Sanders calls for reckoning for Democrats after loss

Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders did not mince words in a scathing statement released following the election of Donald Trump as president.

"It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them," Sanders, Vermont's senior senator, said on Thursday.

"First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well," Sanders said.

Sanders won re-election to a fourth term on Tuesday.

He singled out wealth inequality, a slipping standard of living in the US, a lack of full healthcare guarantees and support for Israel's recent military campaigns as problems Democrats need to focus on.

Sanders' 2016 presidential run was a key factor in pushing the dialogue in the Democratic party to the left.

Sanders has built his political career outside - and often criticising - the Democratic Party, but he caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.