Even Bernie Sanders’ top strategist was surprised by the campaign’s win in Michigan, but he knows that in order to seal the nomination the Vermont senator must expand his appeal to black voters, no matter how long that takes.
“So, we understand that if Bernie’s going to be the nominee of the party, we’re going to have to win more support from African-American voters. I think in these early contests concentrated in the South, voters there know Hillary Clinton well,” senior strategist Tad Devine said during a Boston WBUR radio interview on Wednesday.
According to the Michigan exit polls, Sanders won over 30 percent of support with African-American voters, which unquestionably helped him clinch the unexpected primary win. He was also especially popular among younger black voters, earning nearly as many votes from them as Clinton did.
Devine remains confident that once black voters got to know Sanders better they would be more likely to vote for him, but he cautioned “it’s gonna take a long time.”
“If he can be successful and if he has the opportunity to deliver and acceptance speech at the convention, if he has an opportunity to campaign in through the country in the fall, his message will resonate powerfully in that community and I think we will win a lot of support and I’m sure we will helped in that effort by people like Obama,” Devine concluded.
