Does Bernie Sanders Have a Ceiling with Democratic Voters?
KING: Bernie Sanders was back home in Vermont for a big rally yesterday essentially bragging that, hey, the ideas he had in 2016 that people said were out of step for the Democratic Party are now very much part of the party's mainstream. Why then, if that's the case and to some degree it is, is the senator struggling this time around? Is it just because it's a more crowded field? If you look at the polling numbers, Joe Biden by far the front-runner right now in the early polling. Emphasis on early. Senator Sanders comes in second, but he's considerably behind. Let's just look at his numbers if you just bring in Senator Sanders numbers here. He's running in the teens mostly, some polls up closer to 20 percent, some polls down closer to 10 percent, but basically running in the teens in a more crowded field. Last time, it was one-on-one with Senator Hillary Clinton. Here's a problem for Bernie Sanders: Elizabeth Warren who shares many of his liberal positions is the choice -- more of a choice than Sanders among voters who described themselves as very liberal. So, Senator Sanders struggling now, it's not just Hillary Clinton a crowded field including someone who shares many of his progressive positions. Another look at more of the polling here among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters who say we're paying a lot of attention to the campaign Senator Sanders falls down to 8 percent. Joe Biden way on top there, again, Senator Warren, the more liberal favorite, Mayor Buttigieg, Senator Harris, and then Bernie Sanders. So, Senator Sanders trying to find his place in a new very different race he says you know what, pay closer attention to me. I'm the one who's changed the party.</s>SANDERS: Raising the minimum wage to a living wage, not so radical today. Guaranteeing health care to all as a human right, not so radical today. Legalizing marijuana, a radical idea four years ago, not so radical today.</s>KING: He's right. Is that part of the problem?</s>BALL: Yes, exactly. I mean, if you ever talk to Bernie Sanders, he will tell you, this isn't about me. This is about my ideas. This is about promoting these ideas that I have. And a number of Democratic voters appear to have taken that seriously and said, OK, well if we don't have to support you to support your ideas here's some other candidates who have the same ideas, right? Now, that being said I think all of the other Democratic candidates besides Joe Biden would love to have Bernie Sanders polling numbers, right? He is -- he's got a pretty solid second place there and it's clear that there is a base of voters for whom it is about Bernie and they do give him credit for having been in there first and having the guts to challenge Hillary Clinton when so many others didn't. But it is -- but it's going to be hard for him, particularly if that support is decreasing. The trajectory has got to be worrying to his campaign because what they need to do to make to get him to do more than finish second again is to take that that base that he has and build on it and get bigger rather than see those people start to walk away.</s>KING: But you're right, don't underestimate him as many people did in 2016. He does have that loyal support and he has a deep fundraising network so he can stay in the race even though he's doing some other more traditional fundraisers this time because Biden has raised so much money. One of the interesting things as you watch warren who again taking some of Senator Sanders lane, if you will, more liberal voters. She's also been trying to play in this competition for the support of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was a Bernie Sanders volunteer in 2016, now a freshman member of Congress and star of screen and stage with Elizabeth Warren.</s>REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): We've sent Steven Mnuchin a letter asking him what he did as a member of the Sears board when Eddie Lampert proposed gutting the business, closing it and buying back stock rather than investing in workers.</s>SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the American people deserve answers and we're out there to fight for 'em.</s>OCASIO-CORTEZ: That's right.</s>KING: Now, she's -- Ocasio-Cortez using her leverage. She also said Jay Inslee has the best idea she thinks so far in the campaign on climate change. She's using her leverage. But if you're Senator Sanders, more proof there, your lane has company.</s>DEMIRJIAN: Your lane does have company and that your lane would have had company probably last time if Elizabeth Warren had run. But right now, you know, Bernie has an established figure. Warren's also a known figure but she needs help reaching out to young people in a way that you know Bernie controls a lot of the youth vote. Ocasio-Cortez is a kingmaker in some ways for this part of the Democratic establishment and base. And so, you're seeing them make this run there. There's going to be other people that are clearly making the run towards the middle and then the big question is who kind of can tap multiple constituencies of the Democratic Party. I think Bernie Sanders, his numbers might be better frankly if he had more minority voters that were backing him as compared to Biden has more pull. But it seems in those groups of voters, but this is kind of like the piecing together of all the pieces you need young people, you need centrist, you need leftists, you need minorities, you need women and everybody's trying to make a reach it wherever they can grab these voters.</s>SHEAR: The thing that I found interesting about the Sanders numbers that you put up was that among the very liberal voters, when you looked at it, Biden and Sanders were almost tied, right, which, you know, may indicate -- I mean, the speech bit that you played said that you showed Sanders saying that all of his ideas were not radical anymore. Well, that's exactly the problem for him. I mean, it seems odd that he would underscore that because if the if his ideas are not radical anymore because people like Joe Biden have adopted many of them, then it's a license for his supporters to say, well, Biden seems fine.