Earlier this month Vice President Joe Biden came out and said that Bernie Sanders was going to endorse Hillary Clinton, apparently well before Sanders was ready to admit it. Well, today Sanders proved Uncle Joe right by announcing that he will in fact support Hillary Clinton’s bid for president.

During a rally in New Hampshire, a state that Sanders won easily, the independent Democratic Socialist told the packed crowd, “Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process. And I congratulate her for that. She will be the Democratic nominee for president, and I intend to do everything I can to make certain she will be the next president of the United States.”

The endorsement comes a full four weeks after Clinton effectively clinched the nomination. In comparison, when Obama clinched the nomination back in 2008, Clinton threw her support behind him in four days. So why the long wait?

One of the most obvious reasons is he wanted to continue to use his platform to pull Clinton further to the left and more in line with his views on solutions to the issues facing the country. And in that sense, he was successful.

Earlier this week Democrats met in Orlando to plan their party platform for November, which now includes a $15-an-hour minimum wage, carbon pricing, stricter regulations on fracking, support for a public option in healthcare, and a pathway to legalizing marijuana — all things Sanders pushed for in his campaign.

This tactic was not lost on Clinton and her team. In Sanders’ 30-minute speech, the chemistry between the two was awkward to say the least. There was very little friendly contact between the two (maybe the occasional pat on the shoulder), and Sanders spoke about Clinton as though he forgot she was standing right behind him. They capped it all off with a painful farewell in which Sanders went in for the handshake while Clinton opened her arms for a hug.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SclyaX79Q8Y

Regardless of when, how, or why, Sanders has officially done his part to take his faithful political revolutionaries and hand them over to the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. And now we’ll just have to wait and see if it’s enough to take down the seemingly unstoppable Donald Trump.

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