Last July, a Silent Generation Vermont senator from Brooklyn met with a Millennial Bronx rapper. In a Detroit nail salon, Bernie Sanders and Cardi B talked about a lot of issues. But the conversation hinged on young people, the issues they face, and how they can get involved in electoral politics.
In his 2016 run for president, Sanders earned his reputation as the candidate of young people. It was that election where Cardi B first noticed Sanders, instructing listeners to ‘vote for Daddy Bernie, bitch.’ From the middle of the country to the coasts, Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton again and again among voters under 40. And he’s earning that reputation again in the 2020 cycle. In the most recent polling, Sanders leads young voters by 17 (HarrisX/The Hill), 21 (YouGov/Economist), and 21 (Quinnipiac) points. When young people vote, Bernie Sanders wins. And more broadly, when young people vote, social democracy wins. So, why didn’t Bernie win in 2016? And why is he still running a bit behind Joe Biden in 2020?
Let’s think about this by looking at the Iowa problem.
2016 Iowa Caucuses: The Iowa Problem
There’s one Iowa problem many of us know about. Iowa is a very white state and it holds the first nomination contest. I wrote about that Iowa problem here. In this post I tackle a different Iowa problem.
Let’s look at the entrance polls from the 2016 Iowa Caucuses. In particular, let’s look at the age breakdown. Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton by 21 points among voters age 30-44 and 70 points among voters age 17-29. If you want to get more fine-grained, Sanders defeated her by a whopping 75 points among voters age 17-24! On the other side of things, Clinton defeated Sanders by 7 points among voters in their 40s, 24 points among voters age 50-64, and 43 points among voters 65 and older.
Age was the dominant divide in the 2016 caucuses, and thus we have the Iowa problem: Bernie Sanders easily wins with young voters, but most Iowa voters aren’t young. If you look at the data, 28% of voters were 65 and older and 30% were 50-64 years old. Only 18% of voters were under 30. This means the median voter age in the Iowa Caucuses is somewhere between 55 and 60 years old. That’s not a very Bernie-friendly group.
To win, Bernie Sanders has to lower the median voter age by getting more young people to vote.
2020 Campaign, Bernie, and Cardi B
And so, one reason Sanders did the Cardi B interview is that he’s reaching out to young people who don’t participate in politics. We know young voters of color, in particular, weren’t impressed by Hillary Clinton and didn’t vote at high rates in the 2016 election. We also know young voters of color make up a good part of Cardi B’s fan base. Young voters of color probably aren’t the main Sanders target in Iowa – though they’re certainly one target – but Cardi B’s reach also extends to young white voters.
This isn’t the only Sanders interview along these lines. He’s discussed the price of fancy sneakers with Desus & Mero. Spoiler alert: Bernie has no idea how much fancy sneakers cost. He also did an interview with Teen Vogue. In both interviews, Bernie extends his reach among young voters. And he does so in ways that don’t negatively impact his numbers with older voters. Voters over 65 – and even me (a 36 year old) in the case of Desus & Mero – simply haven’t heard of these cultural references.
Can Cardi B Win the Iowa Caucuses?
All this is one part of the Bernie Sanders strategy for winning the nomination. It’s a way to expand his base. To win, he’ll need to expand it in other ways. But there’s at least something promising about all this. Bernie Sanders reaches voters the other candidates don’t – and probably can’t. Plus, unlike anyone else in the campaign, these voters aren’t a guarantee to vote Democratic in the 2020 general election.
What this means is that Sanders campaigns in ways that might bring new people into the Democratic Party. And he does so to such a degree that some on the left accuse him of outright sheepdogging people into the Democratic Party. For the Democrat genuinely concerned about electability, this should be a big point in Sanders’s favor.
