On March 1, 2016, "Super Tuesday", Sanders won four states: Vermont, Oklahoma, Colorado and Minnesota. He lost Massachusetts by less than 1%. He lost Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia during the event. On March 5, 2016, "Super Saturday", Sanders won two states: Kansas by 35% and Nebraska by almost 15%. He lost the Louisiana primary by about 48% during the event. On March 6, 2016, Sanders won the Maine caucuses by almost 65%. On March 8, 2016, Sanders lost the Mississippi primaries by 65%. On the same day, Sanders won the Michigan primaries by 2%. On March 12, 2016, Sanders lost the Northern Mariana Islands caucus by 20%. On March 15, 2016, Sanders lost the Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri primaries.
On March 21, 2016, Sanders won the Democrats Abroad primary with 69% to Clinton's 31%. He won 52 out of the 55 international countries of the primaries. He lost Nigeria, Singapore and the Dominican Republic. On March 23, 2016, Sanders won the Idaho primaries and the Utah caucus. He won by more than 50% in each contest compared to Clinton. On the same day, he lost the Arizona primaries by more than 30%. On March 26, 2016, Sanders won the Washington, Alaska and the Hawaii caucuses all by landslide victories.
On April 5, 2016, Sanders won the Wisconsin primaries with 57% to Clinton's 43% of the vote. On April 9, 2016, Sanders won the Wyoming caucuses with 56% to Clinton's 44%. On April 19, 2016, Sanders lost the New York primaries with 42% to Clinton's 58%. On April 26, 2016, Sanders lost the Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut primaries. On the same day, he won the Rhode Island primaries.
On May 3, 2016, Sanders won the Indiana primaries with 53% to Clinton's 47% of the vote. On May 7, 2016, he lost the Guam caucuses with 40% to Clinton's 60% of the vote. On May 10, 2016, Sanders won the West Virginia primaries with 51% to Clinton's 36% of the vote. On May 17, 2016, Sanders lost the Kentucky primaries by less than 1%. On the same day, he won the Oregon primaries with 55% of the vote to Clinton's 46%.
On June 4, 2016, Sanders lost the U.S. Virgin Islands caucus in a landslide. On June 5, 2016, Sanders lost the Puerto Rico primaries. On June 7, 2016, Sanders lost the primaries in New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, and California. He won the North Dakota and Montana primaries that day. On June 14, 2016, Sanders lost the Washington, D.C. primaries, the last primary of the election season, with 20% to Clinton's 80%.
In August 2016, Sanders founded Our Revolution. It is an organization dedicated to educating voters about political issues, getting people involved in the political process, and recruiting and supporting candidates for local, state, and national office. Sanders also plans to establish The Sanders Institute, which will focus on issues he believes the "corporate media" has failed to focus on. The agenda will include "the disappearing middle class, 'massive' income inequality, horrific levels of poverty and problems affecting seniors and children."
On November 9, 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States defeating Hillary Clinton. On December 19, 2016 during the voting of the electoral college, Sanders got three electoral votes from electors who did not want to vote for Clinton. They were from Hawaii, Minnesota, and Maine. Only the Hawaii elector's vote was counted. The Minnesota and Maine electoral votes were rejected and later went to Clinton.
Noam Chomsky said in a May 2017 BBC interview that the Sanders campaign was the most remarkable thing about the 2016 election because of Sanders not accepting money from business people or corporations.
Many political experts say that Sanders' campaign made both the Clinton campaign and the Democratic party more progressive. After ending his presidential campaign, Sanders' ideas of national single-payer health-care program, his $15-an-hour minimum wage support, free college tuition and many of the other campaign platform issues have been becoming more popular. Some former staffers created the political action committee Brand New Congress which aimed at looking for younger people to run for office.
In the 2018 midterms, Sanders supported many progressive candidates. A few of the people he endorsed ended up winning their primaries. For example, in an upset that surprised many people, including the candidate herself, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat the incumbent Joseph Crowley for United States Representative in New York City. Benjamin Jealous became the Democratic nominee for Governor of Maryland. Ironworker Randy Bryce and former Chicago mayoral candidate Chuy García ran for United States Representative in Wisconsin and Illinois respectively, and Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum won the Democratic party's nomination for Governor of Florida. Despite winning their primaries, only Ocasio-Cortez and García won their respective general elections.
Sanders had been asked many times if he would run for president again in the 2020 presidential election. Sanders would respond by stating "it is much too early to talk about that", but refused to rule out a possible second presidential campaign.
After a poll was made in February 2017, 20% of Democratic voters wanted Sanders to be the party's nominee in the 2020 presidential election, leading Hillary Clinton at 17% and Elizabeth Warren at 15%. In March 2017, at 14%, Sanders was the Democratic voters front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2020, beating Michelle Obama at 11%. In September 2017, at a polling of 28%, Sanders remained the lead candidate for the Democratic Party nominee in the 2020 election beating Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator from California Kamala Harris. In most of the 2018 polls, Sanders leading the nomination in second place, behind former Vice President Biden. During the 2019 debate season, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Biden are seen as the top candidates in the primaries.
His second campaign has been supported by Senator Patrick Leahy, Representatives Ro Khanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, Mark Takano, Chuy García, and Peter Welch, former Senators Mike Gravel and Donald Riegle, former Representative and DNC Vice Chair Keith Ellison, former Representatives Luis Gutiérrez and Alan Grayson, New York City Mayor and former 2020 presidential candidate Bill de Blasio, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, former San Francisco councilwoman Jane Kim, former Bolivian President Evo Morales, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, U.K. MPs Diane Abbott, Rebecca Long-Bailey and John McDonnell, German politician Bernd Riexinger, whistleblower Edward Snowden, political activists Cornel West and Jesse Jackson, directors Jim Jarmusch Adam McKay, and Werner Herzog, actors James Cromwell, Jack Nicholson, David Cross, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, and Susan Sarandon, radio personality Howard Stern, rap artists Cardi B and Killer Mike, singers Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus, model Emily Ratajkowski, and by the political groups Democratic Socialists of America, and Our Revolution.
In January 2018, Sanders created a team of political experts to see if it would be a good idea to run again in the 2020 presidential election. In May 2018, former campaign manager Jeff Weaver said Sanders is "actively considering" a second presidential bid. In August 2018, Sanders announced on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that he is not ruling out another run for the presidency in 2020.