With California’s June 7 primary inching closer and the Democrat presidential nomination on the line, several celebrities have taken their support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on the highway for a get-out-the-vote RV road trip across the Golden State.
According to the Los Angeles Times, actresses Shailene Woodley and Rosario Dawson and actor Kendrick Sampson have joined about a dozen Sanders supporters in piling into an RV for a weekend-long trip that will see the group knock on doors, attend campaign events and meet with activist groups in an all-out, last-ditch effort to deliver the state for the insurgent Democrat candidate.
“This is about our future, our collective future, and we can’t be told we have to vote out of fear,” Dawson, 37, told the Times.
The group reportedly began their trip Thursday near San Diego and made their way all the way north to the Bay Area town of Hayward, where they spent some time knocking on doors and meeting voters. The trip ends in Los Angeles on Monday, and comes as Sanders himself frenetically criss-crosses the state ahead of the June 7 primary.
Sanders currently trails Clinton by just two points in the latest PPIC poll of California, within the poll’s margin of error. The closeness of the race in the state marks a staggering reversal of fortune for Clinton, who had hoped to cap off what has been a surprisingly vicious primary battle with a strong victory in California, which she won handily in 2008 over Barack Obama.
But Sanders’s gains with Latino voters, and the support he has received from public figures like the RV-traveling celebrities, have slowly eaten into Clinton’s early lead.
“It is close quarters. It is definitely not my preference of travel,” How to Get Away with Murder star Kendrick Sampson, 28, told the Times of traveling across the state in the 30-foot RV. “I’d rather get there and go to a hotel. But we’re having so much fun.”
“For me it’s about empowering people to know that their voices matter,” The Descendants star Woodley, 24, told local NBC affiliate KSBW. “Democracy is not a spectator sport, you can’t sit at home and complain about things that you want to see change in the world and not actively participate.”
Woodley and Dawson have appeared at Sanders rallies before. Dawson has been particularly vocal in her criticism of Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton and the Democrat National Committee (DNC), who she has accused of unofficially aiding Clinton’s campaign.
Sanders has earned the support of the entertainment industry’s more progressive figures, including Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo and Sarah Silverman, while Clinton has drawn support from Hollywood’s more established and reliable Democrat contributors, including George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Barbra Streisand.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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