Former Vice President Joe Biden has a commanding lead in the Democratic presidential primary and is expected to build on that lead in Tuesday’s primaries in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois (with Ohio having delayed its voting). But allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders say he does not plan to drop out, and his behavior indicates the same.
Biden leads by around 150 delegates, which means Sanders would have to win around 57% of the delegates from this point—but Biden is poised to build on his lead this week. In a statement last Wednesday, Sanders sounded ready to shift to a posture of simply pressing his issues while acknowledging that victory was all but out of his grasp. But in Sunday’s debate he again changed tone and sharply criticized Biden’s record.
“A former aide close to the Sanders campaign” told Politico, “I think he’s in. Who is going to advise him to drop out?” Which is more of a statement on the people close to Sanders than it is on his chances of winning at this point.
“I want the senator to stay in,” campaign co-chair Nina Turner told The New York Times. “I think other voters have a right to have a choice. This is not a coronation. We know what happened last time in 2016—it gave us Donald J. Trump.” In fact, in 2016, Democratic primary voters had a choice and more than 3.5 million more of them voted for Hillary Clinton than for Sanders, so the implication that voters did not have a choice or that there was a coronation by anyone other than voters is a distressing signal from the campaign of someone who stayed in and engaged in negative campaigning long past the point of mathematical elimination in 2016. Turner’s statement also relies on the assumption that Sanders would have defeated Trump in 2016, an assumption that cannot be proved and that took a serious hit when Michigan voted strongly for Biden over Sanders last week.
What’s more distressing, though, are the mixed messages on coronavirus and voting coming from the Sanders campaign. Sanders is staying in the race, insisting it’s not over and the voters should have their say—despite a Biden lead that may be effectively insurmountable. But he’s also saying it’s unwise for states to hold primaries right now, given the threat of coronavirus. He’s not wrong about that. Elections potentially expose people to disease. It’s just that “I’m not getting out until all the states vote, despite my opponent’s essentially insurmountable lead, but I don’t think the states should be voting right now” is sort of demanding to have your cake and eat it, too.
If Sanders wanted to stay in the race and strike the same tone he struck last Wednesday, making a strong argument for his positions on the issues and challenging Biden to step up on those issues without attacking, that would be one thing. But that doesn’t appear to be what he plans to do—and some of his campaign staff and surrogates have been pushing far more negative messages that play into Republican messaging against Biden. That is playing with fire.