Bernie Sanders has gotten knocked by Democratic partisans for his weak embrace of down ballot races. What kind of “revolution” focuses only on the top? A real one would build a groundswell of support for multiple candidates, up and down the ballot, making it less a cult of personality and more an ideological upswell. God knows the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party could use the reinforcements.
Which is why it’s so disappointing that Sanders has done so little for candidates down ballot, because the few times he has, it’s been huge.
| Candidate |
Before Sanders |
After Sanders |
| Lucy Flores (NV-04) |
$141K (Q1, Jan-Mar) |
$428K (1 month) |
| Zephyr Teachout (NY-19) |
$500K (Q1, Jan-Mar) |
$418K (1 month) |
Sanders endorsed a third candidate, Pramila Jayapal, in Washington’s 7th Congressional District, but she hasn’t announced how much Sanders’ support meant. But with just the two examples above, we see that Sanders’ list can be used as a movement-building force for good. Half a million is real money! Not to mention those candidates can return to those donors and raise more over the course of the campaign. It’s tragic that this power hasn’t been wielded more regularly, but one can argue that Sanders really had to look out for himself first. His was always a quixotic bid, and he needed every last dime to keep it as close as he did. Fair enough.
But with the primaries winding down, he’ll be sitting on that list, with a core of supporters that will fight hard for everything Sanders stands for. Well, there are more candidates like Sanders running all over the country, and there’s a bench that needs to be built for 2024. Let’s hope we will see him more forcefully support good Democrats. It makes it far easier to marginalize and get rid off the bad ones.
