By most measures, it's this overwhelming need to defeat Mr. Trump that helps clarify why the Democratic Occasion doesn't count on Sanders loyalists
By most measures, it’s this overwhelming need to defeat Mr. Trump that helps clarify why the Democratic Occasion doesn’t count on Sanders loyalists to be as disruptive to the electoral prospects of the celebration’s nominee as they had been in 2016. Mr. Sanders is now keenly conscious of the electoral energy his loyal backers wield, and that their assist for Mr. Biden might be a key think about beating Mr. Trump. By no means once more, aides say, does he wish to encourage the sort of divisiveness that some within the celebration nonetheless blame for the election of Mr. Trump. (Some detractors additionally see sexism on this extra conciliatory strategy, suggesting that his supporters harbored notably visceral disdain for Mrs. Clinton as a result of she was a girl.)
And whereas Mr. Sanders’s backers nonetheless bemoan the fast coalescence of his extra reasonable rivals behind Mr. Biden after the South Carolina major, it’s tougher to claim that the method was rigged. In spite of everything, it appeared briefly as if Mr. Sanders would win.
After a powerful displaying in Iowa and a victory in New Hampshire, Mr. Sanders, then thought-about a front-runner, ran away with the Nevada caucuses. “We now have simply put collectively a multigenerational, multiracial coalition, which isn’t solely going to win in Nevada, it’s going to brush the nation,” he instructed an exultant crowd in San Antonio that February evening. He predicted a victory in Texas the subsequent month.
That victory didn’t come, one among a string of losses on Tremendous Tuesday that floor his momentum to a halt. Sidelined by the pandemic quickly after, he surrendered the race to Mr. Biden. “I can’t in good conscience proceed to mount a marketing campaign that can’t win,” he mentioned on the time, “and which might intervene with the essential work required of all of us on this troublesome hour.”
Sanders supporters say the swiftness with which his supporters have united behind Mr. Biden is a testomony to how Mr. Sanders has approached this whole second presidential bid. They level particularly to his resolution to exit the race in early April, earlier than the race may change into acrimonious, then virtually instantly again Mr. Biden.
It was a placing departure from 2016, when he remained within the race even after it grew to become more and more clear he wouldn’t win. He didn’t endorse Mrs. Clinton till days earlier than the conference, a call that she and her aides keep got here too late and was too dutiful and halfhearted to unify the celebration behind her. (Mr. Sanders and his associates, against this, continuously word that he and Mr. Biden are pals.)
“I do assume he’s definitely taking part in the political function that you’d ask him to play,” mentioned Faiz Shakir, who served as Mr. Sanders’s marketing campaign supervisor for his second presidential bid.