Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to about 4,000 people in the Topeka High School gymnasium on Saturday, rallying supporters even as the national Democratic Party tries to find its footing after losing the White House in 2016.

Topeka ? Former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders fired up a crowd estimated at 4,000 at Topeka High School on Saturday, proving he still has a loyal following in Kansas, where he won the 2016 presidential caucuses despite losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Sanders spoke for nearly an hour in the crowded high school gymnasium, trumpeting his own unique brand of progressive populism that ignited crowds on the campaign trail last year and made him an unexpectedly strong competitor against Clinton.

With remarks aimed directly at President Donald Trump, Sanders went through a litany of causes that he said Democrats and progressives would continue to defend, despite failing to win the White House or either chamber of Congress in 2016.

Those causes included such things as equal pay for women in the workplace, raising the minimum wage, abortion rights and guaranteeing health care for all Americans.

“It is not a radical idea to suggest that the United States should join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care for all as a right,” he said to rousing applause.”And unlike the president and his new EPA administrator, we know that climate change is not a hoax.”

But he drew one of the longest sustained ovations of the night when he attacked Trump on his views about foreign policy, immigration and LGBT rights.

“We as a nation have struggled and have had a very rocky road in fighting against racism, against sexism, against xenophobia and yes, homophobia. And yes, President Trump, we are not going back.”

Sanders’ appearance was the keynote event of the Kansas Democratic Party’s annual state convention, known as Washington Days, and it came at a time when both the state and national parties appeared to be struggling over their future direction following what they saw as disappointing losses in races for the White House and control of Congress.

Earlier in the day, the Democratic National Committee met in Atlanta to decide a contested race for the next chairman, eventually electing former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, the first Latino to lead the party, over U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, who had been seen as the favorite among Sanders’ wing of the party.

Similarly, the Kansas Democratic Party faced a contested race Saturday for its chairman after Lee Kinch announced last week he would not seek another term. John Gibson, an attorney who has been active in Johnson and Jefferson County politics for several years, was chosen over Kathryn Focke, who has been serving as one of two co-vice chairs of the party.

A number of high-ranking party officials said after the vote Saturday that they knew little about Gibson or where he fit in the dichotomy between the Hillary Clinton “establishment” wing of the party, or the Bernie Sanders “progressive populist” wing.

“I met him the other day, here in Topeka,” said Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka. “He’s a good guy.”

“I know what you know, really,” said House Minority Leader Jim Ward of Wichita. “I know he’s been an activist in Johnson County and Jefferson County. I know he’s a lawyer and his background being involved. Now we’ll see if he raises money, which is what it’s all about.”

In many ways, the tensions within the national and state organizations are similar. In 2016, Clinton won the popular vote by more than 3 million votes, due to her large margins of victory in coastal states like California and New York. But she lost the electoral vote after losing most of Middle America, including Kansas and most of the Great Plains, and Rust Belt states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Similarly, the Kansas party organization has faced criticism from within its own ranks for being a party that is too focused on the Kansas City-Lawrence-Topeka corridor and the Wichita metropolitan area, while being reluctant to invest resources to build strength in rural parts of the state like southeast Kansas — once a Democratic stronghold — or western Kansas.

Kansas Democrats did, however, make significant gains in the Kansas House in 2016, with a net gain of 12 seats in the 125-member chamber.

Coupled with gains by moderate Republicans in the August primaries, that shifted the balance of power in the House, enabling that coalition to push through expansion of Medicaid and restoration of teacher tenure rights in a single day last week while also overriding Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto of a tax bill that would have reversed course on many of the controversial tax cuts that Brownback championed in 2012.

But Democrats gained only one seat in the 40-member Senate. And even though moderate Republicans made significant gains against conservatives in the primaries, they were not enough to produce a veto-proof margin, at least so far, on the reversal of Brownback’s tax cuts.

Meanwhile, Kansas Democrats of all stripes appeared emboldened by Sanders’ appearance in Topeka, one of his first major political rallies since the November 2016 elections, even as some said they still felt the sting from those elections.

Those people, who came from all corners of the state, expressed different views about which direction the Democratic Party should take in the next four years and what role Bernie Sanders should play in shaping the party.

“I think keep doing what he’s doing,” said Dana Riley, who traveled from Derby to attend the event. “He has our revolution that’s keeping progressives active. We’re trying to organize and be a louder voice.”

Greg Russell, of Olathe, said he supported Clinton during the 2016 nomination season, but he thinks there is still a role that Sanders can play.

“The party needs to take a look at the amount of support that he garnered and try to hook onto some of that so they can get the Democratic Party straightened out and be more viable,” he said.

McKenna Parker, a Kansas State University student who just became eligible to vote in 2016, said she was disappointed by the results of that election, but she said she is not giving up.

“We have to be active,” she said. “We have to get people out there that want to run, and I think he (Sanders) can help endorse a candidate that could run in 2020 so that would get his people behind someone.”