Sanders Tries Again With Southern Voters Who `Crushed' Him
Bernie Sanders Woos Southern Voters Who Rejected Him in 2016
(Bloomberg) -- Black voters in the South helped derail Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid in 2016, and the senator is back seeking better traction, counting on enthusiasm for sweeping proposals on issues like health care and criminal justice to build support.
Sanders on Saturday added to his policy lineup a 10-point “blueprint” to revamp K-12 education, telling a crowd in Orangeburg, South Carolina, that was about one-third African American that public schools are suffering under “decades of racism and neglect.”
Branded the Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education and Educators, after the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Sanders proposal comes on the 65th anniversary weekend of the court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that ended school segregation.
The candidate this weekend is making his first visits of the year to North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and returned for a seventh time to the early primary state of South Carolina. Each of those states gave Hillary Clinton decisive wins in 2016, and Sanders failed to pierce 20% of the African American vote in any of the Democratic primaries in of the four.
Two Dozen
That can’t happen again if he has any chance of edging out his nearly two dozen 2020 Democratic rivals, including Joe Biden. The former vice president is the early front-runner in the nomination race and is counting on his ties to former President Barack Obama and longstanding relationships with black leaders to carry him through the South’s primaries.
“African-American voters are the backbone of the Democratic primary, and African-American voters make up the largest chunk of the southern primary vote,” said Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas. “Bernie Sanders is rightly recognizing that one of the key reasons he lost the nomination in 2016 was the fact that he not only lost primaries with large African American populations in the South, but he got absolutely crushed.”
Speaking to reporters on Saturday Sanders said he was feeling positive and that the 2020 race, with its nearly two dozen Democrats, has a different dynamic to 2016.
“I have a feeling we’re going to do a lot better than people think,” Sanders said. “I’m feeling very good about South Carolina.”
Looking to Resonate
A senator from Vermont, one of the least racially diverse states in the U.S., Sanders faces significant challenges in addition to Biden. Two top-tier Democratic contenders -- Senator Kamala Harris of California and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey -- are both black.
And while Sanders has a platform packed with issues likely to resonate with black voters, various rivals have similar agendas, including backing for “Medicare for All” and free college tuition.
There’s also a significant generational split that will likely factor into the choices of black voters, said Todd Shaw, chairman of the political science department at the University of South Carolina and an expert on African-American voting behavior.
Younger black voters are more open to progressive ideas, Shaw said, while middle-aged and older voters will tend to pick someone who they think can prevail in a general election in these heavily-red states that Donald Trump ultimately won.
Electability Factor
“That is where you see a divide,” Shaw said. “Do we go for the person we know can beat Trump? That will be a fundamental debate among Democratic voters, but among African American voters in particular.”
Sanders’s campaign says his track record of trying to incorporate justice into policy areas from the economy to race relations to the environment can give him traction with black voters in the South. And aides say he’ll shift his approach, combining the big rallies he used widely in 2016 with town hall meetings and other more intimate events to help him carefully make his case.
The candidate spoke to an audience of about 250 in Orangeburg on Saturday morning and departed without taking questions. Two similar events -- focused on how his policies may improve the lives of black families -- are on the day’s schedule.
In his remarks, Sanders ticked off his support for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Medicare for All, tuition-free college, revamping the criminal justice system and decriminalizing marijuana. Sanders said fighting for justice includes “ending institutional racism” that’s resulted in struggles for black families across the country.
Community Outreach
The senator is “going directly to communities and voters to show how these policies will impact them and how, with Bernie in the White House, we can have a government that works from the bottom up,” said Sarah Ford, a spokeswoman for the campaign.
Keith Lord, 37, of Canton, North Carolina, said he supported Sanders in 2016 and is choosing this time between him and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Sanders has an opportunity to do significantly better in the South in 2020 because voters recognize that other Democratic candidates are adopting many of his ideas, Lord said, and his run in 2016 gives him name recognition and the reputation of a fighter for the less fortunate.
“He started a movement and people are realizing that,” added Lord, who is white. “He has an immaculate reputation on these issues, and he came out of nowhere last time and did well.”
Early polling suggests Democratic voters in these Republican-dominated states may be more open to a centrist, establishment candidate, with Biden leading.
A poll released May 13 found that Biden was preferred by 46% of likely Democratic voters in the state surveyed May 6 to 9, up 14 points from a poll taken a month earlier, before Biden announced his bid. Sanders came in second, with 15% supporting him, followed by Harris with 10%. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Warren were tied with 8%.
Enthusiasm among black voters isn’t just key for Sanders, it’s imperative to the Democratic Party’s drive to hold Trump to one term.
The black vote fell in 2016 for the first time in 20 years, dropping to about 60% after reaching a record 67% in 2012, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington. Democrats are seeking to reignite the energy created by Obama, whose presence on the ballot in 2012 helped lift the black turnout rate beyond the white turnout rate for the first time.
The Democratic Party has seen two recent bright spots as it seeks to regain ground in the South. In November, in heavily Republican Georgia, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp.
And in December 2017, Democrat Doug Jones pipped Republican Roy Moore in a special election for an Alabama Senate seat. Black women voters were decisive in that race, favoring Jones by a mammoth 98% to 2%, according to exit polls.
So far, Jones is one of the only high-profile southern Democrat to make an endorsement in the party’s 2020 presidential primaries. He’s backing Biden.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny
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