Is Bernie Sanders unstoppable?
Some people save the best things for those later stages of their lives
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Having won the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, and looking set for a landslide in the western state of Nevada, Bernie Sanders has done two things.
Firstly, he has made history by being the first Democrat to pull off such a feat in the first three states in the nation to vote.
Secondly, he has very decidedly made himself the party’s frontrunner.
Some people it seems, save the best things for those later stages of their lives. Four years ago, the senator from Vermont was defeated 53 - 47 by Hillary Clinton, after he had run her to within half-a-percentage point in Iowa, and having bagged New Hampshire.
“We have come a very long way in nine months,” he said to supporters in Las Vegas back in 2016. “It is clear to me, and I think most observers, that the wind is at our backs. We have the momentum.”
Sanders may have had the wind at his back these past four years, as he watched his ideas, one considered kooky or crazy, get taken up by many of his Democratic Party. But he also worked incredibly hard.
Buoyed and backed by millennials and especially young people of colour, the 78-year-old Sanders has placed himself at a position he might only have dreamed about.
If he continues to perform as he has in these first three states, it appears only a matter of time before he gathers enough delegates to nail down the nomination, possibly some time before the party holds its convention in Milwaukee.
He path is not certain. The great uncertainty is what happens on Super Tuesday when more than a dozen states hold their primaries, including those battlegrounds where former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent up to $400m on political advertising.
That money was enough to raise his profile to qualify for the ninth Democratic debate this week in Las Vegas, where he was roundly attacked by Sanders and other Democrats. What we do not know is whether poll numbers translate into actual votes.
It is also far from clear whether Sanders can beat Donald Trump. Polls suggest he would do. But historically polls about the general election taken at this point in the cycle are not very reliable.
On Saturday night, Sanders allowed himself something of a mini-celebration. “We won the Iowa caucus. We won the New Hampshire primary. Now, according to three networks we have won the Nevada caucus,” he declared in Texas.
“So let me thank the people of Nevada for their support. In Nevada we have put together a multi-generational, multi-racial coalition that not only swept Nevada, but will sweep the country.”
The Democratic nomination is by no means a sure thing for Bernie Sanders. But after his victory in Nevada it is his to lose.
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