In 2016, the media watch group FAIR found that the Washington Post ran a stunning 16 negative stories on Sanders in just 16 hours. The Sanders campaign collated a string of “misinterpreted” polls, in which Sanders as leader was not the headline story, like the New York Times reporting that Sanders had been “eclipsed by Warren and Buttigieg” in a story about an Iowa poll that had him in first, and five CNN articles about a poll also showing Sanders in the lead which went unmentioned in the headline. Back in November, the Onion parodied the liberal network’s bias: “MSNBC Poll Finds Support For Bernie Sanders Has Plummeted 2 Points Up.” But it might as well have been said about any major outlet.

In consistently undercutting Sanders, news organizations do themselves no favors, also undercutting their own credibility in a time when they sell themselves as a corrective to disinformation (The Washington Post’s slogan is now “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” while the New York Times ran a “The Truth Is Worth It” ad campaign). This pattern of anti-Bernie coverage has spawned conspiracy theories—no assist to truth either. One voter, who says she “watches MSNBC constantly,” in Iowa told Ari Melber that though there were “multiple wonderful candidates who would be great presidents,” she voted for Bernie because she was angry about the “stop-Bernie cynicism” she heard from a number of MSNBC commentators.

While it’s hard to extrapolate broader public sentiments from a single MSNBC viewer, Bernie seems to earn a measure of support beyond his devoted base for unfair media treatment. In the January CNN debate, right after Sanders denied saying that a woman couldn’t be president, moderator Abby Phillips, dismissed it entirely, presenting the other side as truth: “in 2018, you told her you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?” The loaded questioning was torn up on social media, by leftists, conservatives looking to sow division, and moderates too. “He says he didn’t say it. So you turn to Elizabeth Warren and say, 'Did he say it?' That’s the issue. I mean, it’s bizarre," co-host Mike Brzezinski said on Morning Joe the next day.

It is bizarre—the mainstream media’s seeming pattern of anti-Bernie bias. Perhaps, it’s built-in from how top editors staff their sections and producers choose their regular commentators. Among major media outlets, there is only one single democratic socialist (New York Times’ Elizabeth Bruenig), even though 39 percent of Americans have a positive view of socialism, and the Scandinavian-style policies are resoundingly popular. Meanwhile, many outlets feature conservatives and NeverTrumpers (Bret Stephens, Jennifer Rubin, Rick Wilson), a statistically tiny political group: 6 percent of Republicans don’t approve of Trump, according to Gallup. For an ecosystem of reporters whose sources include many donors, lobbyists, and lobbyist-and-donor-funded politicians, the popularity of a democratic socialist is confounding. And the disinterest of editors and producers in representing the views of a rather large movement has made for a giant blind spot about the size of New Hampshire....or Trump in 2016.

Two states in, Sanders, of course, doesn’t have a runaway candidacy. He hasn’t been boosting turnout and shows softness with older voters. The 2020 turnout in Iowa was up only slightly from 2016 but down from 2008, while New Hampshire set a record for turnout but was on par with the past two cycles when accounting for the state's growing voting-age population. Pundits like to point out that Sanders carried New Hampshire by 60 percent in 2016 when his only opponents were Hillary Clinton (38 percent) and Martin O’Malley (under 1 percent). But Obama, who only won Iowa with 37.4 percent of the vote, lost New Hampshire by 2.6 percentage points in 2008. Heading into more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina, with something of a tie and a win at his back in a crowded field, Sanders seems only to be growing stronger. After criticism about his white-dominated base, he now leads all candidates in support from voters of color, gaining 10 points from black voters.

What is still impressive is, during our Citizens United era, Sanders’s massive grassroots fundraising donor base, surpassed 5 million donors with an average donation of $18.53, hauling in $34.5 million in the last quarter of 2019, and more than any other campaign. His biggest challenge may not be whether he’s a democratic socialist pushing universal healthcare, but whether a daily barrage of negative media attacks, even when the news is objectively good, can chip away his potential support on the margins in a few vital states.

And if Sanders does manage to win without corporate PAC money or the $2 billion in earned media showered on Trump, well, that would certainly be a story.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated New Hampshire turnout—it was on par with previous elections cycles taking into account more eligible voters, not below 2008 numbers like Iowa.