For all the talk of cord-cutting and the rise of the digital campaign, cable television remains central to politics. Donald Trump rode billions of dollars in free media to the White House in 2016. Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer are running a political science experiment of sorts, blanketing the country with TV spots—and seeing their poll numbers rise accordingly. (Polling at 3 percent when he first entered the race, Bloomberg has since shot up to 15 percent—at a cost of about $30 million per percentage point.) Old people watch a lot of television. Old people vote. The best way to reach these voters is to get on TV and stay there.

Bernie Sanders’s campaign is different. Although Sanders is spending money on television and radio ads—$5 million in February alone—his campaign is built on grassroots energy and a near-monopoly on young voters. His polling with senior citizens is anemic. A recent Morning Consult poll found that Sanders led millennial voters with 43 percent support; the next highest candidate, Joe Biden, was at 16 percent. The same poll found that only 13 percent of Baby Boomers supported Sanders—half the number supporting Biden.



Sanders has framed himself as an outsider, taking on the political establishment as a democratic socialist. But as he has surged in the polls—he now leads Biden with all voters—he is increasingly running up against another establishment: the media, and particularly cable news.



Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party was aided by a coup at Fox News. After some early turbulence, Fox quickly got in line and has become something like state TV, an echo chamber for the president’s point of view. Sanders has fewer natural allies in cable TV. In fact, the supposedly liberal network, MSNBC, has become a serious obstacle, pumping out Republican anti-Sanders talking points with increasing frequency.



After last Friday’s Democratic debate, Chris Matthews waxed apoplectic about what electing a socialist could mean for America. “I have an attitude towards [Fidel] Castro,” he said. “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, OK?” Matthews’s colleagues pointed out that Sanders was more of a Danish type of socialist than a Castro type of socialist, but to little avail.

