NEW YORK –
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton staged dueling New York
City rallies on Wednesday ahead of the state’s pivotal presidential primary,
with the Vermont senator drawing thousands of supporters in a show of force for
his self-proclaimed political revolution.

Sanders’ campaign said his rally in
Manhattan’s Washington Square Park brought out 27,000 people, one of the
largest gatherings in support of the 74-year-old democratic socialist who has
galvanized Democrats and independents alike with his calls for reforms to corporate
America and remedies for income inequality.

“When I look at an
unbelievable crowd like this I believe we’re going to win here in New
York,” Sanders declared in front of the iconic Washington Square Arch in
the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood.

Clinton attracted a smaller but
still enthusiastic crowd of 1,300 people at a Bronx community center, where she
made no mention of Sanders but focused instead on Republican rivals Donald
Trump and Ted Cruz.

“Mr. Trump wants to set
Americans against each other. He wants us to build walls, I want us to build
bridges,” Clinton said. Referencing Cruz’s earlier criticism of “New
York values,” Clinton said, “I think New York values are at the core
of American values.”

Sanders didn’t return the favor,
mentioning Clinton by name throughout his speech. He noted that she had the
support of super PACs and had voted in favor of the Iraq War, drawing boos from
the crowd.

Sanders urged Clinton to back an
expansion of Social Security benefits, a major cause among liberals.

“I am still waiting for her
response,” Sanders said.

The rallies set the stage for a
high-stakes Brooklyn debate Thursday night and capped a day in which both
candidates courted organized labor. Sanders picked up support from the local
transit workers union and walked a picket line with striking Verizon workers— a
small army of backers who could pass out leaflets in subways in the days ahead.

Clinton also walked a picket line
in solidarity with the Verizon workers and addressed the National Action
Network, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, giving her a visible platform for the
city’s black community. There she stressed her differences with Sanders on gun
laws, calling gun violence a “national emergency.”

Debate

Clinton and rival Sanders assailed each other on Thursday over their judgment and experience before a rowdy crowd in a high-volume debate five days before the New York elections

In their fifth one-on-one debate, Clinton and Sanders showed the mounting pressure of their marathon White House race with a series of heated exchanges on Wall Street, guns and other issues that featured the two of them shouting in unison while an evenly split crowd roared its support.

“If you’re both screaming at each other, the viewers won’t be able to hear either of you,” moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN warned at one point at the debate in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

The last nine opinion polls taken in New York, a state where Sanders was born and Clinton served eight years as a U.S. senator, show her holding a double-digit advantage over him ahead of Tuesday’s New York vote, the next nominating contest on the road to a July national convention and the Nov. 8 election.

As the two-hour debate ended, the Brandwatch company which analyzes social-media sentiment said Sanders had more than 173,000 mentions on Twitter, 55 percent of them positive, while Clinton had more than 191,000 mentions, 54 percent of them negative.

Sanders, who had questioned the former secretary of state’s qualifications to be president, conceded she was qualified but said she had shown poor judgment by taking money from Wall Street for speeches she gave, by voting as a U.S. senator to back the 2003 Iraq invasion and by supporting free trade deals.

“Does Secretary Clinton have the intelligence, the experience to be president? Of course she does but I do question her judgment,” Sanders said at the debate in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

“I question her judgment which voted for the war in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country,” he said. “I question her judgment about running Super PACS that are collecting tens of millions of dollars from special interests … I don’t believe that is the kind of judgment we need.”

Clinton, 68, responded the charges were also an attack on President Barack Obama, who as a candidate raised money on Wall Street and utilized Super PACS, outside funding groups that can raise unlimited sums of money, but still fought for tough regulations on the financial services industry.

“This is a phony attack that is designed to raise questions when there is no evidence or support,” she said.

The debate took place at the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, a sprawling facility now home to artists and businesses, including a distillery and a film studio. Supporters on both sides strove to out-shout one another from beginning to end.

Sanders also slammed Clinton, for what appears to be a one-sided view on the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

“I think that we will not succeed to ever bring peace into that region unless we also treat the Palestinians with dignity and respect. And that is my view.”