It’s unlikely Sanders’ supporters would jump ship and vote for Trump, but can a Clinton team aware of trust gap within her party win over wary progressives?

As the sun went down over what may prove to be Bernie Sanders’ last rally as a Democratic presidential candidate this week, the conversation among his supporters turned to a topic suddenly back on the lips of many Republicans too.



“Can I bring myself to vote for my party’s candidate?” is not a question that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would like so many Americans to be grappling with right now. The fact that the presumptive nominees each have record low favourability ratings is one of many factors making the 2016 race for the White House a uniquely uncomfortable experience for both parties.



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But there is a curious symmetry about the anguish that has also given the campaigns hope – a feeling that they can make up for the passion gap in their respective parties by poaching voters from the other side.



Trump was quickest out of the block this week after it became clear that the already dwindling hopes of Sanders voters had been dashed by his disappointing showing against Clinton in California’s Democratic primary.



“For all of those Bernie Sanders voters who will be left out in the cold by a rigged system of superdelegates, we welcome you with open arms,” Trump said on Tuesday at Trump National Golf Club Westchester in New York.

“The terrible trade deals, that Bernie was so vehemently against – and he’s right on that – will be taken care of far better than anyone ever thought possible. And that’s what I do. We’re going to have fantastic trade deals,” Trump added, in a direct appeal to the blue collar workers who still doubt Clinton’s belated conversion to protectionism.



But Clinton has also been stepping up her efforts to woo Republicans away from Trump, particularly as it has become clear that victory in his party primary has not led to any tempering of that notorious rhetoric.



In the wake of Trump’s latest outrage – questioning whether a judge was fit to oversee a lawsuit against him because of Mexican heritage - even those who had reluctantly begun to rally around their candidate are beginning to have second thoughts.



“The textbook definition of a racist comment,” blasted Paul Ryan, the House speaker. The South Carolina senator Lindsay Graham called Trump’s remarks “the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy”.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Signs indicate no mass exodus of Sanders supporters willing to embrace Trump. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The Clinton campaign has even funded a website, RepublicansAgainstTrump.org, to seek – with tongue only half inserted in cheek – people to sign a pledge. “Donald Trump is not qualified to be president,” it reads. “He does not represent my beliefs as a Republican and, more importantly, my values as an American. He does not speak for me and I will not vote for him.”



It remains unclear how many will choose to vote for a Democrat instead, but some claim to have spotted the beginnings of a mutiny even in the US Senate. This week the New Yorker quoted Susan Collins, a moderate Maine Republican, saying she was so disgusted with Trump that she had not ruled out voting for Clinton – a scenario Collins was later keen to qualify as still “unlikely”.



Nonetheless, the notion that Trump’s belligerence will let Clinton peel off many moderate Republicans at the ballot box in November looks a good deal more likely right now than its opposite. Signs indicate no mass exodus of Sanders supporters willing to embrace Trump.



A poll for the Guardian this week by SurveyUSA found up to six times as many dedicated Sanders supporters were willing to hold their noses and vote for Clinton as were ready to vote Trump.



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A smaller number would vote Green, Libertarian or stay home instead, so Clinton’s conversion rate of 41% was far from a ringing endorsement.



Yet the poll measured alternative voting intentions among those who would ideally prefer to see Sanders run as an independent candidate – a group likely to be his most loyal fans – so probably underestimated the willingness of moderate supporters to convert to Clinton.



A mood of resignation certainly hung over some of the crowd at the Vermont senator’s rally in Washington DC on Thursday night.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at an event in Washington DC. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Asked whether she would vote for Clinton now it appeared all but certain Sanders would not be on the ticket, Diana Galbraith, a 39-year-old graduate student from Georgetown University, was blunt: “I have to.

“Number one: I am Democrat, and number two: Trump can’t win or else I have to move to Canada,” she explained.



Galbraith remained concerned, however, that not all Sanders supporters would be as willing to compromise. “I do think Trump could win. He has enough cross-appeal – there are Democrats who could vote for him,” she added.



Others at the rally, which campaign aides said may well be the last if Sanders formally drops out after the Washington DC primary on Tuesday, were more defiant.



“I am going to write in Bernie. Whether or not he’s on the ticket, he’s getting my vote,” said Chelsea Denman, a 27-year-old who works in the legal profession in Washington. “He’s gotten a movement going that’s not dying down anytime soon. He needs to continue on to the convention. He needs to keep himself out there and talk about the issues.”



Asked why she was so opposed to Clinton, Denman replied as many do: “I don’t think she’s genuine. I think she says what she thinks she needs to be said to get elected. I don’t trust her. I think it’s unfortunate that as a woman I can’t trust potentially the first woman president.”



Conscious of this continuing trust gap among young progressives, the Clinton campaign flirted with perhaps the ultimate response this week by meeting with Elizabeth Warren, the popular Massachusetts senator, for what many assumed were talks about making her a possible running mate.



In contrast to pairings with other rumoured candidates, such as the Virginia senator Tim Kaine or the New Jersey senator Cory Booker, sharing a ticket with Warren was once considered an unthinkable lurch to the left by Clinton that is likely to appease many Sanders loyalists.



“I would love Warren, but I just don’t think Hillary is going to appoint her,” said Galbraith.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elizabeth Warren after speaking at the American Constitution Society for Law. Photograph: Nick Wass/AP

If Warren were the vice-presidential candidate, it could also alienate many moderate Republicans, who regard the anti-Wall Street firebrand as a distinctly acquired taste.



“Elizabeth Warren could almost persuade me to re-think my opposition to Trump. She’s insufferable,” wrote one former adviser to John McCain this week.



For others on the left, the more important question is whether Clinton commits to the policies of Sanders and Warren.



“Elizabeth Warren bolstered the case that the right way to achieve Democratic unity is to show voters that Clinton, Sanders, and the Democratic party stand united behind big, bold, progressive ideas,” said Adam Green, founder of the Progressive Change Campaign committee. His list of ideas included “expanding social security benefits instead of cutting them, debt-free college, breaking up too-big-to-fail banks, and jailing Wall Street bankers who break the law”.



Strong unity depended in part on haste, he added. “The sooner Clinton and [national convention] platform committee members publicly signal they will seek unity around bold progressive ideas,” Green said, “the sooner Sanders and his supporters will know they have achieved the mission of helping to transform the future of America – and the more likely Democrats will win big in November.”

In a week in which Democrats began to unify while Republicans fell apart, the discussions with Warren increasingly appear to be a sign of confidence. If Trump continues alienating his own party, perhaps Clinton can afford to gamble on a historic two-woman ticket in the hope that they might have a Democratic Congress alongside them too.

Certainly this would be a legacy that many Sanders supporters could live with, even if they would have preferred a more direct path to political revolution.



“I think Bernie’s going to hang in until our primary on Tuesday and then drop out. Today he was laying the groundwork,” Galbraith predicted.

“It matters and it doesn’t matter, because Bernie’s movement is about more than just winning the nomination. It’s about finding progressive space within the Democratic party.”



It would be a political big tent that many Republicans cannot even dream about right now.

