A recent King 5/Survey USA poll shows Sen. Bernie Sanders tied with Vice President Joe Biden heading into the Washington State primary on March 10.
The numbers, which show Sanders doing better with earlier voters and Biden doing better with later voters, suggest the Vermont Senator will have a tougher time sweeping the state’s delegates the way he did in 2016, back when the field was narrower and the Democrats were caucusing for their nominee instead of holding a primary.
This weekend, as Sanders holds rallies in Michigan and books himself on all the Sunday shows, campaign staffers and volunteers in Washington hope to widen the gap using one of the structural advantages they have over the Biden campaign: an expansive ground game.
On a soggy Saturday morning, around 45 supporters showed up at Sandel Park to canvass Greenwood as part of a massive get-out-the-vote effort for Sanders. Across the state, approximately 2,000 volunteers led by 300 “volunteer captains” held similar canvassing events. Their goal, according to Shaun Scott, Sanders’s Washington State field director, was to knock on 60,000 doors from Port Angeles to Walla Walla.
Among the ranks at the Seattle canvassing event, which was co-hosted by Sunrise Seattle and the Washington Youth Climate Strike, were Summer Stinson and Robert Cruickshank. Both Stinson and Cruickshank are active members of the 36th Legislative District Democrats, and both actively supported Sen. Elizabeth Warren. After Warren dropped earlier in the week, they committed to helping Bernie get across the finish line.
Before the volunteers hit the doors, Stinson and Cruickshank gave speeches explaining their reasons for supporting Sanders.
“I am emblematic of the Warren to Bernie crowd, and I am very proud to be. For me, it’s values-driven,” Stinson said. “I support the Green New Deal, health care for all, free college for all, free transit for all, taxing the rich, and student loan forgiveness. I believe in big structural change, and to me the only one who is going to deliver that at this point is Bernie.”
Stinson said she’s confident Sanders will beat Trump, but she has her doubts about Biden’s ability to do that. “Let’s just say I was more excited about Clinton than I was about Biden,” Stinson said.
“And that’s not just me being mean,” she added. “I know what Bernie is for, but I can’t tell you what Biden’s for.
At the doors, Stinson met a few people struggling with their decision. She said she talked at length to a woman of color who had supported Warren and had some concerns about the negativity she saw from Sanders supporters.
Stinson said she put her pitch like this: “We’re being asked to decide between a warm glass of milk that’s maybe gone bad, or a stiff drink. I understand what we wanted was a champaign cocktail, and that’s no longer on the menu. But think about what your values are and what the candidate’s values are, and let’s focus on our values and not just sit at home with our champaign cocktails.”
Over the phone, Scott elaborated on some of those major value differences. “We talk about the fact that we’re the campaign polling best among Independents while also standing up for folks who have historically sat out of elections. We haven’t equivocated like Biden has on a woman’s right to chose. Sanders was not responsible for signing onto disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA. Sanders did not author the crime bill as Joe Biden did. And Sanders also didn’t have a record of forbidding additional witnesses being called for the Anita Hill proceedings,” he said.
Sanders’s Washington campaign will hold another big canvass event at Gas Works Park tomorrow, and Scott said he’s heading up to Bellingham to lead a student rally on Sunday night.
But their work won’t stop on Tuesday. Scott said the campaign will “go into overtime” after the primary to cure upwards of 60,000 ballots rejected due to signature challenges or failures to properly mark a newly added partisan affiliation box.
“If tracking down 5,000 or 10,000 of these ballots is the difference between coming out of this state with 70 or 80 delegates, then we’re going to do all we can to make that happen. We have a plan in place to be out here next weekend chasing ballots,” Scott said.
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