The Idaho Capital Sun has the deets on the event that filled the 12,500-seat arena in Republican Nampa Idaho:
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came to Nampa with a message about fighting back against policies that benefit the wealthiest at the expense of working class Americans, but the comments about health care from every speaker seemed to resonate the most with those in attendance.
Sanders, an Independent U.S. senator from Vermont and former presidential candidate, has been touring various cities nationwide under the title “Fighting Oligarchy,” often with Ocasio-Cortez as a guest speaker. The night before, the pair spoke to a crowd of 20,000 to the south in Salt Lake City and the crowd in Nampa on Monday night reached the Ford Idaho Center’s full capacity of 12,500, according to Andrew Luther, the general manager of the arena.
Sanders said they chose to come to Idaho even though it is deeply conservative — President Donald Trump won the state by 36 points in November — because “we don’t accept this blue state, red state nonsense. We are one people.”
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“We’re here to flip this state,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We might all come from different places, but we share so many of the same experiences.”
The article noted that local family physician Dr. Penny Beach also spoke about a health care crisis in Idaho, apparently made worse by the state’s near-total abortion ban. Idaho has the lowest per capita number of physicians in the country.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez gave “one simple answer” for why she and Sen. Sanders held a rally in such a red state. “It’s because you matter,” she said.
The crowd roared. You can see there were plenty of younger people there.
There were other good, crowd-pleasing moments, such as Sanders attacking Donald Trump for being so thin-skinned, he’s threatening CBS: “If you can’t take criticism, get out of the political process. This is a democracy,” Sanders said.