Democratic infighting runs deeper than Sanders, Warren

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Democratic presidential candidates are under pressure to knock out their competition before the first ballots are cast in Iowa next month. As is often the case in politics, the fight has turned ugly. It has also started to reveal deeper divisions that could affect the party in the general election.

For several months, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren held off criticizing each other, even while both fought to claim the progressive mantle in the Democratic primary. Then tensions broke out publicly between the two candidates at last Tuesday's debate.

It was hardly the only fight within the Democratic Party. But it fueled concerns that a more serious division between the Sanders-Warren progressive wing and the more moderate establishment wing of the party could help President Donald Trump get reelected.

Reports emerged last week that Sanders' campaign volunteers were training on a script that attacked Warren, a former Harvard professor, of appealing primarily to the elite, "highly educated, more affluent people" while alienating sections of the Democratic base.

Sanders campaigners were also reportedly instructed to go after other frontrunners, to say that "no one is really excited about" former Vice President Joe Biden and point to the lack of support for Pete Buttigieg among African-American voters.

Warren shot back at the Sanders campaign saying she was "disappointed" her Senate colleague was "sending his volunteers out to trash me." She warned that if the party wanted to defeat Trump, it could not afford the kind of "factionalism" of 2016.

But the fight wasn't over. At the Democratic debate in Des Moines, Sanders was confronted with the claim that he told Warren that a woman could not be president in a private conversation in 2018. Sanders denied it, telling the audience, "Anybody who knows me knows that it's incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States."

Warren said she was not trying to pick a fight with Sanders and defended her account of the conversation. After the debate ended and before the candidates' mics were turned off, Warren approached Sanders to say, "I think you called me a liar on national TV."

Sanders pushed back before saying, "Let's not do it now" and walking away. Social media was briefly flooded with #NeverBernie and #NeverWarren hashtags.

The two progressive candidates have gone after each other in the past on differences in their Medicare for All proposals or alleged weaknesses in plans to provide debt relief for college students. This attack seemed different.

"[T]his kind of mudslinging and infighting among Democrats isn't political gamesmanship. It's political suicide," warned Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham in a recent opinion piece. Graham continued that the name-calling and internecine feud only served the interests of the Republican Party and the president's reelection. "Democrats need to be fighting Trump, not each other," she wrote.

Reports emerged that Democratic Party leaders, supporters and donors were afraid the Sanders-Warren rift could foreshadow a replay of 2016. In that election, Sanders' supporters refused to rally around the party's nominee, Hillary Clinton. Some walked out of the nominating convention bitter about the unfairness of the process, which was confirmed by a Russian-orchestrated leak of internal DNC emails. An estimated 12% of Sanders supporters voted for Trump while others simply sat out the election.

Among progressives, there were fears that a fight between Sanders and Warren would all but guarantee a victory for a more moderate candidate. In the days following the debate, 18 progressive groups came together to form a coalition, Progressives Unite 2020. Each member pledged to hold their fire against the left wing of the party, promising, instead, to take aim at "establishment" Democrats running for the White House.

"We pledge to focus our fight for the nomination against candidates supported by the corporate wing, instead of fighting each other," the coalition stated. Progressives Unite 2020 is made up of seven groups that backed Sanders, two groups that have endorsed Warren as well as other organizations that have yet to endorse a candidate.

In a statement last week, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said it would urge supporters to "focus on defeating a corporate, establishment Democrat like Joe Biden."

Another member of the coalition, Jonel Edward of Dream Defenders, insisted that the party's nominee would have to come from the progressive wing, saying that "a moderate Democrat can't win the nomination and they won't beat Trump.”

Other groups attacked "billionaires," two of whom are running as Democrats this year, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg. While others argued that anyone who accepted money from corporate donors does not deserve the party's nomination. Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden have reportedly received the most contributions from wealthy, corporate donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

On Sunday, Warren joined Sanders in attacking Biden's record on Social Security. Warren boasted that she and Sanders established the Expand Social Security Caucus, whereas, "As a senator, Joe Biden had a very different position on Social Security." Earlier this month, the Sanders campaign accused Biden of supporting a Republican plan to cut Social Security and Medicare.

The Biden campaign turned the attacks into a fundraising opportunity. The former vice president sent an email to supporters Sunday evening where he portrayed himself as above the interparty fray. "As Democrats I thought we all knew this election was too important to attack other Democrats," the email stated. The Biden campaign denied ever supporting Social Security cuts or privatization and accused Sanders of "lying" and promoting "smears" against him.

Republicans see the split among the Democrats as an opening. "I think the bloodier this process gets, the better off Trump is in terms of getting reelected," said GOP strategist Ford O'Connell.

O'Connell explained that the president would also prefer to run a campaign against Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has polled behind Trump in several battleground states including Arizona and North Carolina. A recent poll showed Sanders with a six-point lead over Trump in Florida. Sanders and Biden were also running neck and neck in Michigan where a new poll projected they could beat Trump by three points.

"The general public is finally getting a taste that the Democrats don't always walk in lockstep," O'Connell continued. "Once the party has a nominee and not everybody is marching in the same direction, in a certain set of states it could be disastrous for the Democrats trying to unseat Trump."

Trump has attempted to capitalize on the divisions among his opponents. In a series of tweets, he accused the Democratic Party of "rigging the election" against Sanders. "They are taking the Democrat Nomination away from Crazy Bernie, just like last time," Trump said last week after the debate. "Some things never change!"

At the same time, more moderate candidates, like Biden, Buttigieg or Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have been happy to stay out of the fray while two of their leading rivals tore into one another.

"If they're both attacking each other, there's a risk they could knock each other out," said B.J. Rudell, the associate director of Duke University's POLIS Center for Political Leadership, Innovation and Service. "Nobody wins in a mutually assured destruction between two people where everyone else has the luxury of running ahead or maybe piling on to loosen up that progressive support."

There are still several indications that the Democratic Party will likely rally around whichever candidate is selected to challenge Trump in the general election.

A recent Gallup poll suggested that the majority of Democrats (60%) would prefer a candidate who had the best chance of beating Trump rather than someone who they agree with on issues. A majority of voters viewed Biden as the most electable and 50% preferred a "moderate" candidate. That leaves a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate that may be stubbornly loyal to their candidate and wedded to a candidate with a liberal ideology.

The House impeachment of President Trump also demonstrated that Democrats could "be almost uniform" in their objectives, Rudell said, even amid concerns that some members in vulnerable districts could be hurt. "It indicates that any shift within the primary will take a backseat to the reality of a fall general election campaign," he noted.