Bernie Sanders’ Senate colleagues have come to know him as a bit player in the Democratic Caucus, a gruff, rumpled protest voice to the left of even the most liberal senators. Now the Vermont socialist is drawing crowds by the thousands seemingly everywhere he goes — and his cohorts in D.C. can hardly believe it.

“Man, when I was away on recess, I kept seeing Bernie here and Bernie there,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), recounting a conversation he had with Sanders. “It was like ‘Where’s Waldo?’”


Yet many are also implicitly — and some explicitly — warning voters not to jump on the Sanders bandwagon. He’s too far out there to win a general election, a number of Democrats who’ve worked alongside him — most, or all, of them Hillary Clinton supporters — say.

And they fear the stronger he gets, the more he’ll pull Clinton to the left, hurting her chances in the general election.

“I just hope they don’t move Hillary so far left that people believe she is out of the realm,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate West Virginia Democrat who supports Clinton. “I’ve seen bases move people.”

“No,” Sen. Bill Nelson said when asked if he was excited about Sanders’ candidacy. He added that Sanders would lose his critical swing state of Florida in a general election. “I’m totally behind Hillary.”

“Bernie is a socialist and claims that title,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), an early Clinton supporter. “I just don’t believe that someone who is a self-described socialist is going to be elected to be president of the United States.”

The public skepticism of Sanders’ bid reflects how rapidly he’s gone from peripheral figure in the Senate to serious factor in the 2016 primary. While Clinton’s $45 million fundraising haul and strength in polling dwarfs the field, Sanders raked in a not insignificant $15 million and is fast rising in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. One CNN-WMUR survey in mid-June had Sanders behind Clinton in New Hampshire by just 8 percentage points.

Clinton’s supporters on the Hill say the Democratic base should be wary of Sanders.

“The likelihood that Bernie Sanders becomes president is very, very low,” said Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut. His views “are not where the majority of the American people are. I think it’s very hard for a guy who calls himself a socialist to ultimately win the trust of the majority of the American voters.”

Sanders, in an interview with POLITICO, said he’s heard all the skepticism before.

“When I ran for mayor of the city of Burlington in 1981, nobody, nobody, nobody thought that I could win that election,” said Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

“When I ran for the United States Congress the first time, everybody thought I would be a spoiler — not [that I would] do well. But in 1990, I defeated an incumbent Republican congressman by 16 points,” Sanders said. “In 2006, when I first ran for the United States Senate, I ran against the wealthiest person in the state, who spent three times more money than anyone else has ever spent. I won that election 2-to-1.”

“People,” he added, “should not underestimate me.”

Some of his colleagues don’t.

Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat and Senate minority whip, said he told New York reporters recently not to discount Sanders.

“He’s a serious candidate; he has a serious following,” Durbin said. “I know people in Springfield, Illinois, who love Bernie Sanders. Don’t be surprised with the turnout.”

“I think Bernie is a really authentic, important voice,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a Clinton backer. “He started kind of no place. So he had no place to go but up.”

In his 3½ decades in public life, the 73-year-old Sanders has been a champion of government programs to help the middle class and working poor — and has long advocated higher taxes on the rich and big institutions. While he cut a major bipartisan deal last summer to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs, it’s not unusual for him to find himself in the minority of the minority in the Senate.

When President Barack Obama came into office and pushed his health care bill, Sanders was a rare voice publicly calling for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all type system. His stature on the left grew in 2010 when he took to the floor to launch an 8½-hour tirade — or “fili-Bernie” — against a deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts reached by Obama and GOP leaders.

Sanders was the lone member of the Senate Democratic Caucus to vote to kill the Export-Import Bank in June and was one of just two senators in his caucus to oppose a new electronic surveillance law known as the USA Freedom Act. As Obama pushed his trade agenda this past spring, Sanders was one of its most ardent foes, putting Clinton — who had backed the free trade deal in the past — in an awkward spot. And even last week, Sanders joined the GOP in voting against a Democratic measure on defense policy after he raised concerns that the military budget is already too bloated.

He says his tough rhetoric on income inequality on the trail has fired up voters and filled a vacuum within the Democratic Party.

“I always thought that competition was good, but I believe that Hillary will more than hold her own and prevail,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski said.

“I think the message that I’m bringing can, in fact, generate a great deal of excitement from people who understand that establishment politics and establishment economics are not working for them — who want real change,” Sanders said in the Capitol. “I think if we’re going to do well in November 2016, not only for the White House, but for the U.S. House, and U.S. Senate, we need to have a significant increase in voter turnout. And I think my candidacy can do that.”

Sanders’ ascent has put some liberals in Congress in an uncomfortable position. He has virtually no support from congressional Democrats, who have been backing Clinton for months. Still, many progressive lawmakers don’t want to antagonize Sanders even though they’re eager for Clinton to become the nominee.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said Clinton’s experience as a diplomat and senator makes her the “whole package” and the strongest Democratic candidate.

Asked if Sanders could win a general election, Heinrich said: “No comment. I’m supporting Secretary Clinton, but I have a lot of respect for Sen. Sanders. I think it’s his job to make that case.”

“I always thought that competition was good, but I believe that Hillary will more than hold her own and prevail,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who also downplayed the enormous turnouts for Sanders at events in Wisconsin and Maine. “So much of Iowa is not large crowds, it’s organizing for the caucuses.”

Despite the enthusiastic reception on the campaign trail, Sanders still carries himself in the Senate as if nothing’s changed. He walks stern-faced through the Capitol, often by himself; a back-slapping pol, he is not.

But wherever he goes — whether on the elevator with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) or on the Senate floor with Kaine — senators are very curious to hear about the Sanders boom.

When Kaine approached the Vermont senator on the floor to congratulate him for the 7,500 supporters who cheered him on in Maine recently, Sanders interrupted him.

“He said, ‘Tim, it was actually 9,000, but who’s counting?’” Kaine recalled.