Bernie Sanders rally in Madison draws 10,000 supporters

Bernie Sanders at his Madison, Wisconsin rally Wednesday.

(Image credit: Twiter.com/danmericacnn)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made history on Wednesday, holding his largest rally to date in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Alliant Energy Center seats 10,231 people, and the venue was mostly full for the event. Not only was this the biggest rally to date for the progressive presidential candidate, it could be the largest out of the entire 2016 cycle, The Huffington Post reports — about 5,500 people attended Hillary Clinton's campaign launch on New York's Roosevelt Island, while Jeb Bush drew 3,000 supporters to his kickoff in Miami.

Once Sanders took to the stage, he discussed unemployment, the TPP, and income inequality. CNN's Dan Merica tweeted several of Sanders' soundbites, including, "The greed of the billionaire class has got to end and we are going to end it for them" and "Our job is...to redistribute wealth back into the hands of working families." At the end of the night, Sanders told CNN he was heartened by the huge number of supporters who turned out for the night. "It tells me that the message is resonating," he said, "not just in Wisconsin, but all over America."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.