Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist
[N]ot a bad day for Democrats in Tuesday’s primaries around the country. Though there are still votes to be counted in California, the state’s bizarre “jungle primary” apparently did not end up freezing out their candidates in any of the seven Republican-held Congressional districts Democrats hope to win in November.
They also nominated strong candidates in GOP-held districts in New Jersey, Iowa, and New Mexico.
Not the worst day for Republicans, either. Under that same system (the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, run against each other in November) Republicans feared a California governor’s race between two Democrats. But with a strong endorsement from President Donald Trump, Republican John Cox finished second, putting a Republican on the ballot against Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But not everybody had such a good day. Bernie Sanders didn’t. Neither did Our Revolution, the political organization Sanders created after he lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
In fact, neither Sanders nor Our Revolution has had a particularly good year, at least not judged by the win-loss record of their endorsed candidates.
But wait. Weren’t Sanders and his followers supposed to be the wave of the future, or at least the Democratic Party’s future, after he mobilized so many enthusiastic supporters in his remarkably strong challenge to Clinton?
So they said, and quite a few neutral observers agreed. And to some extent, it’s true. Many of the positions Sanders took in 2016 – a fifteen-dollar minimum wage, free public college tuition, Medicare for all (or a comparable universal health coverage system) – have become standard fare for Democrats. At least on some key issues, the Sandersization of the Democratic Party has succeeded.
But that’s not necessarily helpful to the organized Sanders movement, or to another Sanders run for the presidency in 2020. If he runs again, he will not be the only candidate who says what he’s been saying. Nor will he be the only challenger to the “Democratic establishment,” whatever that may be.
In fact, should he run, some of his Democratic opponents will be fresher-faced (and a lot younger) than he, giving them the chance to paint themselves as the real “change agent,” whatever that may be.
After all, they’ll be for the fifteen-dollar minimum wage, too.
Meanwhile, though Sanders surely retains a following around the country, he hasn’t been able to convince many of those followers to vote for his chosen candidates.
In Iowa’s Third District (Des Moines and southwestward to the Nebraska and Missouri borders) Sanders backed Pete D’Alessandro, who had been on the Sanders campaign staff in 2016. The Vermont senator appeared at a rally for D’Alessandro in February and appeared in a television commercial for him. D’Alessandro finished a distant third.
He joined a long list of Sanders-backed candidates who have lost primary or general elections this year and last. Sanders campaigned for former Rep. Tom Perriello, who lost the Virginia primary for governor to now-Gov. Ralph Northam. Elsewhere, candidates supported by Sanders have lost primaries or general elections in Nebraska, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.
It isn’t that Sanders has not backed any winners. But most of them would likely have won with no help from Vermont. Congressional candidate Chuy Garcia of Illinois is well-known in Chicago and has a strong political base in the city’s Hispanic community. Stacey Abrams, now the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, won a landslide victory in her primary with broad support from all factions of the party.
Much the same is true of Our Revolution. Until this week it had endorsed more winners than losers this year (though more losers last year) but most of its successes were in very local races (city council, for instance) or were Democratic primary victories in safely Republican areas.
In California, for instance, only one of the six candidates supported by Our Revolution won a primary, and it was in the very Republican, rural, northern part of the state. In Democratic Los Angeles County, two Our Revolution-backed challengers to Democratic incumbents lost badly, as did three local contenders in San Diego County who ran with the blessings of Our Revolution.
Whether it is connected to its electoral failures, Our Revolution also has been suffering from internal turmoil. Two members of its board have quit, as have two senior staffers, and the organization is having a hard time raising money. According to a recent article in Politico, there even has been some tension between Our Revolution and Sanders, who inspired creation of the group, but is not officially connected to it. The Politico article said that some Our Revolution supporters – even some of its staff – worry that its president, former Iowa State Sen. Nina Turner, is interested in running for the Democratic presidential nomination herself if Sanders does not try again.
The organization has had some successes. Diedre DeJear, the candidate it endorsed for Iowa Secretary of State won the Democratic primary, and so did J.D. Schotten, who is given a fighting chance of unseating conservative Republican Rep. Steve King in the northwestern part of the state.
One Our Revolution Board member who has not quit is Huck Gutman of Burlington, an old friend of Sanders, who noted that both the organization and Sanders are “attempting to change American politics in a progressive direction by supporting candidates who are out of the mainstream.”
That makes it all but inevitable that it will back some losers, he said.
“But I think about 40 percent of the candidates it has endorsed have won,” Gutman said. “That’s pretty good for a two-year-old organization.”
