According to recent polling data, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is quickly closing the gap between him and Hillary Clinton in seeking the Democratic nomination to run for president in 2016.

Sanders’s populist message of taking on the banks, hiking taxes on the rich, making college more affordable, support of veterans and criticism of American hegemony has made his campaign rallies, in which thousands turn out to hear him rage at the machine, a sight to behold. Those of us disaffected by the nature of our political system hold out hope the Bernie can shake the foundations of power and perhaps become the president the nation needs at this time.

Not everybody is convinced, however, that Sanders can stand the heat of a long-term campaign, especially against Hillary Clinton. Nate Silver, the genius behind FiveThirtyEight, has concluded Sanders very well could win in New Hampshire and Iowa, but lose everywhere else. While Sanders has been picking up voters in the two states, writes Silver, “Nationally, by contrast, Sanders has just 15 percent of the vote and has been gaining ground on Clinton only slowly.”

Silver expects Sanders’s numbers to keep ticking up as voters in other states get to know him. But Silver throws water on Sanders’s fire by claiming his popularity might be due to the demographics of the caucus-goers in Iowa and the primary voters in New Hampshire, who he describes as “really liberal and really white, and that’s the core of Sanders’s support. Put another way, Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t representative of the more diverse electorates that Democrats will turn out elsewhere. It just so happens that the idiosyncrasies of the first two states match Sanders’s strengths and Clinton’s relative weaknesses.”

And Nate Cohn, writing for the New York Times’ Upshot, also doesn’t believe Sanders’s momentum is “built to last.”

“Mrs. Clinton still holds a huge lead among moderate and conservative Democrats — white and nonwhite alike. Whether Mr. Sanders can close the gap among these voters will determine the seriousness of his candidacy and whether he can pick up more delegates in other primaries. There aren’t many reasons to expect he will break through, and he certainly isn’t doing it yet.”

Cohn notes that Sanders doesn’t have the name recognition that Clinton has among rank-and-file Democrats around the country. “But Mr. Sanders’s problem runs a lot deeper than name recognition. A lot of these Democrats just aren’t consistently liberal, as the polling data suggests. It is not at all clear that a self-described socialist would fare well in the affluent, well-educated, socially liberal but fiscally moderate communities where Mr. Obama and even Bill Bradley excelled.”

Still, Sanders has something going for him that none of the other candidates, Democratic or Republican, have. H.A. Goodman, writing for The Hill, believes Sanders’ integrity and honesty is worth more than the billions of dollars available to any of the others in the race. “The integrity, honesty and bold stances of Sanders might make him a real threat to Clinton’s campaign and he’s earned something that billions in campaign fundraising can’t buy: the trust of the average American.”

Goodman notes that Sanders is showing that it’s possible to run on an unapologetic belief in progressive values, not simply carefully crafted rhetoric that jettisons core principles.

“Sanders never had to cater to any interests other than his belief system; something that frightens Wall Street while at the same time endears him to working Americans. Sanders is proving that integrity is an invaluable form of currency.”

We have no doubts that Sanders can withstand the withering barrage that is being prepared by his critics in politics and the media alike; he has proven over and over again he is no shrinking violet and is not about to take abuse while lying down. He gives as good as he gets. We hope he can expand his base to include more minorities and women, because this is a constituency that needs to hear his message.

Whether or not Sanders can achieve the highest office in the land is neither here nor there, though. What is important is that he give a voice to a populist message that resonates among many Americans on all sides of the political divide. We should thank him for that.

— By Digital First Media