ARLINGTON, Virginia — As Bernie Sanders cements his place as the 2020 front-runner while more centrist candidates split the vote and face pressure from pundits to drop out and coalesce around a strong alternative that can halt him from taking a delegate lead.
Moderate voters, however, don’t feel the same way.
“The primary process is functioning very well, actually. I like the fact that everybody is out here supporting a wide field of candidates,” said Genevieve Zeltan, 44, a supporter of former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at a rally for the candidate in Arlington, Virginia, on Sunday.
“I don’t think that individual people should be trying to strategize party political strategy,” said Zeltan, a Herndon, Virginia, resident who runs a marketing company. “They should be out there supporting the candidates that they like the best.”
Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign last week said that Sanders wouls acquire an “insurmountable” delegate lead on March 3 Super Tuesday unless fellow centrist candidates Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar bow out of the race. Buttigieg’s campaign in response said that Bloomberg should be the one to drop out, citing the 38-year-old’s success challenging Sanders in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary and gaining a slight delegate lead.
Sanders decisively won Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, creating more urgency for moderate candidates to show that they can challenge the socialist Vermont senator.
But that anxiety is not reaching moderate voters who attended Buttigieg’s rally Northern Virginia, which has a primary on March 3 Super Tuesday. Though the voters do not like the idea of a Sanders presidency, they enjoy the range of options.
“I think right now the number of candidates is about right,” said Arlington resident and undecided voter Beth Harrison, 59, a federal government employee, adding that she is not worried about Sanders taking a decisive lead.
Joe Klein, 22, noted that only about a third of nominating delegates are allocated through Super Tuesday, giving time for candidates to coalesce around a moderate alternative after contests that day.
“If you’re going to stop him, it doesn’t matter if you stop now or later. That’ll be enough,” said Klein, a Fairfax, Virginia, finance professional. “As a moderate, I think it would be an ideal world kind of coalesce around one person. But if it’s Bernie, it’s Bernie. That’s just what we’ve got to do, I guess.”
There is little incentive to drop out, too, when centrist candidates post signs of progress. With 60% of Nevada results in, Biden is in second place and Buttigieg is in third. Klobuchar surprised with a third-place finish in New Hampshire and continues to rack up newspaper editorial board endorsements in Super Tuesday states.
More than 8,800 attendees formed a line several blocks long before gathering in an Arlington high school football stadium to see Buttigieg, causing traffic delays in the urban neighborhood and prompting local police to close some roads.
Buttigieg wasted no time taking a jab at Sanders in his stump speech, hoping to position himself as the main alternative to Sanders.
“I respect my friend Senator Sanders. I believe the ideals he talks about are ideals we all share. But I also believe that the way we will build the movement to defeat Donald Trump is to call people into our tents, not to call them names online,” he said.
And he ended with a swipe.
“This is where I differ with Senator Sanders. I don’t believe we can allow ourselves to get to the point where it feels like fighting is the point,” Buttigieg said. “The point is not the fight. The point is what lies on the other side.”
