Bernie Sanders has a Joe Biden problem. The former vice president’s formal entry into the 2020 primary has cut into Sanders’s numbers, which have lagged in recent weeks. Already underwater with older voters, a Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday showed that Bernie’s support among younger ones—his base—has fallen from 45 to 33 percent. Sanders does not exactly need an early reset (as did the stumbling Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris); the senator is, as he has been for much of this primary season, safely in second place. And he still has a significant fundraising advantage over the rest of the Democratic field. But Sanders might need a way to halt Big Joe’s big mo.

As the Associated Press’s Juana Summers noted earlier this week, “No one seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination has been as aggressive as the Vermont senator in highlighting episodes from the former vice president’s past to sow skepticism in the party’s progressive base.” That’s overselling things a bit, given just how cordial this invisible primary season has been. But it does point to the seriousness with which the Sanders camp is treating Biden. And, while the gloves are still on, early attacks on Biden’s record on climate change and foreign policy point to a budding plan to knock the current frontrunner down to earth.



This is, to some extent, uncharted territory for the Vermont independent. In 2016, Sanders was a clear underdog who didn’t seem to grasp that he had a chance to snatch the nomination from Hillary Clinton until it was too late. In that election, Sanders ran a largely positive campaign against Clinton—even, in a primary debate, going as far as to minimize the heavily politicized email scandal that would haunt her in the general election.

It could be argued that Sanders didn’t really have to attack Clinton directly. His outsider campaign and “political revolution” was about shaking up a coddled and corrupt bipartisan political order that many believed she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, embodied. Bernie’s young, energized group of supporters, moreover, directly attacked the Clintons’ record on issues like trade and race.



Still, running a positive campaign largely benefited Sanders in 2016. A minuscule percentage of the ads aired during the Democratic primary were negative. Positive media attention, which followed not only Sanders’s underdog status but also his relatively gentle campaign, boosted his poll numbers and turned him into one of the most popular politicians in America. While resentment certainly lingers among some Clinton supporters—and, judging from her memoir What Happened, Clinton herself—because Sanders stayed in the race until the Democratic convention, his positive campaign undoubtedly boosted his national profile.

