Bernie Sanders is taking a commanding lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire
He's taking a more combative, boastful tone as his polling improves
(CNN) —
Bernie Sanders is getting feistier.
He’s sharpening his attacks on Hillary Clinton – and whacking Wall Street and the rich. He’s boasting about his soaring poll numbers in New Hampshire and the tightening race in Iowa. And he’s pushing policies that are big on vision and smaller on the details.
In short, Sanders is owning his moment as the unlikely challenger who has suddenly turned a sleeper on the Democratic side into a real race. The shift to a more combative, boastful tone is tracking closely with Sanders’ stunning ascent in the polls.
“Today the inevitable candidate doesn’t look quite as inevitable as she did eight and a half months ago!” Sanders said Tuesday, as he kicked off a bus tour through Iowa. “If you want somebody who is going to beat Trump and going to beat other Republicans, I think Bernie Sanders is that candidate.”
A new CNN/WMUR poll released on Tuesday shows Sanders dominating Clinton by nearly 30 points among likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire, a 10-point jump over the last month. It comes as Sanders has narrowed Clinton’s lead in national polling and pulled neck-and-neck with her in Iowa.
And Sanders has sharpened his attacks on Clinton, not mentioning her by name, but consistently pointing out that he hasn’t been paid $600,000 speaking fees by Goldman Sachs. It’s a liberal dog whistle that sings Clinton.
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US Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in Chicago in March 2019. Sanders, an independent from Vermont, is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.
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Sanders, right, leads a sit-in organized by the Congress of Racial Equality in 1962. The demonstration was staged to oppose housing segregation at the University of Chicago. It was Chicago's first civil rights sit-in.
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Sanders takes the oath of office to become the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981. He ran as an independent and won the race by 10 votes.
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Sanders, right, tosses a baseball before a minor-league game in Vermont in 1984. US Sen. Patrick Leahy, center, was also on hand.
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In 1987, Sanders and a group of Vermont musicians recorded a spoken-word folk album. "We Shall Overcome" was first released as a cassette that sold about 600 copies. When Sanders entered the US presidential race in 2015, the album surged in online sales. But at a CNN town hall, Sanders said, "It's the worst album ever recorded."
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Sanders reads mail at his campaign office in Burlington in 1990. He was running for the US House of Representatives after an unsuccessful bid in 1988.
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In 1990, Sanders defeated US Rep. Peter Smith in the race for Vermont's lone House seat. He won by 16 percentage points.
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Sanders sits next to President Bill Clinton in 1993 before the Congressional Progressive Caucus held a meeting at the White House. Sanders co-founded the caucus in 1991 and served as its first chairman.
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Barack Obama, then a US senator, endorses Sanders' Senate bid at a rally in Burlington in 2006.
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Sanders takes part in a swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol in January 2007. He won his Senate seat with 65% of the vote.
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Sanders chats with Dr. John Matthew, director of The Health Center in Plainfield, Vermont, in May 2007. Sanders was in Plainfield to celebrate a new source of federal funding for The Health Center.
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Sanders speaks to reporters in 2010 about the Obama administration's push to extend Bush-era tax cuts. Three days later, Sanders held a filibuster against the reinstatement of the tax cuts. His speech, which lasted more than eight hours, was published in book form in 2011. It is called "The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class."
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Sanders and US Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, walk to a news conference on Capitol Hill in 2014. Sanders was chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
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In March 2015, Sanders speaks in front of letters and petitions asking Congress to reject proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
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In July 2015, two months after announcing he would be seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for President, Sanders spoke to nearly 10,000 supporters in Madison, Wisconsin. "Tonight we have made a little bit of history," he said. "You may know that some 25 candidates are running for President of the United States, but tonight we have more people at a meeting for a candidate for President of the United States than any other candidate has."
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Seconds after Sanders took the stage for a campaign rally in August 2015, a dozen protesters from Seattle's Black Lives Matter chapter jumped barricades and grabbed the microphone from the senator. Holding a banner that said "Smash Racism," two of the protesters -- Marissa Johnson, left, and Mara Jacqueline Willaford -- began to address the crowd.
