Bernie Sanders had decided to drop out of the 2020 presidential campaign, he announced today (April 8).
The Vermont senator’s 2020 election started off strong. He barely missed first place in Iowa before excelling in New Hampshire and Nevada. Also, Sanders campaign continued to bring in millions in donations and filled rallies with supporters.
Running as a progressive against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Sanders popularized the plan for Medicare for All. In 2020, however, many candidates ran on similar policies, and he faced another prominent progressive in Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was the first to propose canceling some student debt in April. Warren surged above Sanders in the fall, before he suffered a heart attack in October.
Sanders 2020 bid, saw him working to gain more support among Latino voters. But despite years of support among the Black community, the senator failed to earn large votes. He also lost some of his white working-class supporters to Biden.
Sanders also hit a roadblock with women voters, after facing accusations of sexism in January after tensions between his and Warren’s campaigns spilled out into the open. For the most part, Sanders and Warren were allies while campaigning for the nomination, however leaks to the media of both senators accusing the other camp of dirty tricks concluded with Warren saying in a statement that Sanders once told her he didn’t think a woman could win the presidency.
Sanders denied the claim, but he was flogged with further criticism of his supporters who were dubbed the “Bernie Bros” after female union leaders in Nevada who spoke out against his candidacy said they were attacked by his fans.
Biden capitalized on all of this, and easily won in five of the six states that voted, included Michigan, which was a state Sanders was popular in.
Today I am suspending my campaign. But while the campaign ends, the struggle for justice continues on. https://t.co/MYc7kt2b16
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 8, 2020
— VIBE
