Could Bernie actually beat Trump in Pa.?

Sanders's popularity with voters of color could be decisive

• Russ Walker
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  Russ Walker joined PA Post in 2019 as executive editor. He previously worked at KING 5 News, the NBC-affiliated TV station serving Seattle and Western Washington. At KING, Russ oversaw the award-winning investigative unit and managed the newsroom’s daily operations. His background includes stints as an editor for POLITICO, washingtonpost.com, FreedomChannel.com, American Health Line and U.N. Wire. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. Russ and his wife, journalist and cookbook author Kim O’Donnel, live in Lancaster.

 AP Photo/Eric Gay

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign event in San Antonio, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

AP Photo/Eric Gay

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign event in San Antonio, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Nevada Democratic caucuses this weekend, and not by a nose. Sanders dominated his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination, pulling in 46% of the vote, according to the latest count.

His win “proved how the multi-generational, multi-racial coalition that Sanders has built could carry him to the Democratic presidential nomination,” the Nevada Independent reported, “even as party establishment types fret privately and not-so-privately about what that would mean for the general election.”

Pennsylvania Democrats, at least the muckety-mucks quoted in the media, aren’t sold on Sanders, fearing the 78-year-old “democratic socialist” and his hardcore “Bernie Bro” online army will be beaten badly by President Trump in November.

On Friday, The Context linked to this Philadelphia Inquirer piece headlined “‘We just barely turned blue’: Bernie Sanders is getting stronger and some Democrats are getting worried.” Val Arkoosh, a commissioner in Montgomery County, is quoted in the piece: “Montgomery County is home to many moderate Republicans, and I hear from them with some regularity that they are interested in having a different president. But they do have concerns over some of the more deeply progressive policies that are being espoused by Senator Sanders, so I think it could affect turnout from people who wouldn’t necessarily always vote Democratic.”

Could Bernie Sanders beat Trump in Pennsylvania this fall?

• Writing in The Morning Call, Lehigh University emeritus professor Ted Morgan says Sanders alone can rebuild the broad coalition needed by Democrats to win a national election. “On the one hand, Sanders’ candidacy inspires political activism among the young and those with long-held social justice grievances. On the other hand, he speaks authentically to disenchanted working-class whites and rural Americans,” Morgan writes.

• Along that line, The Intercept’s Aida Chavez reported on Sanders’s strong showing among Nevada’s Latino voters in Nevada, quoting one Sanders backer, Ana Maria Archila of the Center for Popular Democracy, who said: “There are like a vast majority of people sitting in the Bernie side of the caucus. Brown people, mostly, who believe that a new world is possible, that it is entirely within our reach to have health care and free college and to end deportations, and I’m so moved by the hopefulness of people in a moment of so much darkness.”

• If 2020 is another 50-50 election decided by a few tens of thousands of votes, Sanders’s ability to win votes in Pennsylvania’s growing Latino communities could be decisive. And a new poll shows Sanders does as well as the other Democratic frontrunners in head-to-head matchups against Trump. Reporting on recent polls, The Inquirer observes “only marginal differences separate the Democratic candidates when it comes to their strength against Trump. And it portends another general election that could be decided by a handful of votes in any one of those swing states.”

• Trade is another area where Sanders could rally support in Pennsylvania, according to Capital-Star reporter Nick Field. “Trump’s fervent invective against trade deals helped him crack the fabled blue wall and flip the Rust Belt of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” Field writes before arguing that Trump’s single major trade accomplishment — the USMCA — is actually a bad deal. Thus, “there’s a neglected opening this year for an anti-trade Democratic nominee. It’s an opportunity Bernie Sanders is uniquely suited for and one that could just take him all the way.”

• Plenty of experts are still betting against Sanders. The Inquirer reported on a Princeton economist’s recent talk at the University of Pennsylvania in which he argued Sanders’s key issue — Medicare for All — is a bad idea. Paul Starr is the economist, and he worked for President Bill Clinton nearly 30 years ago when Democrats made a failed effort at health care reform. Starr says “M4A” would require huge tax increases and “putting everyone on government health care would completely dismantle the highly profitable insurance industry while lowering payments to the medical industry — both of which hold huge political sway.”

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Dan Gleiter / PennLive

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman sits for an interview at a Starbucks in York on September 18, 2019. (Dan Gleiter / PennLive)

• Lt. Gov. John Fetterman un-blocked Twitter accounts belonging to two central Pa. men shortly before a deadline set by the men’s attorney. It’s a First Amendment issue, the two men say, arguing that Fetterman blocking them on the social media site is an attempt to silence them. If you’ve been following this mini-drama, you don’t need me to explain it. If not, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review lays it out here.

• Fetterman, meanwhile, defended fracking in the pages of The Inquirer last week. Well, not exactly. He argued the next president shouldn’t ban fracking in Pennsylvania unless and until there’s a plan to replace the good jobs the natural gas mining and refining industry supports in the state. Read his piece here, as well as the counter argument made by Karen Feridun of Berks Gas Truth.

• U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler is ready to represent gambling interests in the nation’s capital, according to this story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The western Pa. congressman “is helping rebuild the Congressional Gaming Caucus, a group of at least 30 House lawmakers, including 19 Democrats, who have pledged to regularly convene to discuss gaming industry issues and hear directly from companies.”

• Last week the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg sought bankruptcy protection, arguing that lawsuits over past abuse by clergy and staff would drain all its resources. A federal bankruptcy judge issued some first orders on Friday, imposing “ some hard temporary guidelines around two other large buckets of money that have ties to the 15-county diocese.” The accounts include pension investments and accounts used by parishes to fund daily operations. Read PennLive’s story here. The York Dispatch checked in with local catholics after services on Sunday to learn how the bankruptcy was addressed from the pulpit.

• Would opening up Pa.’s primary elections to independents take the wind out of the sails of candidates too far to the left or right? That’s what state Sen. John Yudichak thinks. Yudichak — who recently left the Democratic caucus, declared himself an independent and joined Republican majority — says he supports SB 300 to let independents vote in party primaries, CBS 21/WHP in Harrisburg reports. “Clearly there are fractures in both political parties. You’re seeing many of these states that allow open primaries, more and more citizens register as Independent. We need to get back to politics that’s about people rather than special interests or the interest of a political party over the citizens.”

• Latino support for Bernie Sanders is mentioned above. Today’s Inquirer says former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg enjoys support from the community as well: “Bloomberg came up often in Inquirer interviews with Pennsylvania Latino voters last week. Forty-nine percent of the state’s Latino population is Puerto Rican, and many moved here from New York. Pennsylvania has the third highest number of Puerto Ricans after New York and Florida.”

• Bloomberg is spending big across the country to win the Democratic nomination. Two Pa. examples: His campaign is opening offices in Harrisburg on March 5 and Pittsburgh on March 8.