WHY BERNIE SANDERS FAILED: PART 1
This is Part 1 of 4 of DriveTo270’s coverage of why Bernie Sanders failed to win the 2020 Democratic Nomination for President
Among the deluge of negative news surrounding Covid-19, many die hard supporters of Bernie Sanders suffered perhaps their worst anguish of the entire crisis. Bernie Sanders, the candidate that brought Democratic Socialism into the mainstreams and whose campaign infrastructure helped pave the way for candidates such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, dropped out of the 2020 Democratic Primary on April 8th.
Before any analysis can take place for what this event means, it cannot be stressed enough how much Bernie Sanders’ supporters not only believed in his message but also believed in Sanders himself. The Bernie or Bust movement did not happen by accident. To a number of his supporters, Sanders was the first politician they truly believed could bring the change they so desperately want. His supporters were gutted by the news of him dropping out and many bemoan the fact that Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee. Now those Sanders supporters will have to make a decision that many are certain to loath. They must vote for Joe Biden, stay home on election day, or vote for Donald Trump. None of these options are very appealing for a noticeable segment of Sanders’ supporters.
Although Bernie Sanders’ campaign did not achieve its goal of winning the Democratic Nomination it did provide many lessons for future progressive campaigns. There were several reasons, both in and out of Sanders’ control, that led to his defeat. Here are the four most important factors that led to Bernie Sanders’ failure to win the Democratic Nomination:
1. Sequence of events that took place in the Ten days (February 22 – March 3) between the Nevada Caucus and Super Tuesday.
Just prior to the South Carolina Primary, it appeared that not only could Sanders actually win the Democratic nomination for President, but that he was the favorite to do so. He was coming off a blow-out victory in the Nevada Caucus and the center-left of the party was divided between Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. With Elizabeth Warren lagging badly in the early primary states, it appeared that Sanders had also overcome the biggest challenge to being “The Candidate” for the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party. It was time for Sanders to hit the accelerator and begin pushing his lagging rivals out of the race entirely. Instead of ramping up, Sanders made the mistake of taking his foot off the gas and wasted what could have been a pivotal moment for his campaign.
If there was ever going to be a time for Sanders to push Warren out of the race and consolidate her supporters, it was during this week right after the Nevada Caucus. Sanders, however, got bogged down in a controversy involving his praise for Fidel Castro and later defense of Castro in the next Democratic Debate. The controversy over Castro was harmful to Sanders for a number of reasons but first and foremost it alienated a group of voters Sanders desperately needed to win.
Despite Fidel Castro’s death in 2016, the Cuban dictator’s name remains political poison in the state of Florida. Sanders had just picked up a huge win in Nevada with the support of the state’s Latinx electorate and the Castro comments only served to quash this momentum. Florida’s Latinx voters are very different from Nevada’s, and there is no guarantee that Sanders could have won their votes, but the Castro comments effectively ended his chances of being competitive among the Latinx community in the state of Florida.
Most importantly, however, the Castro comments served as a massive distraction to Sanders’ campaign and prevented him from espousing his main message of Medicare For All. Sanders, who had been a master at staying on point with his social and political messaging throughout the 2020 campaign, began to talk about issues that did not reinforce his core beliefs. Referencing a dictator who had been dead for years sucked up the media attention that Sanders needed to espouse Democratic Socialism.
During this same time frame, the Democratic Party was working behind the scenes to pressure Sanders’ moderate rivals to drop out of the race and endorse Joe Biden. The party succeeded in getting Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg to drop out of the race in a dizzying 48 hour period after Biden’s victory in the South Carolina Primary. With both Klobuchar and Buttigieg endorsing Biden, the narrative of the campaign quickly swung away from Bernie Sanders. The narrative re-focused around Joe Biden’s electability and how he could bring the Democratic party together. Sanders effectively lost his momentum from Nevada and the media focused squarely on Joe Biden's resurrection and subsequent victories.
Had Sanders been able to pressure Elizabeth Warren to drop out prior to the South Carolina Primary, then the course of the election may have been different. Sanders may have been pressuring Warren behind the scenes, but his efforts clearly were not enough. Instead, Sanders watched Warren gain sizeable chunks of the vote, particularly in Massachusetts and Texas, that prevented Sanders from obtaining enough votes to defeat Biden. Sanders missed a golden opportunity to expand his voter base after Nevada by his inability to claim strength and knock Warren out of the race.
Ultimately Sanders was defeated because his moderate rivals were able to coalesce behind Biden before Sanders could fully unite the progressive wing of the party. Sanders needed to seize the race and force Elizabeth Warren out during the crucial ten-day period between the Nevada Caucus and Super Tuesday. This failure was a primary reason why his campaign was not able to achieve victory.
This article is Part 1 of an ongoing series on why Bernie Sanders did not win the 2020 Democratic Nomination. Check back tomorrow for Part 2.