If the Democratic presidential primary is pretty much over, someone forgot to tell Bernie Sanders’s voters. For the eccentric democratic socialist from the Green Mountain State, the dream may never die – even if the dream must persist in a vegetative state on life support.
It would take a spectacular collapse in her geographic stronghold – a not impossible, but highly unlikely prospect – for Bernie Sanders to overtake Hillary Clinton in the count of pledged delegates. That is to say nothing of the Democratic Party’s network of “super delegates.” Those delegates’ allegiance is fluid but, today, they back Clinton over Sanders to the tune of 469 to just 31. Still, despite the practically insurmountable hill Sanders must climb, the Vermont senator’s supporters remain so infatuated with his candidacy that they continue to breathe fresh life into it and, thus, compel the septuagenarian socialist on in his Long March.
In the last month alone, Sanders raised an eye-popping $44 million, according to his campaign. The impression that Sanders’s candidacy remains surprisingly viable will be lent confirmation on Tuesday when he is expected to perform strongly in Wisconsin’s primary. While this likely victory and Sanders’s healthy war chest will propel the candidate on well into April and perhaps even into June, Hillary Clinton’s presumed strength in the Northeast is expected to push the ultimate prize beyond the socialist senator’s reach.
Though it remains unlikely that Sanders can derail Clinton’s bid for their party’s presidential nomination, it is by no means impossible. Clinton faces the frustrating prospect of a long primary campaign now, and the narrative set by a dramatic loss in Wisconsin could dispirit Clinton supporters ahead of April 9th caucuses in Wyoming, or the critical April 19th New York state primary.
The former secretary of state would love to declare the Democratic primary over and pivot toward the general election. It is more likely by the day that the GOP’s nominating contest will go all the way to the nominating convention in Cleveland, where the Republican Party may be able to narrowly avoid a Trump nomination and the ensuing disaster for down-ballot Republican candidates. From the Democratic perspective, the work of branding the GOP “The Party of Trump” needs to begin yesterday. As long as Sanders appears viable, neither Clinton nor her allies can afford to pivot and give her left-flank any more reason to oppose her bid. Clinton knows this, and she so resents it. That resentment is no longer especially well-concealed.
Clinton’s irritation appears increasingly reserved for Bernie Sanders’s most devoted cohort: young voters. As FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver concluded, research suggests that young people are by far the most favorable toward the concept of socialism, but this same group contradicts itself insofar as it is not nearly as friendly toward the practice of wealth redistribution. So what gives? Silver identified a clue in that “Sanders’s support now and Ron Paul’s support four years ago are not all that different.”
The underlying messages of these two superficially divergent candidacies, central to which is a fundamental redefinition of American politics in both practice and purpose, are so similar that Sanders fans are even appropriating the Paul campaign’s slogans and logos. “What’s distinctive about both the Sanders and Ron Paul coalitions is that they consist mostly of people who do not feel fully at home in the two-party system but are not part of historically underprivileged groups,” Silver wrote. That is the definition of a kind of parlor radical who deserves and receives little in the way of sympathy from the nation’s more established institutional leaders. For her part, Clinton isn’t even trying to display empathy toward the fanatical young Sanders voter.
Last week, the former secretary of state snapped at a Green Peace activist who confronted Clinton on a rope line and asked her if she would pledge not to take more money from fossil fuel firms. “I am so sick – I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me,” Clinton asserted. “I’m sick of it.” Asked about that incident on Sunday in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Clinton reiterated her contention that the nation’s youth have been misled by political opportunists in their midst. “I feel sorry sometimes for the young people who, you know, believe this,” Clinton said of her record on climate and alternative energy. “They don’t do their own research.”
Clinton’s decision not to back down from her passionate criticism of the Sander campaign and to transition toward a critique of Sanders’s voters is an extraordinary development. Surely, there is a bit of frustration in Clinton’s tone, which is likely due to her aggravation with the long primary race she perhaps thought would be — and by rights ought to be — over by now. But it is also reflective of a calculation on her part, and it’s likely an accurate one. Clinton does not need younger Democratic voters.
The latest Pew Research center national survey shows Clinton leading Sanders outside the margin of error overall while losing the support of nearly three-quarters of voters age 18 to 29. What’s more, neither Ted Cruz nor Donald Trump (especially Donald Trump) are particularly popular among this age group. Lacking an attractive Republican alternative, Clinton can reasonably assume that young voters will return to the Democratic fold in November. That is a reasonable presumption, and one that demonstrates the extent to which young Democratic voters have marginalized themselves over the course of this process.
Hillary Clinton is now claiming outright that younger voters are low information voters. While that admission is likely to frustrate and anger those same voters, the former first lady has demonstrated that she doesn’t think she has to care about this demographic. And she is probably right.