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Sanders shakes hands with Hillary Clinton at a Democratic debate in Las Vegas in October 2015. The hand shake came after Sanders' take on the Clinton email scandal. "Let me say something that may not be great politics, but the secretary is right -- and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails," Sanders said. "Enough of the emails, let's talk about the real issues facing the United States of America."
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Sanders embraces Remaz Abdelgader, a Muslim student, during an October 2015 event at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Asked what he would do about Islamophobia in the United States, Sanders said he was determined to fight racism and "build a nation in which we all stand together as one people."
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Sanders waves while walking in a Veterans Day parade in Lebanon, New Hampshire, in November 2015.
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Sanders sits with rapper and activist Killer Mike at the Busy Bee Cafe in Atlanta in November 2015. That evening, Killer Mike introduced Sanders at a campaign event in the city. "I'm talking about a revolutionary," the rapper told supporters. "In my heart of hearts, I truly believe that Sen. Bernie Sanders is the right man to lead this country."
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Comedian Larry David and Sanders appear together on "Saturday Night Live" in February 2016. David had played Sanders in a series of sketches throughout the campaign season.
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Sanders and his wife, Jane, wave to the crowd during a primary night rally in Concord, New Hampshire, in February 2016. Sanders defeated Clinton in the New Hampshire primary with 60% of the vote, becoming the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary.
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Sanders speaks at a campaign rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in March 2016. He won the state's primary the next day, an upset that delivered a sharp blow to Clinton's hopes of quickly securing the nomination.
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Sanders speaks at a campaign event in New York's Washington Square Park in April 2016.
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Sanders speaks at a rally in Santa Monica, California, in June 2016. He pledged to stay in the Democratic race even though Clinton secured the delegates she needed to become the presumptive nominee.
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Sanders endorses Clinton at a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in July 2016.
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Sanders addresses delegates on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in July 2016.
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Sanders brings a giant printout of one of Donald Trump's tweets to a Senate debate in January 2017. In the tweet, Trump had promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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Sanders thanks supporters after winning re-election to the Senate in November 2018.
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Sanders looks at his notes as he watches President Trump deliver the State of the Union address in February 2019. That month, Sanders announced that he would be running for president again.
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Sanders hugs a young supporter during a campaign rally in Los Angeles in March 2019.
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Sanders addresses the audience at a CNN town hall in Washington in April 2019.
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Sanders speaks next to former Vice President Joe Biden at the first Democratic debates in June 2019.
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Sanders raises his fist as he holds a rally in Santa Monica, California, in July 2019.
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Sanders grabs the hand of US Sen. Elizabeth Warren during the Democratic debates in Detroit in July 2019.
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Sanders campaigns at the University of New Hampshire in September 2019. A few days later, he took himself off the campaign trail after doctors treated a blockage in one of his arteries. Sanders suffered a heart attack, his campaign confirmed.
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US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduces Sanders at a New York rally after endorsing him for president in October 2019.
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In a tense and dramatic exchange moments after a Democratic debate, Warren accused Sanders of calling her a liar on national television. Sanders responded that it was Warren who called him a liar. Earlier in the debate, the two disagreed on whether Sanders told Warren, during a private dinner in 2018, that he didn't believe a woman could win the presidency.
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Sanders laughs during a primary-night rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, in February 2020. Sanders won the primary, just as he did in 2016.
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A triumphant Sanders raises his fist in San Antonio after he was projected to win the Nevada caucuses.
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Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden talk before a Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, in February 2020.
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Sanders addresses supporters during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in March 2020.
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Sanders speaks to reporters in Burlington, Vermont, a day after Super Tuesday II. Sanders said it "was not a good night for our campaign from a delegate point of view" but that he looked forward to staying in the race and taking on Joe Biden in an upcoming debate.
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Biden greets Sanders with an elbow bump before the start of a debate in Washington in March 2020. They went with an elbow bump instead of a handshake because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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The new CNN New Hampshire poll was conducted before Sunday’s debate in South Carolina when Sanders turned in a feisty performance that had many pundits declaring him the outright winner. And a new Monmouth University national poll shows that while Hillary Clinton still leads by 15 points, she has lost ground with almost every Democratic voting bloc since December, including women, liberals and voters under 50.
