A new report from Politico claims that some Democrat operatives and party insiders believe Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has a good shot at snagging the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, even though the Democratic socialist doesn’t do well polling against President Donald Trump in any battleground state.
The shocking report comes as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sanders’ top competition for the title of “progressive standard bearer” among the existing Democratic nominees, saw her popularity fall further in a series of polls released Christmas week, even after the Massachusetts senator’s full court-press in Iowa.
“For months, the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020,” the Washington, D.C.-based outlet reported. “But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives and pundits are reconsidering Sanders’ chances.”
Sanders is now leading Warren in polls in most early primary states, and stands a good chance of winning New Hampshire and Iowa — two states where he performed extremely well in 2016. He’s also kept up a grueling campaign pace, holding events in early primary states nearly every day during the month of December, despite suffering from a heart attack on the campaign trail last month.
Both former Hillary Clinton and former Barack Obama allies have weighed in on Sanders’ chances and say he’s shown himself to be a “resilient” and tenacious challenger to former Vice President Joe Biden, Warren, and South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg.
“It may have been inevitable that eventually you would have two candidates representing each side of the ideological divide in the party. A lot of smart people I’ve talked to lately think there’s a very good chance those two end up being Biden and Sanders,” David Brock, the Hillary Clinton acolyte and Media Matters founder told Politico.
“I believe people should take him very seriously. He has a very good shot of winning Iowa, a very good shot of winning New Hampshire, and other than Joe Biden, the best shot of winning Nevada,” added senior Obama adviser Dan Pfieffer. “He could build a real head of steam heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.”
Biden has held the lead in the 2020 Democratic nomination race since he entered the competition in April (if not before), and has remained steadily in first despite a number of major mistakes on the trail. Warren has risen and fallen. Buttigieg is on the upswing, but recent headlines seem to indicate progressives, who once backed Buttigieg as one of their own, are tiring of the South Bend mayor’s more “moderate” campaign themes and his cozy relationship with the San Francisco tech elite. Sanders has risen and fallen just like Warren, but he’s remained stubbornly popular, and his appeal widespread and consistent.
Sanders’ detractors were quick to throw cold water on progressive hopes, though. The directors of the moderate Third Way pointed out to Politico that Sanders can’t overcome the Democrat Party establishment’s bias towards “electability” because Sanders can’t post winning numbers against Donald Trump, particularly in battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, where even Democrat voters are strictly anti-socialism. Others are also loathe to repeat the mistakes of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party, which suffered epic losses — the worst in half a century — after nominating an outspoken socialist to head their party (though Jeremy Corbyn had other serious problems).
Right now, at least, the Democrats aren’t in danger of putting Sanders at the head of their party, but there are weeks, still, between now and the first-in-the-nation primary contest, the Iowa caucuses, which take place on February 2nd.