</s>KING: He also spent a lot of time in the speech defending his foreign policy and international relations record. He said he's a proud opponent to Vietnam War, talked about marching with Martin Luther King, his opposition to the Iraq War. How much of that is because in this campaign, more so than the last campaign, he's getting scrutinies for his past, you see some of the headlines here? When he was -- he was the socialist mayor of Burlington, Vermont, mayor and foreign minister, how Bernie Sanders brought the cold war to Burlington. Referendums, rallies, a trip to Nicaragua are all part of an effort to infuse left-wing activism into local politics. Inside Bernie Sanders ten-day honeymoon in the Soviet Union. Bernie Sanders in the '70s Senate race called millionaires senators immoral. His past is getting more focus -- last time, again, people underestimated him in 2016 and didn't really vet him as much.</s>MATTINGLY: Yes. And it's been interesting because he said kind of towards the start of this campaign that one of the areas that he needed to flush out more was on foreign policy. And he has a very well known top foreign policy advisor but it's one of the things people knew that they needed to hear about it. And I think you can add to the I've been right on these issues when he talks about what he did with the end of the civil war and trying to pull out U.S. support to that. But when you expand it a little bit it's less of an issue or it's less of an area where he can draw a clear contrast because people weren't totally sure where he stood. And if you are not totally sure where somebody stands on something, you're going to look back at anything they've done in the past. I mean let's go back into the time when he was mayor as a number of publications have done -- it raises questions. And he might have been totally right on all those things but people are just raising the questions. And his response to that has also been interesting. He called a "New York Times" reporter, your colleague who wrote a story about that they printed the transcript which I think is very snippy and kind of a back and forth. I thought that was really interesting to read. Now to be fair, having covered Bernie Sanders on Capitol Hill in the United States Senate, that's really just how he talks with reporters to some degree. But I think there is a recognition that this has become an issue. For him to pick up the phone and call a "New York Times" reporter is recognition that this has become an issue, an issue they need to address. It will just be interesting to see how this plays out in the weeks ahead.</s>KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, "WASHINGTON POST": It's important for all Democrats also this race to try to lean into foreign policy because this is one of the areas where they think Trump is the weakest. He's been very, very unorthodox in how he decides the</s>KING: And to that point let's listen a little bit here. Remember how Bernie Sanders has used Hillary Clinton's Iraq war vote against her. He's already talked about Joe Biden's Iraq war vote. Bernie Sanders among the Democrats now watching what's happening in the Persian Gulf and getting nervous.</s>SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am doing everything that I can to prevent Donald Trump and John Bolton from taking us into a war in Iran.</s>BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Trump is escalating tensions, is provoking yet another war in the Middle East. We don't need another war. We need to find a way to work with allies and partners and in some cases with our enemies.</s>PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And no, it does not make us more secure to enter into an escalation that could lead to a confrontation with Iran as though we had learned nothing from this occupation with Iraq.</s>KING: Interesting dynamic in a Democratic race where, remember last time Hillary Clinton's is just viewed as I am sure she will be critical -- she is critical of the President vis a vis Iran. But in the last campaign, it was just Bernie Sanders sort of staking out the anti-war</s>MOLLY BALL, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "TIME MAGAZINE": Yes. I mean in that speech that he gave yesterday, Sanders did not sound defensive about his foreign policy record. It was more that he feels he wants -- he needs to introduce this part of himself to voters because so much of his image has to do with his economic policies which are now not as differentiated. So foreign policy, number one -- something that a lot of Democratic primary voters don't know about. He wants them to know that about him. Number two, a potential differentiator for him particularly from a candidate like Joe Biden whose profile on foreign policy is very similar to Hillary Clinton's and much more sort of centrist, much more interventionist. And I think in the general election too, Democrats feel like Trump got a lot of credit for purportedly being non-interventionist in 2016. And as it played out in his administration, that picture is much more complicated, it's much less clear that he's actually not interventionist president. And so they want to make the case particularly to those swing voters particularly, potentially in the Rust Belt who may have looked at Trump in 2016 and thought, ok here's a guy who wouldn't have gotten us into Iraq. And so they want to make the case that that's not the Trump who's actually been in the Oval Office.</s>KING: It's a great point especially if you go back and review the Sanders PC update (ph) about foreign policy. Close your eyes -- fast forward a month we'll be on the Democratic debate stage. We're going to hear some of those lines from Joe Biden if -- we don't know if he's going to be on the same stage as Joe Biden yet. But we shall see. Some of the best campaign moments from the week just passed, next including the latest Democrat to send a message to McDonald's.