‘Easy target for Trump’: Centrist Dems alarmed by Sanders’ surge
In the first seven rounds of Democratic Party presidential debates, Joe Biden was attacked for his record on school desegregation.
Elizabeth Warren drew fire for her wealth tax proposal.
Pete Buttigieg was assailed for holding a fundraiser in a ‘‘wine cave’’.
Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, sailed through almost entirely unscathed – reflecting the conventional wisdom that he had little chance of winning the party’s nomination.
Polling consistently suggested that Sanders had a lock on around 15 to 20 per cent of Democratic voters, but no more than that and certainly not enough to assemble a winning coalition.
But now, with just a week to go until the influential Iowa caucuses which mark the start of the process to find the Democratic nominee, the 78-year old Democratic Socialist is surging in the polls at just the right time.
Sanders’ momentum has delighted the party’s left wing but alarmed Democratic centrists, who are scrambling to halt his rise.
The pushback has echoes of the illfated attempts by establishment Republicans to stop Donald Trump from winning their party’s nomination in 2016.
The Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel progressive super PAC, announced on Wednesday that it was about to unleash a major anti-Sanders ad campaign in Iowa.
In one ad, an Iowa resident brings up Sanders’ heart attack last year as a
‘‘Until fairly recently people didn’t think he had much of a chance of winning the nomination. Now it’s clear that he does.’’
Mark Mellman veteran Democratic strategist
concern about his candidacy.
‘‘Until fairly recently people didn’t think he had much of a chance of winning the nomination,’’ Mark Mellman, the veteran Democratic strategist behind the ads, said. ‘‘Now it’s clear that he does.’’ Mellman said: ‘‘We’re deeply committed to winning the presidential election in November and we’re concerned that Bernie is not equipped to win that election.’’
As recently as November, Sanders was running fourth in Iowa, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average.
Now he is in the lead, with 23 per cent of the vote.
He is easily leading in New Hampshire, the next state to vote after Iowa.
Sanders’ rise comes at the expense of fellow progressive Elizabeth Warren, who recently claimed he told her he did not believe a female candidate could beat Trump.
Sanders denied making that comment.
Democrats alarmed by Sanders’ calls for a ‘‘political revolution’’ fear he will use what is predicted to be a strong start as a springboard to storm through the ‘‘Super Tuesday’’ primary contests in March and win the party’s nomination.
A national poll released this week by the respected Quinnipiac University showed Sanders on 21 per cent – five points behind Biden, the former vice president – but up from just 13 per cent in November.
Jonathan Cowan, president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think-tank, this week issued an urgent memo to Democrats in Iowa urging them not to vote for Sanders.
‘‘Sanders’ record makes him the easiest target for Trump to beat,’’ the memo says.
‘‘It doesn’t take professional opposition researchers to find things in Sanders’ past that would arm the Trump team with the political equivalent of nuclear weapons.’’
The memo points to his support for revolutionary regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua, tax hikes on the middle class and abolishing private healthcare as evidence that he is politically toxic, fated to repeat the failure of far-left British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in last year’s general election.
National polls do not necessarily show Sanders performing worse than other candidates in hypothetical headto-head contests with Trump.
But Mellman says he is particularly unappealing to swing voters in the key states Democrats will need to win back to beat Trump in November.
Sanders and his supporters counter that he will mobilise younger Americans to turn out to vote, and that his economic populist message can resonate with the white working class.
‘‘It’s no secret that we’re taking on the political establishment and the big money interests, who are now running attack ads against us in Iowa,’’ Sanders said in a video message.
‘‘But we have the people, and our grassroots movement will prevail.’’