Sanders Is Surging. Can He Keep It Going?
Bernie Sanders has, for the first time, snatched the lead from Joe Biden in a national CNN poll and his numbers are surging in Iowa as well. Can he keep up the momentum?
Though Sanders’s 2016 campaign had a reputation for attracting a disproportionately white coalition, that has changed in a big way this time around. Younger voters and people of color may be the key to Sanders’s path to victory… Sanders’s surge in momentum couldn’t come at a better time for him, in the last weeks before Iowa and New Hampshire.
Another reason to think Sanders can do well beyond Iowa and New Hampshire: his war chest. He raised nearly $35 million last quarter and nearly $100 million over the course of the campaign, which is tops for any candidate. Sanders is sure to have incoming fire from other campaigns. He’ll have a better shot financially of fighting back against than most.
This kind of thing is very, very hard to game out, but especially for someone like Sanders. We’ve seen races where the Iowa result has a huge, unexpected impact on what happens in NH — see 2008 — and some where it’s not totally obvious what the effect is at all.