Bernie Sanders Won't Run As Independent If He Loses To Hillary Clinton

The Democratic hopeful says he doesn't want to split the party's votes.

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Thursday that he won't seek election as an independent candidate if he loses the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Sanders, an independent in the U.S. Senate who is seeking the 2016 presidency on the Democratic ticket, explained in a Q&A session with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that he feels a responsibility to stick to the two-party system in the presidential contest.

“If it happens that I do not win that process, would I run outside of the system?" Sanders said in the interview broadcast by C-SPAN. "No, I made the promise that I would not and I will keep that promise. And the reason for that is I do not want to be responsible for electing some right-wing Republican to be president of the United States.”

His reasoning, Mediaite notes, alludes to Ralph Nader, whose run for president as a Green Party candidate in 2000 famously split left-wing voters and secured George W. Bush's win over Democratic nominee Al Gore.

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