With a popular-vote victory in Iowa and an outright win in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders has officially emerged as the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Many commentators have noted the parallels between Sanders’s surging, antiestablishment candidacy and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The analogy is real. Both men can call upon large, passionate bases of support. Both have also had to contend with the fierce resistance of a party elite bent on denying them victory, along with unfair media coverage.

Trump, of course, confronts these challenges with glee. From the earliest days of his campaign, right through to his celebratory, post-impeachment acquittal “press conference,” he has turned the tables on the DC insiders.

Trump is a fighter, a self-described counterpuncher, and sold himself to the electorate as such. His voters prize this quality, perhaps above all others. They know that, in Trump, they have a champion who will stand up for them, and see proof of this in his ability to stand up first for himself. It is doubtful, after all, that Trump will ever suffer a Mitt Romney-style “Candy Crowley moment.” When attacked or “corrected” by his opponents or the media (often one and the same) Donald Trump retaliates with force.

And this is where the analogy between Trump and Sanders ends. Bernie Sanders is not a fighter like Trump. To the contrary, in key moments, and when under attack, he has faltered or demurred. In his first campaign for president, Sanders stood by meekly as Black Lives Matter protesters took his microphone and commandeered one of his rallies. Then-candidate Trump made much of this, speaking of Sanders’ “weakness” and assuring voters “that will never happen with me.”

While the symbolism of being pushed aside during his own speech did Sanders no favors, this was not actually his weakest moment of the last cycle. That surely had to come in a debate against Hillary Clinton, wherein the Vermont senator forswore the issue, and the scandal, of Clinton’s private e-mail server, utilized when she was secretary of State.

“The American people,” Sanders famously said, “are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.” But, as Trump proved, the issue of Clinton’s improperly stored e-mails — some of which contained classified information, thousands of which went missing — mattered to the electorate. Sanders’ surrender on the issue may have been tantamount to conceding the campaign itself. Standing next to Clinton on the debate stage, in the heat of what could have been a real fight for the nomination, Sanders blew his chance.

History seemed to repeat in recent weeks when Elizabeth Warren accused Sanders of claiming, at a private dinner, that no woman could be elected president. Sanders denied the charge, but he did not truly take the fight to Warren. He did not actually say, as Warren accused him of doing, that the senator from Massachusetts is a “liar.”

Nor did he ask why a US senator, presidential candidate, and supposed friend would find it appropriate to discuss alleged, private comments for political gain, and whether such a person could, therefore, ever be trusted.

Sanders could have done these things. But he, unlike Trump, is not really a fighter. Sanders is not selling himself as the people’s champion. Instead, he’s a career-politician ideologue, selling the ideology of socialism, and carefully crafting his speech and actions so as not to offend the Democrats’ fearsome “woke police.” Will this be enough to defeat Donald Trump? Is it enough to lead the United States of America? Ready or not, we will soon learn. The fight for the people’s vote has just begun.

Augustus Howard is a research associate at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law. He has also served as a law clerk on the United States 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.