Coupled with neck-and-neck Iowa polls, Sanders seems poised for a “slingshot strategy,” complicating Clinton’s vaunted Southern firewall strategy.
Poll by poll, Sanders is emerging as the left’s very own Trump – a rabble-rouser who eschews white papers and pragmatism for visionary pronouncements and unrealistic ideas. And as Trump’s opponents have found, going up against Sanders is like punching Jell-O.
“We have seen a consistent pattern, which is Hillary seen as more electable and seen as having the right experience but they love Sanders’ message,” said Chris Kofinis, who conducted a focus group with South Carolina Democrats during the South Carolina debate. “If Sanders gets his message out and wins Iowa and New Hampshire, then she has a problem, a major problem. Because people will pay attention, and when they do, it will move them. The question is how many?”
While his opponents offer lectures on the reality of governing and the niceties of bipartisanship, Sanders offers progressive dreams powered by people outside of Washington.
Asked in Sunday’s debate how to bring the country together, Clinton spent her 60-seconds of response time citing her work across the aisle with Tom DeLay and Lindsey Graham. Sanders went straight for broad strokes and again, found his favorite Goliath.
“The real issue is that Congress is owned by big money and refuses to do what the American people want them to do,” he said, suggesting that the country in fact wasn’t really divided. “The point is, we have to make Congress respond to the needs of the people, not big money.”
And while Sanders sounds like Obama at times – his slogan is “A Future to Believe In” – he is also the anti-Obama. Where Obama is professorial, cool and slow to anger, Sanders yells and gesticulates his way through debates and speeches. And while Obama often said the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good, Sanders campaigns on pure progressive dreams, seeing anything less as not good enough.
And like Trump and his supporters, the Sanders team has doubled down on the strategy, mocking anyone who doubts their ability to win the Democrats’ equivalent of a border wall: universal health care.
With Sanders’ clear momentum has come some pushback and scrutiny, notably from the liberal intelligentsia.
New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait made a detailed case against Sanders, arguing that it was dangerous for Democrats to nominate Sanders and embrace “a politically radical doctrine that stands zero chance of enactment even if they win.” And a Vox.com writer argued that it was time to take him seriously. He went on to slam Sanders’ health care plan as no plan at all, called his free tuition plan as “half-baked” and dubbed his Wall Street plan merely a slogan. And Ta-Nehisi Coates, the noted author who has written extensively about race, argued that Sanders has a blindspot when it comes to the subject after the Vermont senator said he wasn’t in favor of slavery reparations because “its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil.”
“Jim Crow and its legacy were not merely problems of disproportionate poverty,” Coates writes. “Why should black voters support a candidate who does not recognize this?”
The criticism coming from liberal intellectuals dovetails with Clinton’s criticism of Sanders as a candidate without a broad base of experience and expertise—her campaign is circulating a letter Tuesday from 10 diplomats that knock his ability to handle national security and ISIS.
But for Sanders and his legions of supporters, any criticism is simply proof that the hated establishment fears their political revolution and doesn’t share their vision.
“The question for Democrats is this: Do you want a Democratic candidate whose vision is limited to what that candidate thinks the current Republican Congress will accept?” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN’s John Berman on “At this Hour” Tuesday. “If that’s what you want, you should vote for John Kasich.”
Sanders is going negative in the process, calling out Clinton for taking money for speeches to Goldman Sachs as he channels some of the harsh talk of his top advisers and supporters.
“As a lifelong Democrat it’s kinds of nice to see two candidates in a tight race drawing sharp lines with each other while keeping it civil,” said Mo Elleithee, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 campaign, but is now unaffiliated with either candidate. “It was nothing like what I’ve seen in the past.”
Polls show that Sanders still lags by 50 points among Latino and African-Americans and voters over 50, two groups that reliably turn out to vote and will make up a large share of voters in Super Tuesday states.
“Everyone wants to say he is not Obama, he is not good-looking or charismatic or a great speaker like Obama, but there is a fraying of confidence toward traditional leaders and everyone is ignoring it and praying that it goes away,” Kofinis said. “If Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he could make it close in South Carolina, and potentially beat her in other states.”
