“Never Trump” political commentator Sarah Longwell urged Democrats on Saturday to consolidate the Democratic presidential primary field to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from becoming the party’s nominee.
Longwell wants Democrats to heed the lessons of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, saying that a crowded field deep into primary season is one of the most substantial reasons why the Republican Party ended with a Trump candidacy. She warned that if Sanders does become the Democratic nominee, President Trump will easily defeat him in 2020.
“I mean, sure, I don’t know the future. But your Democratic present is looking an awful lot like our Republican past. I’m worried there’s something taking shape in front of you that you can’t quite see. Or maybe you do see it, and aren’t as alarmed by it as I am,” Longwell said in an op-ed published in The Bulwark on Saturday morning.
“Either way, it’s my firm belief that if you don’t do something to change course, America is going to be forced to choose between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in 2020.”
The commentator pointed out that out of 19 candidates currently running for the nomination, the distant front-runner hasn’t even announced a presidential run yet, and the vast majority of those candidates have barely broken one percentage point in the polls. Rather than dilute support and spend resources campaigning against candidates who can prevent a Sanders nomination, Longwell urged those lower-tier candidates to not even try.
“So I ask you, Democrats: Do you like Kamala Harris? Do you kind of dig Mayor Pete? Are you begging for Beto or Biden? Is Elizabeth Warren the policy revolutionary you’ve been waiting for? Would you take a binder to the head to see Klobuchar get the nom? Does your heart swell for Swalwell?” she wrote.
“With the exception of Joe Biden — who isn’t even officially in the race yet — everyone of those Democrats is consistently polling in the single digits.”
Longwell closed her argument drawing parallels between Sanders supporters and Trump supporters, saying that both sets of voters are fervent advocates for their candidate and most want nothing to do with any other alternatives, unlike Biden supporters, who might be open to voting for other candidates, for example. This was exemplified by Sanders supporters who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
“The only thing I can do now is sound the alarm to Democrats. In a crowded field Bernie’s intractable 20 percent can quickly lead to plurality victories in early states and before you know it he’ll be too hard to attack because all of the second-tier candidates will be angling for cabinet positions in the Sanders administration,” she added.
“The only solution is for Democratic candidates to have the self-awareness to see that if they haven’t caught fire a few months before Iowa and New Hampshire, then it’s probably not going to happen. They need to get out early and throw their support behind a responsible candidate who can beat Bernie in a primary and Trump in a general.”
