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Uh Oh: Young People Sour on Bernie, Support for Senator Drastically Plummets

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Three years ago, cheering young people across the country “felt the Bern,” but these days, it seems like they’re feeling more of a dull ache.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the outspoken democratic socialist from Vermont, drew large crowds of progressives during the run-up to the 2016 election. His popularity allowed him to give Hillary Clinton a run for her money, and although she managed to secure the Democrat nomination, she may have had to cheat just to do it.

But 2019 is no 2016.

As the next presidential election draws near, support for Sanders has dropped sharply. The 77-year-old just isn’t energizing the left the way he once did, and interestingly, the declining influence is most noticeable among young Americans.

“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has seen his support drop sharply among the young voters that have powered his rise in Democratic politics,” The Hill reported on Tuesday. “The survey from Morning Consult finds that Sanders’s support among people between the ages of 18 and 29 has dropped from 45 percent in March to 33 percent in May.”

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The same poll found that support for Sanders from the youngest voters has sunk steadily since February when it was at 46 percent.

That’s a big drop in a short amount of time, so what exactly is happening? The answer may be Joe Biden.

Since finally throwing his hat into the ring this spring after months, if not years of hemming and hawing, the former vice president has found himself at the top of very crowded Democrat race, at least according to the latest polls.

Neither he nor Sen. Elizabeth Warren is particularly exciting, but both are being credited for stealing support from the struggling Sanders.

Will Sanders drop out of the 2020 race?

“Biden’s support among the youngest voter set has risen from less than 20 points last month to 24 percent in the latest survey. Warren has also seen an uptick among young voters, further contributing to Sanders’s decline,” The Hill noted.

“Biden leads in every other age group and his margins grow the older the electorate gets.”

Now, there are a few major points here. The first is that early polls don’t always show the whole picture. As President Donald Trump’s win in 2016 showed, predictions and pundits can be very wrong, so it’s possible that Bernie Sanders isn’t out of the race yet.

With that said, it certainly does look like his grassroots support has waned. That raises a hopeful possibility: Maybe young Americans are starting to wake up and realize that socialism isn’t so cool after all.

Three years since the last election may not seem like a long time, but it just may have been enough for many “Bernie” supporters to have grown up.

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It’s one thing to be a 20-year-old who claims to want socialism in a state university dorm room; it’s something different to be 23, graduated, and getting a paycheck from a real job a few years later.

Perspectives can change when you actually have to pay taxes and act like an adult.

Another possibility is that three years of Trump have made people — even on the left — long for just a normal presidency again.

Even conservatives must admit that the current administration has been a bit of a roller coaster, and many Democrats may simply want a steady-as-she-goes candidate to cleanse their palate. Biden does seem to fit that bill, while Sanders does not.

But in the end, the real reason for Sanders’ fall from grace is probably that flavor-of-the-month politics just don’t work in the long term. He was a gimmick, a sort of crusty middle finger to the Democrat establishment.

Like a spiked pink haircut chosen mostly to shock people, Sanders may have been fun for a while, but he isn’t something voters want in the long run.

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Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico.




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