democratic caucus in American Samoa, the Democratic Party there says.

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