DES MOINES, Iowa — Right when Bernie Sanders saw a surge in support, forces beyond his control threatened to derail his momentum at a critical point in the Democratic presidential primary process.
A looming Senate impeachment trial threatens to keep the Vermont senator from the campaign trail, and prominent figures took his 2020 Democratic rival’s side in a dispute over what was said, or not said, in a 2018 private conversation.
His supporters suspect party elites and the establishment class are to blame, a replay of his 2016 presidential bid.
Four years ago, Sanders supporters grew suspicious about, among other things, the timing of Democratic primary debates that seemed to favor Hillary Clinton. With the Democratic National Committee under the control of Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, debates were scheduled at times that would yield few viewers, including shortly before Christmas and opposite NFL playoff games.
Wasserman Schultz’s interim successor leading the DNC, Donna Brazile, alleged that Clinton had executed a “secret takeover” of the DNC while the 2016 primary race was in its infancy.
Anger among Sanders supporters grew after Clinton’s stunning loss to 2016 Republican nominee Donald Trump, leaving festering what-might-have-been questions about how the race would have gone if the Democratic Party hadn’t ostensibly put its thumb on the scale in her favor during the primaries.
Now, supporters of the 78-year-old Sanders in Iowa suspect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to delay President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial will hurt his chances in the first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 3.
Edwin Purcell, 68, who backed Sanders in 2016, said the trial will make the state of play “uneven” for presidential hopefuls.
“Obviously, candidates who can be right here at the last minute, it’s going to be an advantage. But I’m hoping all the organization, the work that Bernie’s been doing, will kind of carry itself,” the medical school associate dean told the Washington Examiner last weekend before a Sanders rally in Newton, Iowa.
The biggest risk for Sanders is that the Senate trial boosts former Vice President Joe Biden, a favorite of Democratic establishment insiders and a top target of the Sanders campaign.
Pelosi on Wednesday unveiled a team of seven Democratic lawmakers she’s tapped as impeachment managers for the Senate trial that is expected to start next week. While the announcement ends a stalemate between Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the trial, it doesn’t placate concerns held by some Democrats over how the highly anticipated proceedings will affect the 2020 primary given that four of the contenders still in the race are senators.
Sanders and Senate Democratic colleagues Michael Bennet of Colorado, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will be stuck in Washington up to six days a week for an unknown period of time. Meanwhile, fellow top-tier contenders such as Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have more time and breathing space to convince Iowa Democrats to caucus for them.
Purcell said he has “negative feelings” regarding the Democratic National Committee because he felt “they really rigged it” for Clinton in 2016, and news outlets now are encouraged to understate Sanders’s gravitas because the senator railed against their advertisers, such as pharmaceutical companies and oil companies, Purcell said.
Purcell’s wife Launi, 66, added Sanders’s self-identification as a “Democratic socialist” was being used against him, citing conversations she had with her family in the swing state of Colorado last cycle.
The Purcells’ fears, shared by other Democrats, are now being seized on by Republicans.
“By holding on to the impeachment articles for so long, Speaker Pelosi is rigging the Iowa caucuses for Biden,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California said Tuesday in a tweet. “Once again, the Democrat Party establishment is trying to sideline Bernie Sanders.”
Sanders supporters also assert that the media and the pundit class push fellow left-wing candidate Warren over Sanders. Warren, 70, received glowing media profiles and coverage of her “selfie” lines at campaign events in 2019, while Sanders events were largely ignored.
Exhibit A in examples of how Warren is the pundit class’s favorite came during CNN’s Tuesday Democratic presidential debate, when a moderator addressed Warren’s allegation that Sanders told her in a private 2018 meeting that he did not think a woman could win the presidency in 2020.
After Sanders said that he did not make that statement, noted that Clinton won 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, and vowed to campaign for any eventual nominee, CNN moderator Abby Phillip asked Warren a question with phrasing that assumed her claim was true: “Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?”
That added to frustrations from Sanders supporters about receiving less media attention than lower-polling candidates for the last year and story framing that they believe is unfair. Former Sanders campaign spokesman Jeff Weaver called it a “cringeworthy” moment.
“It was not fair the way they asked the question,” Sanders campaign co-chairwoman Nina Turner told the Washington Examiner. “Everybody heard the way they asked that question,” she said, adding that it was a “glaring example” of how the media mistreats the Sanders campaign.
Outrage over the moment and frustration over a “rigged” process led Sanders supporters to make #CNNisGarbage and #CNNisTrash to trend on Twitter after the debate.
