Will Bernie Sanders’ endorsement lead to a victory for Biden?

 

On April 10, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced his endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden during a live stream call on social media. Many are wondering if this endorsement will provide the push Biden needs to secure the votes of the younger progressives that so closely followed Sanders through his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. 

Sanders is known for his radical ideas that have opened up new dialogue between political leaders and the people. Even though his campaign has ended, his work is not done. Since his withdrawal and endorsement, Sanders has sparked a new conversation. 

From the beginning of his campaign, Sanders made it clear that he “will do everything that [he] could to make sure that [President] Donald Trump is not re-elected” and endorsing Biden could be the next step. 

Twitter, politics’s new home, has been booming since Sanders’ announcements, but what is all the talk about? The hashtag, #GoodForBernie has been attached to many Sanders supporters who are now handing over their support to Biden, following the endorsement.  

While a couple of thousand hashtags causes a ripple, will it make a big enough splash to secure Biden’s seat in the White House? 

Along with the hashtag #GoodForBernie spreading support, the two politicians “announced the formation of several task forces focused on shared policy concerns, including on the economy, education, and criminal justice” said Benjamin Swasey and Elena Moore of NPR

One of the biggest policies from Sanders’ campaign was the fight for “Medicare for all,” a policy that Biden does not currently stand for and was debated earlier on in the race. However, in a statement given on Tuesday, Biden noted that, “Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas” and that he is “proud to adopt them as part of [his] campaign.”

Though Biden’s policies have been altered to cater to Sanders supporters, it does not guarantee that the votes will end up in his favor. 

According to Danielle Kurtzelben of NPR, “12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election.”

While Kurtzelben does not see history repeating itself, Biden and Sanders have a long road of work ahead of them to secure the progressive votes during the general election. 

 An AP VoteCast survey of the electorate conducted before Sanders dropped out shows that across 17 states, 54 percent of Sanders’ supporters said they would be dissatisfied if Biden were the nominee. Twenty-eight percent of all Democratic primary voters said the same, according to the Associated Press.

This mindset is exactly what Sanders is attempting to alleviate through his endorsement and partnership with Biden. Convincing his progressive followers to vote for the more conservative Democrat nominee is a task he is more than willing to do. 

“Today I’m asking all Americans … to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy,” Sanders said in the livestream meeting. “We’ve got to make Trump a one-term president and we need [Biden] in the White House.”

Chacour Koop of Impact 2020 highlighted an aggregate poll conducted by RealClearPolitics, which reveals a hypothetical 2020 general election matchup between Biden and Trump. Aggregated polls from March 11 to April 7 concluded that Biden could become the 46th U.S. president with a current 49.8 percent to 43.7 percent lead over Trump.