Sanders faces tougher road for liberal support
Barbara Lee supported Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid, helping him score one of his most decisive victories that year when he dominated the New Hampshire primary. But as he wages another bid for the White House, Lee is looking at a different candidate.
“I like him, I like his ideas,” the 66-year-old retired massage therapist said of Sanders. “I just think right at the moment, Elizabeth Warren has better plans.”
That sentiment is becoming a hurdle to the Vermont senator’s effort to recreate the energy that fueled his insurgent 2016 campaign, when he emerged as the liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton. Democrats now have multiple options, including Warren, who had a strong debate performance and outraised Sanders by more than $1 million during the second quarter in a sign of her growing grip over progressives.
Lacking the clear anti-establishment lane he had to himself in 2016, Sanders now must carve out a new one — and it’s unclear exactly what that will look like.
“He has to be able to convince people that there’s something distinctive about him,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. “His speeches now, and what he says in the debates, are indistinguishable from what he said in 2016. In 2016, he was the new kid on the block, despite his age, and he seemed fresh to a lot of people. Right now, I think he’s lost some of that sense of freshness.”
Warren isn’t the only Democrat on the rise who could potentially eat into Sanders’ base. Voters making a generational choice have an alternative in a range of fresh Democratic faces who have recently emerged on the national stage, including Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and California Sen. Kamala Harris.
And despite his talk of political revolution, Sanders risks being seen as part of the old guard.
That’s part of the reason John Jenkins, a 33-year-old public schoolteacher from Ames, Iowa, is considering other candidates.
“He’s kind of a constant,” said Jenkins, who supported Sanders in 2016 and recently attended one of his speeches.
His wife, Natalie Robinson, wore an “Our Revolution” T-shirt to come to see the senator — but she’s also not sure if she’ll support him this time. “They all agree on the issues,” she noted, but “it’s how they’re going to make those issues better that matters.”
Jenkins said he’s considering Warren and Harris, whose “enthusiasm is very interesting to me.”
And that, according to Charles Chamberlain, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Democracy for America, may be Sanders’ biggest challenge — the fact that while some voters are interested in policy nuance, many are evaluating the candidates on personality.
“I don’t think he should be changing his content,” Chamberlain said. “What I do think would benefit him would be to think a little bit more about how to personalize his policy, so people can see he’s not just an angry guy with a vision, he’s also warm — like your grandpa.”