Bernie Sanders drops out of Democratic race for president
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont ended his presidential candidacy Wednesday, concluding a quest that elevated him as a standard-bearer of American liberalism and clearing the way for a general election between the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, and President Donald Trump at a time of national crisis.
In a speech streamed live, Sanders, eloquent but without his characteristic spark, cast his decision in the broader context of the fight against the coronavirus. “I cannot in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour,” Sanders said, adding, “While this campaign is coming to an end, our movement is not.”
If Biden, a former vice president, can now lay claim to the Democratic nomination, he still faces considerable challenges in uniting the party and mobilizing a broad base of voters for the November election. Unlike Sanders, Biden inspired little enthusiasm among young voters nor did he develop signature policy proposals. He triumphed because many voters rejected Sanders’ policy agenda as too far to the left and prohibitively expansive and were convinced that Biden had the best chance to beat Trump in November.
To motivate liberal Democrats who find him frustratingly conventional, Biden, 77, will most likely need to do far more to articulate an agenda on foundational Democratic issues such as health care and climate change.
Those issues are central to Sanders’ candidacy, and in recent days, and as Sanders began to consider dropping out more seriously, his aides intensified discussions to find common ground with the Biden campaign. Sanders ultimately became satisfied that there was movement in directions that he wanted, a top aide said.
The Biden campaign is expected to roll out a series of policy agreements with Sanders on health care, climate and possibly student loans starting Thursday, according to three people with direct knowledge of their plans.
The two camps were still negotiating the details Wednesday, and while Biden is not expected to embrace Sanders’ full-throated call for “Medicare for All,” for example, they are striving to arrive at positions with which they are both comfortable.
Shortly after Sanders spoke Wednesday, Biden issued a statement thanking his opponent while acknowledging the need to draw Sanders’ loyal base into his coalition. “I’ll be reaching out to you,” Biden wrote. “You will be heard by me.”
“And to your supporters,” he added, “I make the same commitment: I see you, I hear you, and I understand the urgency of what it is we have to get done in this country.”
The people familiar with the discussions between the two campaigns said they were discussing the possibility of a full-fledged Sanders endorsement of Biden, with the possibility of some sort of joint online appearance, although the details have yet to be worked out.
Though Sanders made it clear Wednesday that he viewed Biden as the party’s 2020 nominee, he said he would remain on the ballot in states that still have primaries to try to gather delegates — a move that could give him leverage to influence the Democratic platform and continue carrying his message.
Sanders’ departure from the race is a striking turnaround for a candidate who less than two months ago was the clear front-runner, after finishing in a virtual tie for first in Iowa and winning in New Hampshire and Nevada.
But in a race reshaped, and eclipsed, by the escalating coronavirus crisis, Sanders faced no realistic path to the nomination after a series of lopsided losses to Biden, beginning in South Carolina in late February and culminating with victories by Biden in crucial states such as Michigan and Florida last month.
Persistent and unyielding in pushing his agenda, Sanders is loath to admit defeat; his withdrawal represents a tacit concession that without a chance of overtaking Biden, he would have more leverage to advance his priorities if he ceded the race and joined forces with his rival.
His exit is also a sharp contrast to his bid in 2016, when he stayed in an increasingly acrimonious race against Hillary Clinton even after it became clear she would be the nominee. Talks between the Biden and Sanders camps this time around were eased by the cordial relationship between the two principals. Sanders has told people close to him that he appreciated the fact that Biden did not overtly pressure him to quit after Super Tuesday.
Sanders also talked to former President Barack Obama at least twice in the last month, a person familiar with the discussions said, with Obama praising the Vermont senator’s campaign and emphasizing the need to unite to defeat Trump in November. Obama, who has told friends he hopes to ease the integration of Sanders voters into the party, made no effort to pressure him to leave.
As Sanders pursued the White House for a second time, he promised that he could transform the electorate, bringing new voters under the Democratic tent, but that goal eluded him. Even Sanders has lamented that he was unable to produce a surge in young voters.
In early primaries this year, he also failed to show that he had remedied a crucial weakness from his 2016 run: a lack of support from black voters, a vital base of the Democratic Party. In state after state across the South — Alabama, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Virginia — he was unable to chip away at Biden’s strong support among African Americans.
In many ways, Sanders never overcame the widely held view among Democrats that he was a political outlier, a selfdescribed democratic socialist who proudly proclaimed himself to be an independent senator from Vermont rather than a member of the party establishment.
Sanders championed liberal policies such as “Medicare for All” and tuition-free, four-year public colleges aimed at lifting up America’s working class, but he faced opposition from many party leaders, elected officials and major donors, as well as large numbers of moderate voters who saw him as too far left.
Sanders never accepted that argument. In recent weeks he said repeatedly that he had won the ideological debate, asserting that a strong majority of Democrats supported his progressive agenda.
But during a striking news conference in Burlington, Vt., last month, he also acknowledged that he was losing the electability battle to Biden, saying voters had made clear that they thought the former vice president was the best candidate to beat Trump.
The president immediately tried to sow discord among Democrats. In a Twitter post Wednesday, he blamed Sanders’ inability to win Super Tuesday states on his ideological rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and then invited Sanders’ supporters to “come to the Republican Party.”
Trump’s penchant for no-holds-barred political combat presents another challenge for Biden.
Some Democrats question whether he can withstand the kind of bitingly personal onslaught that Trump is certain to direct his way in the general election. The president’s efforts to tar Biden with the overseas business dealings of his son, Hunter, already upended the campaign once and led to Trump’s impeachment.
Sanders, 78, leaves the campaign having almost single-handedly moved the Democratic Party to the left. He also transformed the way Democratic campaigns raised money, eschewing big fundraisers and instead relying on an army of small-dollar donors.
But as he ascended to the top of the field in February, establishment Democrats scrambled to block his path, convinced his far-reaching proposals would alienate great swaths of the electorate and make him an easy target for Trump.
Moderate candidates in the race who could not overcome Biden dropped out and endorsed him just before Super Tuesday, on March 3, helping him sweep 10 of 14 states on the biggest voting day of the primary. That led to a wave of new endorsements and a remarkable coalescing around Biden that Sanders could not match on the left.
Sanders’ insistence on trying to amass delegates to exert influence on the platform has convinced some Democrats that a scaled-down or even virtual convention this summer might be preferable. If the nomination is conferred virtually, the argument goes, Biden’s campaign can control the platform deliberations and program entirely, and ensure minimal dissent from Sanders supporters.
Sanders largely stuck to his familiar message for most of his campaign, battling establishment forces rather than his immediate rivals.
Amid a slump in the polls during the fall, he suffered a heart attack while campaigning in Las Vegas, a startling event that threatened to upend his bid.