Sanders travels to sell budget
Senator hopes plan’s populist tilt wins over Trump voters
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Bernie Sanders has long argued — but not proved — that his big government populism can win over voters in the largely white, rural communities that flocked to Republican Donald Trump in recent elections.
Now, as the chief Senate shepherd of a $3.5 trillion budget proposal, Sanders believes he has another chance to test the theory.
The Vermont senator is in Trump country this weekend, promoting a budget plan packed with progressive initiatives and financed by higher taxes on top earners. He’s targeting two congressional districts where Trump’s vote totals increased between 2016 and 2020.
“My Republican colleagues are telling everybody that Bernie Sanders and the Democrats are going to raise taxes. You’re right, we’re gonna raise them on the richest people in this country,” Sanders said to more than 2,000 attendees at an outdoor amphitheater in West Lafayette, Ind., on Friday evening.
Sanders has a similar event set for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, today. He’s noting the difference between the two parties since congressional Republicans in years past approved tax cuts for wealthy Americans but are expected to universally oppose a plan Sanders calls “the most consequential piece of legislation” since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.
It could be a tough sell for the face of the progressive movement.
Republicans have already begun using Sanders — along with fellow democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., — in ads warning voters that the country is edging toward socialism.
Sanders saw his political star first rise to national prominence by nearly winning the 2016 Democratic Iowa caucus, and he won that year’s Indiana Democratic primary over Hillary Clinton. As he pushed his party to the left and drew in voters frustrated by mainstream Democrats, Sanders and his supporters advocated for reaching beyond the traditional base by making appeals to the white, working class that can attract Republicans or nonvoters.
“He has a lot of credibility with a lot of audiences that aren’t just progressive,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the progressive advocacy group the Working Families Party.
“He an outsider. He’s a populist. And, in fact, the thing that we’ve always said works best against right-wing populism is progressive populism.”
But according to data from the Pew Research Center, only about 3% of people who consistently supported Sanders during 2016 the primary season, and were confirmed to have voted in the general election, said they ultimately supported Trump, compared with 81% who reported voting for Clinton.
Sanders is making his case anew based on a budget proposal that promises universal prekindergarten and tuition-free community college, while increasing federal funding for child care, paid family leave and combating climate change.
It also expands health care coverage through Medicare, creates pathways to citizenship for millions of migrants and encourages states to adopt labor-friendly laws.
Republicans say the plan is loaded with unnecessary spending and tax increases. But Democrats, as long as they stay united, can use their narrow advantage in each congressional chamber to muscle it through anyway.
“This is the peoples’ budget. This is the budget that will impact tens of millions of lives in this country: the elderly, the children, the working families, the middle class,” Sanders said in an interview before Friday’s rally. “So it is appropriate to me that the chairman of the budget committee get out and around the country, hear what people have to say. Explain what we’re trying to do.”