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Chris Jansing: Amazing That Young Voters Get Emotional Over Meeting Sanders, Not Clinton

May 31, 2016

NBC reporter Chris Jansing said Tuesday that she was surprised to see how emotional young female voters get when they meet Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), rather than potential first woman president Hillary Clinton.

Jansing told MSNBC's Morning Joe she thought that one girl "was going to pass out" because of her excitement.

"I saw a young woman who I thought honestly was going to pass out, and she was crying and saying ‘I touched Bernie Sanders’," she said. "So this is—you talk about a movement. It's like Paul McCartney in 1964 when he walks out there."

The surprise for Jansing was that she thought that if young women were going to be in tears when they met a presidential candidate, it would've been for Clinton. Clinton is closing in on being the first woman to be a major party's nominee.

"If people had said to me six months ago that I would see 22-year-old women in tears after meeting a candidate, I would have said Hillary Clinton," she said. "Right? The possibility of the first woman president has so overwhelmed them and moved them. No."

Jansing then showed a focus group panel that consisted of women voters under the age of 29. They mainly supported Sanders. Jansing asked them that if the nominee turned out to be Clinton, would they still be able to support her?

A woman said that she supports Sanders because he has been consistent in his messaging "throughout his political career to take the money out of politics." She also appreciated his focus on the working middle class.

Jansing explained the lack of enthusiasm to jump ship to Clinton, should she become the nominee, citing the lack of trust in Clinton as a problem among young female voters.

"This is a microcosm of what we're seeing in the polls, which is that young women, like everyone else, they don't believe that Hillary Clinton is trustworthy," she said. "They don't believe that what she says is necessarily what she's going to do. She has a real problem and Bernie Sanders could help bridge the gap but he's not there yet.

"He says he will support—there's no doubt about the fact—he said to me Donald Trump is dangerous. He said that to me on Saturday. But, in terms of making that leap and wholeheartedly going in and saying, all right, Hillary Clinton is our person. He's not there yet, and you can see they aren't."