After winning the Nevada caucuses – his third win in a row – it looked like Bernie Sanders was well on his way to securing the 2020 Democratic nomination. He built a winning coalition. He did really well in the early states among voters of color – especially Latinx voters. And he polled really well in the Super Tuesday states.
In short, everything looked great for Bernie.
But it didn’t happen for him, as everyone knows. After a big win in South Carolina, Joe Biden nudged Sanders out of the lead on Super Tuesday and defeated him handily in the later states.
What happened, and what lessons should the electoral left learn?
Before Super Tuesday
A week before the Nevada caucuses, the pundits left the Biden campaign for dead. He finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and then he finished a terrible fifth in New Hampshire.
In turn, Biden supporters dismissed Iowa and New Hampshire for being too white. They pointed to Nevada and South Carolina as places where Biden would shine. They claimed Biden would ride a wave of non-white voters – voters (allegedly) closer to the norm for Democratic Party electorate – to victory.
In truth, Biden supporters misled us here. Yes, Iowa and New Hampshire are too white. But they’re not 100% white, and Biden didn’t do particularly well with non-white voters in either state. He finished third among non-white voters in both states, with Sanders beating him (and everyone else) easily. Voters of color pushed Sanders past Pete Buttigieg (the second place finisher) in the popular vote in both states.
Biden didn’t do all that well in Nevada, either, finishing a distant second behind Sanders. But then South Carolina turned the race. Biden rode a wave of white moderates and black moderates to victory – exactly the kind of voter coalition Biden needed to win.
And then, everyone probably knows the rest. Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race. A wave of big-name Democrats endorsed Biden heading into Super Tuesday. The Democratic Party closed ranks around Biden to prevent Sanders from winning.
Super Tuesday and Beyond
On paper, Sanders still led the race heading into Super Tuesday. The Super Tuesday map was pretty good for him. And he didn’t even lose that badly on the day itself. On Super Tuesday, Biden won 10 states, Sanders won 4, and Michael Bloomberg won American Samoa. Warren – the other major candidate – won nothing. Biden won more delegates than Sanders, but Sanders won the biggest state with the most delegates (California).
But despite his modest lead, the momentum obviously turned in a Biden-friendly direction. Not only did Biden have friendly states coming up in the calendar, but COVID-19 also made most Democrats ready to finish the race. Sanders was toast. Yes, he stayed in the race another month. But he never had a serious chance of winning after Super Tuesday.
Lessons for Future Campaigns?
We could play all kinds of ‘what if?’ here. The left might learn some lessons from it.
Buttigieg and Klobuchar stayed in the race through Super Tuesday? Sanders probably wins Maine and Texas, and possibly also Massachusetts and Minnesota (Klobuchar’s home state). That changes the narrative and probably delivers the win to Sanders. A Warren endorsement puts the icing on the cake.
But the biggest lesson? Sanders lost because his coalition was too small. Many people know that. But the key question is: what should the electoral left do about it? What should Sanders have done? Sanders probably didn’t appeal enough to liberals in the mold of, say, Kamala Harris or Warren. That’s challenging and far from promising. I recently wrote an eBook explaining precisely why.
But, even more important, Sanders needed more new voters, young voters, and inconsistent voters. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that running on a great policy slate and mobilizing voters for one year isn’t enough. It takes deeper organizing to put together the coalition Sanders needed.
If someone like AOC can do that kind of organizing, the trick Democrats pulled on Sanders – everyone dropping out and getting behind the centrist – won’t work next time.
