Crossroads

Sanders hits early-state crossroads

The Vermont senator is now forced to choose between locking down New Hampshire and making a serious play for Nevada and South Carolina.

By Gabriel Debenedetti

With the adrenaline high from his near-victory in Iowa slowly beginning to wear off, Bernie Sanders faced a quandary on Tuesday: What's his next act?

The rallies he had scheduled here in New Hampshire on Tuesday and Wednesday were the easy part. But after that, his public campaign schedule was a blank slate, save for a few preplanned party events. It’s a sign of the tactical crossroads he’s reached after his surprise showing in Iowa, a finish that gave his long-shot campaign a dose of ballot box credibility.

With the New Hampshire primary just one week away and Nevada's Democratic caucuses 10 days after that, the Vermont senator is now forced to choose between locking down his healthy New Hampshire lead and making a credible run at Nevada and South Carolina on Feb. 27, two states where Hillary Clinton is expected to run the table.

“Especially now that the Bernie Sanders name is buzzing, you’ve got folks saying, ‘Hey, who’s this Bernie Sanders character? It seems like he’s somebody,' he’s going to have to spend time on the ground here and in Nevada,” said Justin Bamberg, a South Carolina representative who recently switched his endorsement from Clinton to Sanders. “And he can’t wait until after New Hampshire. I just hope they have their frequent flier miles accounts set up."

For the moment, Sanders’ camp is leaning heavily toward keeping its candidate in New Hampshire — with occasional jumps back to his home base in Burlington, Vermont — an approach signaling a belief that a victory here is essential to his hopes, and that safeguarding his lead should be the top priority.

But every moment in overwhelmingly white New Hampshire is one that he’s not spending in the more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina, leaving him exposed to criticism that he is a one-trick pony who can thrive only in states that are largely white and very liberal. Without a show of strength outside those confines, Sanders’ recent claims that he’s running a campaign that will take him to July’s Democratic National Convention will ring hollow to many Democrats, and he’ll continue to be hamstrung by the questions about his electability raised by the Clinton campaign.

At his first public event after arriving in New Hampshire overnight on Tuesday, Sanders — who leads Clinton in some in-state polls by double digits — closed his speech by exhorting the crowd to support him here so that he could ride the New Hampshire momentum to the two states next in line.

“If we win here in New Hampshire after our great showing in Iowa,” he told the enthusiastic full house at an old theater, “we will do well in Nevada and South Carolina."

“Until the votes are cast you never take anything for granted, and Bernie, of course, is not going to take New Hampshire for granted, but it is a good idea to maximize the 24 hours that are in every day leading up to these next early primary states. He’s going to have to spend some time down here in South Carolina,” said Bamberg.

Clinton allies have long suggested that Sanders’ performances in Iowa and New Hampshire are not good indicators of his strength as a candidate since they are two of the whitest states in the country, and Democrats in those states are more liberal than in most other places. The critique holds that Sanders is popular in those states because, in many ways, they resemble his homogenous home state of Vermont — a damaging line of attack in a party in which minorities are such important constituencies.

“[Clinton] fought him to a draw in that electorate. If she can fight him to a draw in that kind of electorate, where white progressives are his thing," he’s in trouble elsewhere, said Joe Trippi, the campaign manager to Howard Dean in 2004.

“I like the guy, all that stuff. I’m a progressive in the party. But if people say Hillary’s gotta figure out how she engages with millennials, that’s true. He’s gotta figure out how he engages and expands among African-Americans, Latinos, more conservative and moderate Democrats. And I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m saying over the last six months I’ve seen him try a lot."

Sanders’ campaign has gone to great lengths to insist he’ll be viable in more diverse states like Nevada and South Carolina once he is better known. And now that his name is being mentioned more prominently nationwide, his pitch to African-Americans and Latinos is becoming even more aggressive.

“People in New Hampshire and Nevada and South Carolina and the states on March 1st are going to be very excited by what they see coming out of Iowa,” said Sanders’ chief strategist, Tad Devine, after the candidate’s caucus night party in Des Moines on Monday. "They’ll see Bernie Sanders, who started off 50 points behind here, fought to a draw, and I think next week in New Hampshire we’re going to have a place where we can achieve what you want to achieve in the early nominating process, which is real momentum."

That would be a step in the right direction for him, said former Democratic National Committee and South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Don Fowler, a Clinton backer who spent last weekend in New Hampshire campaigning for the former secretary of state.

“Here, the thing that Hillary has in her bank is the African-American vote,” explained Fowler, who hails from a state where blacks make up a majority of the Democratic primary electorate. “He can’t win the African-American vote, but if he wants to be credible, he’s got to prove his ability to get some of them."

Yet the Sanders campaign’s short-term bet is that a big victory in New Hampshire will fuel fundraising and news coverage that is essential for generating wins further down the line. It’s also built on the expectation that Clinton will be going all-in on New Hampshire, so he can’t afford to let it slip from his grasp. The senator will likely fill his next week with New Hampshire events, in addition to Wednesday's CNN forum, Thursday’s likely MSNBC debate and a state party dinner on Friday.

In the meantime, Sanders continues to make incremental progress in South Carolina and Nevada. Sanders has unveiled endorsements from South Carolina legislators, and his Nevada staff has been organizing aggressively — perhaps too much so. Team Sanders recently infuriated the politically influential Culinary Union after campaign aides misrepresented themselves as union members to advance their organizing efforts.

Fowler said he understands why the first-things-first New Hampshire approach makes political sense for Sanders.

“I think he has to win New Hampshire convincingly to have credibility here. Any winning scenario here has got to be based on a solid win in New Hampshire, and if he doesn’t go to New Hampshire, he’s going to lose a substantial part of his margin,” said Fowler.