Bernie Sanders (center) recently got his first big Vermont endorsement: Congressman Peter Welch (left). Another colleague, Sen. Pat Leahy (right), is backing Clinton. | AP Photo Bernie's home-state blues Vermont Democrats love their senator. The state's top Democratic leaders are far less enthusiastic.

There’s at least one Super Tuesday state where Bernie Sanders is going to win by a landslide on March 1: His home state of Vermont. But there isn’t going to be a joyous celebration in Montpelier — many of the state’s top Democrats are backing Hillary Clinton, not their two-term senator.

It’s a piece of dirty laundry that doesn’t get much airing. Even as Sanders has inspired thousands of supporters across the early-voting states and elsewhere, back home among the political class his candidacy hasn’t exactly been embraced.


It wasn’t until a week ago that Sanders finally got his first big Vermont endorsement: Congressman Peter Welch. Nearly everyone else of national stature, including Gov. Peter Shumlin, former Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. Pat Leahy, and former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, is backing Clinton.

The more expansive list of Vermont Democratic notables— which the Clinton campaign is happy to unroll — goes on and on.

The Democratic rank-and-file is a different story. An early February Vermont Public Radio poll found Sanders beating Clinton 78 percent to 13 percent. A more recent Public Policy Polling reported Sanders had the support of 86 percent of likely Vermont Democratic voters.

Even high-profile Clinton supporters concede that Sanders is all-but-certain to win the state.

"I'm not a super-delegate but I've been with Hillary Clinton all along and I understand Vermont voters' support for — I can't say native son, but the local boy — the hometown candidate," Kunin said, adding "I've known Bernie for a long time, I've known Hillary for a long time. I just think she's more prepared to govern. I think that'll be the story with some other super-delegates or elected officials that they're going to evaluate who's the best candidate for this country."

Kunin’s answer betrays the conflicted feelings many of the state’s top Democrats feel toward Sanders, an independent who has always kept a visible — though not hostile — distance from the party throughout his entire career in Congress.

"There is a certain tension," said Kunin, diplomatically.

Bill Lofy, a veteran Democratic strategist who's supporting Clinton, says the state’s Democratic leadership is simply basing their support on whom they think would be a better president, not necessarily what local voters are thinking.

"I think that those who have endorsed Clinton are sincere in saying that they are proud of Bernie and proud of the fact that he's running and proud that he's in the race but in the end think she's the best qualified person to become president," Lofy said.

Welch said he held his own endorsement “to give the maximum opportunity for people power to express themselves.”

“My own personal approach to things in a primary like this is let it develop where, especially in Vermont, people are going to express their preference,” Welch said. “Also I’ve got a personal relationship with Bernie. His first office was 1981 and that’s the first year I went to the Senate so we’ve been working in Vermont for a long time and the reason I announced now is we will vote on Super Tuesday. I have voted because I’m going to be down here on the day of the primary and I’m going to get an absentee ballot.”

For the most part, the divide only comes to attention during campaign seasons. Lofy recalled when, in 2006, he ran the Vermont Democratic Party's coordinated campaign, the Sanders for Senate team kept a separate office from the rest of the Democrats on the ticket, although it was close by.

"I would say that you're seeing a history. This is a long history," said Alex MacLean, who served as Shumlin's campaign manager in 2010 and 2012. "And I think it's rooted in the fact that Bernie has never identified as a Democrat here in Vermont. I think initially, the party took an if-you-aren't-with-us-you're-against-us attitude. And it was only when faced with the reality of his pretty incredible success at the polls that a form of detente emerged. The Vermont Democratic Party and Bernie have managed to coexist peacefully but I would say warily."

Vermont’s distinctive political landscape has enabled Sanders’ go-it-alone approach. Voters are accustomed to options other than the two major parties — among them a vibrant Progressive Party — and the state Democratic has chosen not to run opponents against Sanders on the party line. But by running as an independent, Sanders has failed to forge relationships with party figures or built up a reservoir of good will among Democratic leaders.



"I mean he was clearly an independent, he didn't want to be identified as a Democrat," said Vermont Democratic Party vice chairman Timothy Jerman, one of the few high profile unaligned Democrats left in the state.

A Republican veteran of Vermont’s small-state political scene spoke even more bluntly about the disconnect.

"Until recently, Senator Sanders wasn't really engaged in the Democratic Party in any kind of meaningful way. And so this guy's got like a 40 year record in public service in Vermont. But a pretty short stint of it being part of the Democratic Party," said the consultant, who asked for anonymity to speak freely. "And it seems to me that his involvement is really more about his need and access to the party establishment, more than it is about his interest in helping to advance the party priorities or strengthen the party."

Some Vermont Democrats pointed not just the fact that Sanders hasn't always associated with the Democratic Party, but also that he can sometimes be difficult to work with.

"I guess one way to phrase it is he doesn't play well with others. Even when I was governor, after I defeated him, I found him hard to work with, yes," said Kunin, the former governor and ambassador to Switzerland.





Kunin added that Sanders "was very single-minded then but to be fair, he was not a radical mayor in the ways today that his rhetoric would suggest. I mean he did the job that mayors should do."

But even Kunin, who's supporting Clinton, conceded that Sanders is all but certain to win the state.

For some top Vermont Democrats, the reason for backing Clinton is simple: many of them already had deep ties to Clinton and decided to throw their support early, before Sanders really caught fire.

"I think they committed earlier in the race," Lofy said before adding that "I think that those who have endorsed Clinton are sincere in saying that they are proud of Bernie and proud of the fact that he's running and proud that he's in the race but in the end think she's the best qualified person to become president.”

The Sanders campaign, which is headquartered in Burlington, isn’t taking much offense — at least not publicly — over the rallying around Clinton. Even Shumlin, who announced his endorsement of Clinton just hours after Sanders announced details of his presidential campaign kick-off in May, gets a pass.



"When Sen. Leahy and the governor and the others endorsed Hillary way back when I think it would be fair to say people were not considering Bernie a real serious candidate and obviously that has changed since then," said Tad Devine, the top strategist on Sanders' campaign. "We understand that they were told that the race is over before it began and that if we can prove to them in the course of the nominating process in the weeks and months ahead that we have a real opportunity to change their mind and look at a different candidate."

Dottie Deans, the Vermont Democratic chairman, said she'd been encouraged by both Sanders and Clinton supporters in the state to make an endorsement.

"They have been extremely polite,” Deans, who's unaligned, said of the outreach from the Sanders and Clinton campaign orbits. “They would welcome my support — that's the nice way they said it."

