The Bernie Sanders' campaign is doing very well but you would never know it from watching the nightly news on the major networks. For example, in the past year ABC World News Tonight devoted 81 minutes to Donald Trump and less than 1 minute to Bernie Sanders. Sanders has succeeded in attracting an army of supporters and dedicated volunteers who can help overcome this lack of attention from the media. In this past quarter, Bernie received an unprecedented 2 million dollars in contributions, not from the wealthy, but from thousands of average citizens giving small donations. In Virginia, Bernie's unpaid volunteers collected close to 18,000 signatures to get him on the ballot, when he needed only 5,000. (Trump bragged about getting 15,000 signatures.) All over the country, groups of Bernie supporters come together to man phone banks to get the word out. Bernie is also highly visible on social media. But all this cannot completely overcome the lack of attention from the media. When Bernie is not visible in the mainstream media, it gives the impression that he is not a major candidate and cannot win.
Polls indicate that he can win. A December Quinnipiac national poll showed that Sanders would do better than Clinton against Trump and Cruz.
Sanders 49%—Trump 41% (+8) Clinton 47%—Trump 41% (+6)
Sanders 49%—Cruz 41% (+10) Clinton 47%—Cruz 41% (+5)
As an indication of media bias against Sanders, the December ABC News/Washington Post poll asked how Clinton would do against Trump, but did not bother to ask how Sanders would do against Trump.
Let us look at the two states where Sanders has campaigned the most and is best known: New Hampshire and Iowa. The latest poll from New Hampshire shows Sanders ahead of Clinton by 10 points. The situation in Iowa is more uncertain for Sanders, but he could pull off a win there as well. The December Quinnipiac poll of likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa found 51 percent for Clinton, 40 percent for Sanders and 6 percent for O'Malley. O'Malley's positions on most issues are almost identical to Sanders' and his supporters would most likely go to Sanders if O'Malley were not in the race. Assuming O'Malley does not want to be a spoiler, he will probably withdraw before the Iowa caucuses. That would mean that Sanders would have close to 46 percent support, only 5 points behind Clinton. With over a month to go, that gap could close.
But given the failure of the media to give coverage to Sanders, this will be a greater task than it should be. Because the media does not think Sanders can win, many people also think he cannot win. Many hold the self-defeating and illogical view that, even though they like Sanders and feel he would be best for the country, they are not going to vote for him because he cannot win. Well, of course he cannot win if they don't vote for him. The question to those who like Sanders is: are you going to let the media decide the winner or are you going to vote for your first choice and give him a better chance of winning?