This would be bad news for any presidential candidate, but it’s particularly problematic for Bernie Sanders because he just turned 78 years old and is the oldest person in the field.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, 78, was hospitalized Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
“During a campaign event yesterday evening, Sen. Sanders experienced some chest discomfort. Following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage in one artery and two stents were successfully inserted,” said Sanders’ senior adviser Jeff Weaver on Wednesday in a statement.
It comes on the heels of his campaign announcing an almost astonishing third quarter haul of $25.3 million. His polls have been stagnant in recent months, but he’s still well-placed to compete and even win some early contests. He may recover quickly and resume his campaigning but this has reminded people of his age and undercut his efforts to project good health.
Given his overall position in the campaign and his ability to raise money, I doubt he will drop out. But it’s not impossible that he’ll decide to look after his health first or conclude that this is just one difficulty that he can’t politically overcome.
If this were this to happen, I believe it would probably ensure that Elizabeth Warren becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. There is some limited data to support my supposition. A FairVote.org online poll from a few weeks ago used ranked choice voting. When the candidates were culled down to Biden, Sanders and Warren, and Sanders came in third place, his votes were reassigned. After that adjustment, Warren moved from second place to first place in the survey. There have been other poll results supporting the idea that Warren does very well as a second choice compared to both Biden and Sanders, and I think it’s somewhat safe to predict that she would gather up a strong plurality if not a majority of Sanders’ support if he dropped out.
The latest batch of polls suggest that Warren might be able to beat Biden even with Sanders still in the race, and I think she’d move strongly ahead if Sanders were no longer an option.
If I have any uncertainty about this, it’s related to two factors. One is that Biden would get some benefit from being in a one-on-one matchup rather than a two-on-one matchup. While the most obvious factor here is that the left is currently splitting their votes between Warren and Sanders, the two of them are also amplifying each other’s criticisms of moderates like Biden. On net, Biden would suffer against a more united left, but the effect could be less than anticipated.
The second factor is that I don’t know how Democratic voters will respond to the president’s attacks on Joe and Hunter Biden as the impeachment process barrels forward. Some may be convinced that Trump is serious when he says he wants to run against Biden and believe that Biden is vulnerable in a general election matchup due to the Ukrainian controversies. Others will rally to Biden’s defense and perhaps consider him as a top choice when they otherwise would have gone for someone else. I can’t predict how that will all wash out. It could be that it cancels out and has no discernible effect at all.
I wish Bernie Sanders good health and a swift recovery. I expect that he will continue on if at all possible. But I do think he chances are diminished because of this scare. If I were on Biden’s team, I’d be nervous about this development regardless of what Sanders chooses to do going forward.
There are principled, ideological reasons to transfer from Sanders to Warren, if he drops out. And if he drops out, he could very well endorse her. But a lot of his support in 2016 was from people to Clinton’s RIGHT. If they are still supporting him, it’s not because of ideology. It’s because he is the clearest “overthrow everything” candidate. And frankly… gender. Some part of Sanders supporters could move to Yang, because….”shrill.”
Bernie is unlikely to drop out as long as he feels able to campaign. But this is probably the beginning of the end for his candidacy. He’ll start to lose support from people who worry (rightly) about his health and age and he’ll have a lot of trouble convincing anyone who isn’t already with him to back him now. Bernie, please, do the smart thing. Drop out. Take care of yourself. You can still be be an important voice for change from the senate.
Good, thoughtful analysis. Over the past 10 days or so, external events (Ukraine, Sanders) have raised the stakes/given new opportunities to both Biden and Warren: Biden in how he responds to Trump’s attacks, and Warren in how/whether she continues to expand her base.
If they both take advantage of the situation, then it’s likely the primary race will come down to the two of them, with one of them as the eventual nominee.
If one or both fail to take advantage over the next (what? 4-8 weeks?), then there’s a good chance that the race starts to shift in unpredictable ways.
The whole “Hunter Biden” aspect is clearly a cover story to cover for Manafort/Putin. It sucks that Joe can’t respond in this way without it being politically harmful/looks bad for him, but I hope more people start saying it.
Yeah, I imagine there are a bunch of ways Biden could respond that would benefit his campaign…and a bunch of ways he could respond that would hurt his campaign. (That’s what makes politics interesting; like sports, anything can happen.)
All aboard the reality train. Bernie isn’t some miraculous specimen of 78 year old youthful humanity. Now it’s an irresoluble issue of whether the American boob would prefer a demented American fascist who will claim to have the “most perfect health of any president ever!!” over a decent very elderly man with a demonstrated heart condition. Hillary dropped like 8 points in polls when she was dehydrated for two days.
On the Uncle Joe front, his nomination will now produce an irresoluble issue of “But His Ukrainian Gas!” (Who’s also very elderly, and both looks it and sounds it.)
Who’s to carry the baggage?