Sen. Bernie Sanders' team is convinced the Vermont senator’s appeal to independent voters, the white working class and people of color is an underappreciated strength. | Duane Prokop/Getty Images 2020 elections Bernie’s pollster dishes on the path to beat Trump Critics argue the democratic socialist can't possibly win a general election. His aides counter he could upend the electoral map.

When Bernie Sanders was mulling a 2020 campaign last year, he said he would likely pull the trigger if he thought he was the “best candidate” to defeat President Donald Trump.

Now that he’s officially in the race for the White House, a key element of his argument is that he is — in a way that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. His campaign is gearing up to take direct aim at one of the central cases made against him: That the 77-year-old democratic socialist, far from being unable to win a general election, could blaze a nontraditional path to victory on the electoral map unlike any other Democratic candidate.


This month, Ben Tulchin, Sanders’ pollster, circulated a memo about an online survey he conducted in late 2017 for progressives who were hoping to flip state legislative seats in West Virginia. The poll found that Sanders would beat Trump by 2 percentage points in the state — despite the fact that Trump won West Virginia, 69-27, and that no Democratic presidential candidate has carried the state since 1996.

To operatives in both parties, the notion that Sanders could defeat Trump in one of the president’s strongholds strains credulity. But the Sanders team is convinced the Vermont senator’s appeal to independent voters, the white working class and people of color is underestimated — and could pay dividends in unexpected places in a general election. They argue that his anti-establishment and populist economic message, as well as his many years of representing rural voters, makes him competitive in not only the Rust Belt states where Hillary Clinton faltered but also potentially in deep-red states, too.

They’re not just talking about West Virginia. Some in the Sanders camp envision possibly making a play for Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana, as well as states such as Kansas, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Montana — six states that, together, have voted for the Democratic nominee just twice in the past half-century.

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“It could just radically change the map,” Tulchin told POLITICO. “As Bernie has showed, as Trump has showed, I don’t think we are in a binary, two-dimensional, left-right paradigm anymore.”

Convincing the primary electorate that he can defeat Trump in a general election looms as one of Sanders’ biggest challenges in 2020: His rivals, as well as pundits from both parties, will likely paint him as an extremist who could never win over the moderate voters who helped Democrats take back the House in the 2018 midterms.

With Democrats desperate to oust Trump, “electability” is a major concern for voters at this stage of the race, particularly among some groups that Sanders struggled to win over in 2016.

A recent Monmouth University poll showed a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters of all ages prioritize the ability to win the general election over ideology in a 2020 nominee. However, larger percentages of older voters, women and people of color want a candidate who can conquer Trump, even if they disagree with most of their platform.

Most older voters, especially those of color, favored Clinton over Sanders in 2016 — and Sanders’ top allies and aides have acknowledged that he has much to do to change that.

“His peer group is harder on him across the board,” said Nina Turner, president of the Sanders-founded Our Revolution, referring to older voters. “He’s definitely going to have to work on bringing his peers into the fold.”

One adviser to the Vermont senator said those efforts will likely need to include a persuasive argument that he can oust Trump.

His aides argue that he is well-liked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — the three Rust Belt states that helped hand Trump the keys to the White House — so Sanders begins with a foothold.

“I don’t think anybody can dispute with a straight face that Bernie Sanders is very popular in those places,” said Jeff Weaver, an adviser to Sanders. “That’s because he’s popular with the progressive base, he’s increasingly popular with the emerging electorate in the Democratic Party, and he is popular with traditional, working-class, industrial workers in those places.”

Sanders’ aides also point out that he has years of experience speaking to rural voters, and has enjoyed crossover appeal in his home state of Vermont. They hold up his 2016 primary victories in Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as his rallies with candidates in the 2018 midterms in those states, including with now-Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“It’s no secret that many candidates throughout the Midwest wanted him to campaign for them in 2018,” Weaver said.

Among the soft spots in the campaign’s case: In the Pennsylvania primary, Sanders lost to Clinton by 12 points. And Sanders has had past troubles connecting with key components of the Democratic coalition, whose turnout will help determine the nominee’s fate.

According to an analysis of exit polling in 25 primaries , Sanders narrowly won black voters under 30 in 2016, but lost older African-Americans by large margins, who turned out at higher rates than their younger counterparts. To beat Trump, the Democratic nominee will need robust support from black voters, the most loyal part of the party’s base.

Sanders’ team believes he’s in a much stronger position with black voters now than in 2016: They argue he has high favorability ratings among African-Americans, and unlike in his first presidential bid, starts with strong name ID.

Sanders’ aides also note his current position among Latinos: In several recent 2020 surveys, he is in first place among Latinos, placing better than even former Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s unlikely that Sanders, who eschews talking publicly about political strategy, will argue much if at all about “electability” himself.

"I think he needs to stay on his message," said Turner, "and that message is going to make people aware that he is electable."

But his advisers may make the case for him, directly and indirectly. Surrogates can address the “electability” issue in their messaging, and staff could strategically place primary rallies in red states and throughout the Rust Belt.

Other candidates have taken that route: When Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar kicked off her 2020 bid earlier this month, she said her first two stops would be in Iowa and Wisconsin, adding that “we’re starting in Wisconsin because, as you remember, there wasn’t a lot of campaigning in Wisconsin in 2016.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has highlighted her time representing a rural New York district. And Biden’s allies have argued that he can win back white working-class voters who have strayed from the Democratic Party, touting the positive reception he received while campaigning for 2018 candidates in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Florida.

Even Sanders, if not talking about electability outright, is hinting at it.

“Together,” he wrote in one of the final paragraphs of his email announcing his 2020 campaign, “we can defeat Donald Trump and repair the damage he has done to our country.”