Can you feel the Bern? Maybe not.

This surge has been reflected in his polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the sites of the presidential campaign's first caucus and primary, respectively. In Iowa, Sanders has closed to within 19 percent of the front runner Hillary Clinton in the latest poll, up from a 40 percent deficit to her in earlier surveys. He's even closer to Clinton in New Hampshire, with the most recent poll showing him trailing by 8 percent, prompting one enthusiastic headline writer to proclaim they were in a "dead heat" in the Granite state. Nationally, Sanders has consistently ranked second in polls, with only Vice President Joe Biden, who so far has shown no evidence that he is interested in running, challenging him for this spot.



The combination of large crowds, more money and stronger polls has prompted the national media to give Sanders a second look. To their credit, this time they are focusing less on essays he wrote four decades ago or his aborted singing career and more on his stance on the issues. To be sure, they still seem skeptical that he can win, but they are now at least willing to acknowledge the possibility, however remote. In Sanders' home state, of course, belief that he is surging runs far deeper, with Vermont media outlets openly speculating whether (and no doubt secretly hoping) he can maintain his presidential momentum. Apropos that sentiment, a local reporter asked me today why, if Bernie wasn't a viable candidate, she couldn't find anyone in the state who wasn't supporting him!

So should Hillary Clinton be worried? The short answer is no. To be sure, as Clinton learned in 2008, it is wise never to take one's front-runner status for granted. Accordingly, she and her aides are saying all the right things by publicly acknowledging that Sanders is a serious candidate who poses a potentially significant threat to her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The reality, however, is that rather than exceed expectations, Sanders has done about as well as I expected he would to this point, given where he has positioned himself within the Democratic field.

My expectations were predicated in part on the existing distribution of preferences among likely Democratic voters, and how they matched up with Sanders' ideological leanings, but also on previous efforts by progressives to win the Democratic nomination. As I wrote when Sanders first announced his candidacy three months ago, he is not the first Vermont favorite son to set his eyes on the White House in recent years. In 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean threw his hat in the ring, positioning himself, much like Sanders, as the progressive Democrat amid a cast of more centrist opponents such as John Kerry and Richard Gephardt. In Dean's case, there was no Clinton-like political heavyweight standing in his path to the White House and he initially attracted strong support in the polls and in media coverage based in part on his imaginative use of the Internet to organize online meetups of "Deaniacs" and to solicit small-dollar donations, much as Bernie has done. And yet Dean was never able to attract much more than 30 percent support in national polls and his candidacy peaked shortly before the Iowa caucus, where he subsequently imploded.



Despite the recent up swell in media coverage, the fact is that Sanders' road to the nomination is probably steeper than was Dean's. Keep in mind that, as of today, Sanders is still drawing less than 20 percent support nationally, compared to Clinton's almost 60 percent. So he has a way to go to even match Dean's showing, never mind threaten Clinton. To be sure, there are differences between Dean and Sanders. Although Dean attracted strong support among progressive Democrats based largely on his opposition to the Iraq war, on economic issues, such as income inequality, his liberalism was never truly as authentic or as deeply-rooted as Sanders'. But the reality is that for Bernie to win the Democratic nomination, he is going to need to expand his support beyond his natural constituency of aging Grateful Dead hipsters, environmentalists and professors.

In particular, he has to demonstrate some appeal among moderate and conservative Democrats. This includes the racial and ethnic minorities of low-to-middle socioeconomic standing who proved so crucial to Obama's ability to defeat Clinton in 2008. Right now Sanders is trailing Clinton by 40 percent in the crucial state of South Carolina, which holds its primary directly after New Hampshire. Among African-Americans, who make up about a quarter of the registered Democratic vote there, he's polling at an anemic 3 percent, compared to Clinton's more than 50 percent support.

He's not doing much better nationally among these key voting blocs, including racial minorities and older, more moderate Democrats. In the latest Economist/YouGov national survey of registered voters, Bernie receives only 10 percent support among African-Americans and 15 percent among Hispanics, compared to Hillary's 53 percent and 39 percent respectively. Keep in mind that in past elections racial minorities constituted more than a third of Democratic primary voters.

Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that he trails Clinton among self-identified liberals by 44 percent to 32 percent. His strongest support comes from those earning more than $100,000 a year, where he ties Clinton in support at 25 percent in the Economist poll, and among the18-29 year-old crowd which, not incidentally, is the least likely to vote in national elections. These results are consistent with other national polls in the field at approximately the same time. And while it is true that Sanders is attracting his fair share of campaign contributions, the fact remains that Clinton is outraising him three-to-one. Perhaps most tellingly from the Democratic Party's perspective, Clinton has taken an early lead in endorsements, including backing from Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and the state's senior Sen. Patrick Leahy.

