Nicole Gaudiano

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders, under fire from Hillary Clinton for his criticisms of President Obama, acknowledges he's disagreed with the president — and his voting record backs that up.

Last year, only four other Democratic senators opposed Obama’s legislative positions more often than the Vermont independent, according to a recent CQ Weekly vote study.

Loyalty to Obama has emerged as an important issue in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, as Sanders’ rival, Clinton, casts herself as more consistently supportive of the president — and the candidate best positioned to carry on his policies.

On issues where the White House stated a position, Sanders opposed Obama 17.5% of the time last year. Those votes included his opposition to trade legislation he said would be bad for U.S. workers, a catchall spending bill that he said gave “more tax breaks to billionaires,” and the extension of a domestic spying program that he criticized as an assault on constitutional and privacy rights.

The CQ score marks Sanders’ lowest rate of support for the White House agenda since the beginning of Obama’s presidency in 2009. Overall, Senate Democrats’ average presidential support also dipped to its lowest level last year.

“When the administration is looking at a list of possible votes, I doubt they spend very much time thinking about Bernie Sanders,” said Jim Manley, a Clinton supporter and a former spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. “He’s always had an independent streak, and oftentimes what the administration was proposing wasn’t good enough for him.”

Clinton, who served as secretary of State under Obama, is working to solidify her support with diverse electorates in Nevada, which holds its Democratic caucus on Saturday, and South Carolina, which holds the first-in-the-South Democratic primary on Feb. 27.

A key part of her strategy is to pitch herself, particularly to African-American voters, as closely aligned with Obama and his policies. Black voters likely will make up more than 50% of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina’s primary.

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“It’s making sure the people who are on the fence or are reconsidering Sanders, that they don’t make that leap,” said Robert Oldendick, a University of South Carolina political science professor.

Clinton knocked Sanders when the two debated in Wisconsin on Feb. 11 for challenging Obama’s leadership, for saying Americans are surprised by the president’s “weak” negotiations with Republicans, and for suggesting in 2011 that Obama needed a primary opponent to help steer him back to the left on issues such as Social Security.

Sanders called her comments a “low blow,” saying he and Obama are friends and have campaigned for each other. He noted that Clinton is the one who ran against Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I have been a strong ally with him on virtually every issue,” Sanders said at the debate. “Do senators have the right to disagree with the president? Have you ever disagreed with a president? I suspect you may have.”

Sanders has had notable differences with Obama on trade and taxes. He gained Internet fame in 2010 with a nearly nine-hour Senate floor speech slamming a deal that included a tax-cut extension for the wealthy as “Robin Hood in reverse.”

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He says he’s voted against “every disastrous trade deal coming down the pike,” and helped lead Senate opposition to the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has topped Obama’s agenda.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, also has opposed Obama’s nominees when he felt they were too close to Wall Street or industry, and he’s come out against the president’s deportation policy for illegal immigrants.

The CQ Weekly vote studies show that Sanders’ “party unity” scores have been consistently higher than his presidential support scores. Party unity scores show how often Sanders voted with a majority of Democrats against a majority of Republicans.

Manley said Sanders has never been shy about voicing his opinions and recalled that the Vermont senator he played “hard to get” when the White House sought his support for the Affordable Care Act in 2010. At the time, Sanders was promoting a government-run health insurance option, although the votes for that option clearly weren’t there.

But Manley called Sanders a “reliable Democrat” who was always “up front and honest” with Reid.

“What’s different here (is that), unlike most senators, over the years he’s been more than willing to criticize the administration when he doesn’t think they’ve gone far enough to deal with whatever the issue is,” he said.

Sanders’ spokesman, Michael Briggs, said Sanders worked with Obama to improve veterans’ health care, increase support for community health centers and invest in energy efficiency programs.

“They've had differences, of course, but not nearly as many as Hillary Clinton had with Obama when she ran against him for president in 2008 and called Obama's foreign policy views ‘naïve,’” Briggs wrote in an email.

While Sanders has been “very supportive” of Obama, Sanders — unlike Clinton — isn’t selling himself as the vehicle for a third Obama term, said Tad Devine, Sanders’ senior media adviser. Instead, he said, Sanders is calling for a more ambitious policies to reverse the shrinking of the middle class.

“What she’s saying is, ‘Let’s stay in the lane,’ ” Devine said. “What Bernie is saying is, ‘We’re in a slow lane, we need to get in a fast lane.’ ”

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