Biden’s job: Court Sanders voters to unify Democrats

On Wednesday morning, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders left the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

On Wednesday afternoon, Avory Wyatt left the Democratic Party.

The two events could not have been more related.

“I felt that the party no longer represented what I stood for,” said Wyatt, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, and president of its Indigenous Student Organization.

The 23-year-old indigenous activist and early endorser of Sanders said he will vote Democrat in local races, but he refused to vote for former vice president and presumptive 2020 nominee Joe Biden, whom he said has not done enough for black and brown communities.

“I’m just so frustrated that the Democratic nominee is Joe Biden,” he said.

Emotions may be raw this week, and the general election is still seven months away. But Wyatt and those Sanders supporters of a similar mindset represent the nightmare scenario for Democrats in Nevada and beyond: Voters who will sit out rather than get behind Biden.

The Nevada State Democratic Party issued an immediate unity statement upon Sanders’ departure from the race.

“Joe Biden is the candidate who will best represent Nevada’s hardworking families and provide a stark contrast to the broken promises of the Trump administration,” party Chairman William McCurdy II said in the statement.

State Republicans and the Trump campaign were just as quick to put out statements, tweets and videos claiming Sanders had been robbed, in an attempt to widen any possible fissures.

Nevada Democrats and Biden’s campaign must now attempt to rally a state electorate behind a candidate who, just seven weeks ago, captured less than 20 percent of raw votes in its caucuses.

Unlike the 2016 caucuses, Sanders won Nevada by a wide margin in February. Bringing his supporters into the fold will be crucial for Democrats’ hopes of keeping the battleground state out of Trump’s hands.

Working for unity

Biden’s campaign moved quickly this week to roll out two new policies many believe were aimed directly at Sanders supporters: Lowering the Medicare qualification age to 60, and forgiving federal undergraduate student debt for low- and middle-income students at public universities and colleges serving minority populations.

“It’s a good start,” said Coby Carner, an 18-year-old UNLV student and former campus intern for Sanders’ campaign. “I can’t criticize him there. But Medicare for 60-year-olds is not Medicare for All.”

Carner didn’t rule out voting for Biden in November but said if the election were held today, he would not vote for the former vice president.

“I don’t think Bernie people should be expected to or shamed into voting for Joe Biden,” he said. “He has to earn that vote. I know if Biden loses and Bernie people drop out of the election, we will be blamed. But blame the centrist Democratic candidate for not appealing to our ideals.”

Former Nevada governor and senator Richard Bryan, a Biden endorser, agreed that the presumptive nominee now must engage in a “very delicate dance” to bring Sanders supporters along.

“He must make the necessary overture to Sanders supporters without losing the moderate Democrats, which is how he won the nomination, as well as the independents and even some Republicans who are persuadable because they are so disgusted by Trump,” Bryan said.

Bryan said Biden is a less polarizing figure for Democrats, independents and Republicans than 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, so there’s more hope for unity. He also noted that Biden won the nomination in convincing fashion with the rules Sanders had pushed for after his 2016 defeat, meaning there’s far less of a case for Sanders being somehow cheated out of the nomination in 2020.

While the longtime state leader said he understands the frustrations of Sanders supporters, the idea that they would sit out of the general election “defies my understanding.”

“Clearly the goal of all of these candidates was to unify this party and work together,” Bryan said. “We can all agree that Joe Biden is a better choice for America than Donald Trump. Another four years of Donald Trump would be disastrous for this party.”

Pragmatism over party

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a longtime party leader and friend to both Sanders and Biden, put it more bluntly.

“I would tell those students to get real,” Reid said. “The real world is we don’t want Trump again. He’s the worst president in history. We don’t live in a perfect world. You want Trump to win? Stay home. You want Biden to win? Then get involved heavily.”

Reid conceded that bringing Sanders’ supporters over to Biden was “mandatory” for Democrats in Nevada and beyond.

“It is my No. 1 concern,” he added.

But he also noted that Biden has already showed a willingness to bring other candidates’ ideas into the fold, having adopted Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy plan shortly after her exit from the race. Reid added that Biden was known for making deals in the Senate and is a man of tremendous personal character and resolve.

Nevada state Sen. Yvanna Cancela, an early Biden supporter, agreed with both Reid and Bryan’s assessments.

“Candidly, sitting out this election is functionally a vote for Donald Trump,” she said. “The message has been incredibly clear from the vice president from the beginning: He is building a diverse coalition of all voices. He does not just want to welcome (Sanders supporters), he needs them to lend their grassroots organizing power and their voice as part of this campaign.”

Cancela said she was hopeful that conversations on policy differences will happen in a meaningful way to build the Democratic Party. While she is currently focused on ensuring Nevadans stay home and remain safe, Cancela said Nevada Democrats will continue to register new voters and turn out existing ones in the June vote-by-mail primary and November general elections in an effort to keep the state blue.

A diverse coalition

But it is not just the younger Sanders supporters that Biden will have to court.

Yvette Williams, chair of the Clark County Black Caucus, said she’d like to see wealth inequality tackled in addition to student debt. Both Williams and the caucus endorsed Sanders because, she said, he gave them a seat at the policy table. Williams is supportive of Sanders’ pledge to continue to acquire delegates in hopes of influencing the party’s platform at the August national convention, and she hopes it will give organizations like hers a similar seat at Biden’s table.

She hopes Biden will show more willingness to accept a Medicare for All plan, but she’s holding out too much hope. She believes Biden is beholden to a Democratic establishment that clearly wanted him as the nominee.

“He’s going to give us crumbs, and that’s what we’ve been settling for all along,” Williams said. “I’m so tired of settling that I just don’t know what to do.”

Contact Rory Appleton at rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter.