Top Democrats supporting Hillary Clinton have noticed the disdain that some of Bernie Sanders’ most hardcore backers have toward her. | Getty Sanders rallies take a darker turn The Vermont senator's hardcore supporters have turned up the vitriol against Clinton.

DURHAM, N.H. — The boos are getting louder. The chants are getting more personal. The shouts from the crowd are getting more frequent.

Top Democrats supporting Hillary Clinton have noticed the disdain that some of Bernie Sanders’ most hardcore backers have toward her, and are beginning to worry about what it’s going to take to bring them into the fold in November, when they assume Clinton will be the party nominee.


Some of Clinton’s most prominent supporters and fundraisers were unsettled by chants of ‘she’s a liar’ by Sanders supporters Monday at his caucus night rally in Des Moines and the loud booing that ensued when Clinton was shown on the large screens at the front of the room – a reaction that appeared to prompt the nervous Sanders staff into turning off the televisions.

“It’s a concern, and a lot of it depends on how Hillary reacts during the [primary] contest and after the contest. She can go after Bernie, but she has to go after him respectfully and acknowledge all the time how he brought these issues to the front-burner. She’s gotta keep doing that: ‘We owe a debt of gratitude for bringing these topics to the forefront,’” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a staunch, longtime Clinton backer. “It’s a concern, but only if we let it become a concern."

In New Hampshire — likely to be a swing state in November — Sanders’ energetic rallies have been marked by booing when he mentions Clinton, and wild cheers when he lists the issues where she is out of step with progressives. The Vermont senator’s supporters have grown so familiar with his stump speech that some respond even before he’s made his point.

On Tuesday in Claremont — near the Vermont border — Sanders started the portion of his speech that rails against the bank Goldman Sachs, but was barely able to get the name of the financial institution out of his mouth before one man yelled, “Hillary goes there!” and others around him erupted in cheers.

Clinton’s camp has taken to publicly warning the Sanders’ campaign about his legions of online backers whose social media postings have caught the eye of both campaigns as sometimes overly and inappropriately aggressive.

“It can be nasty. It can be vitriolic,” said Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon at a breakfast briefing Thursday, referring to a contingent of Sanders supporters who have been termed ‘Bernie Bros.’ “[I] think that the Sanders campaign needs to beware the extent to which, in an effort to mobilize and galvanize their supporters, they start to let the mentality or the crudeness seep into their own words and criticisms that they hurl at Secretary Clinton.”

All of this is taking place against a backdrop where Sanders himself shies away from sharp personal attacks against Clinton at his events, and amid a campaign that is largely bereft of the animosity of the 2008 Democratic campaign. Sanders and Clinton have both gone to great lengths to contrast their relatively civil primary with Republicans' free-for-all, and they frequently preface their attacks on each other by noting their long-standing respect for one another.

“I’m starting to hear a little bit about this in Santa Fe, which is a Sanders enclave,” said former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Clinton backer who ran against her for president — and then endorsed Obama — in 2008. “She has to strike a balance. These voters will come home, and this is why she has to not take the bait and respond viciously and negatively to Sanders."

Yet it’s not entirely certain that those voters will return to the fold if Clinton defeats Sanders. Sanders himself is no Democratic Party regular, and part of his support is drawn from nontraditional Democratic primary voters who wouldn’t necessarily rally around the nominee.

While many Democrats point to the reconciliation that occurred after the rough 2008 contest between Clinton and Barack Obama – despite the dead-ender protestations of some Clinton backers – some fret that the dynamic is different with Sanders, in part because many of the younger voters and independents who like his message don’t associate with a party. In that case, it might not matter much that Clinton actually has a higher approval rating among Democrats now than Obama did at this point in 2008.

At Clinton’s Brooklyn, N.Y. headquarters, staffers believe such a phenomenon would only take place at the very margins of the party -- and that anyone who votes for Sanders dislikes Republicans enough to support the Democratic nominee in November. Still, it’s a topic of conversation for early-state Clinton campaign aides who’ve seen the phenomenon firsthand.

For the moment, explained Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, a senior advisor to Clinton in 2008, “I don’t think we’re at a panic point."

“I have [heard the concerns], I’ve heard it from some people within the campaign,” she added. “But I’ve heard it mostly from outside Democrats who are worried about the tone — it’s not necessarily Bernie campaign people, it’s Bernie supporters, some online — about how nasty it’s gotten."

Particularly in New Hampshire, a purple state where independents can attach themselves to whichever party they choose in the primary -- and where Sanders leads Clinton -- some of Clinton’s top backers are counseling patience, insisting that the Hillary-resisting independents in question won’t make a real difference come November, since many people who identify as independents in the state lean Republican anyway.

And as long as Clinton doesn’t fight back too aggressively, Sanders voters — at least the Democratic ones — will have no problem coming around to her in the long run, they said.

“What you saw in 2008 was Hillary Clinton come out very quickly and very strongly in support of then-Senator Obama, and I think that was incredibly important. The campaigns themselves had to pull together and pull their people together, and lead by example,” said Terie Norelli, a former speaker of the New Hampshire House who backs Clinton. “We do have differences, on policy, on agenda, on vision. When it’s all over we’ll have to work that out. But it’s not something that doesn’t happen every time there’s a contested primary."