‘Crazy Bernie is doing well’: Sanders’ path echoes Trump’s 2016 campaign
- Bernie Sanders cruises to victory in the Nevada caucuses, heartening his supporters
- But his surge has stoked alarm among Democrat moderates who fear he is too liberal and would lose to Trump
A burn-it-down candidate is topping a splintered field of more moderate contenders and setting the party’s establishment wing on edge.
It’s how Donald Trump began his unlikely march to the Republican nomination in 2016. And four years later, it’s how Senator Bernie Sanders has cemented himself as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
Sanders’ surge has energised his legion of liberal supporters, including young people drawn to his calls for a government-run health care system and eliminating student debt. But it’s sparked an outcry from rival campaigns and other moderate Democrats that mirrors the worries of Republicans who tried, but failed, to block Trump’s path in 2016.
They warn that Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, can’t win in the general election. They warn that he would badly damage Democratic congressional candidates facing tough competition in swing states. And they warn that his nomination is all but inevitable unless other candidates start dropping out and stop splitting up the anti-Sanders vote.
