2020 Vision: What is electability?

If one word were to sum up the tension of the 2020 Democratic primary race, it would have to be “electability.” Beating Donald Trump in the general election is forefront in the minds of democratic voters. Ever since the beginning of the race, discussions about the candidates' platforms have been second to questions like, “but can they win swing states?” After the Nevada Caucuses, one thing is clear: Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner. The candidate perhaps most attacked for his supposed lack of electability has thus far done the best in the election.

Our notions of electability are largely based on who has won in the past. Because of this, it isn’t shocking that many thought Biden was the most likely to bring together a winning coalition. He is the most similar to presidents of the past; his folksy speaking style and anecdotal tendencies are reminiscent of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. He also has had a long career in Washington, making him seemingly qualified. This combined with his centrist rhetoric made him, at least according to the conventional wisdom of the pundit class, the unity candidate. 

The idea of Biden as electable and Sanders as alienating fails to take into account a key reality of our political environment: we no longer live in the past. A look at the two most recent occupants of the White House should make it clear that the last thing the American people want to vote for is a safe, establishment, status-quo candidate. Barack Obama was young, inspiring and different. His message of empowerment and change brought together a groundswell of support. Donald Trump, although nearly the opposite of the young senator from Illinois who would go on to win the presidency, represented to his cadre of supporters a similar message; while not young, Trump made his supporters feel heard, set himself apart from Washington and convinced them that the change they hoped to see was possible. Both Obama and Trump inspired their respective bases and used their individual charisma to convince their supporters to hope and believe. 

Biden, like Clinton in 2016, looks great on paper. He is the embodiment of what Democratic party insiders think the rest of the country wants to vote for. The problem is that party insiders don’t really know what the rest of the country wants. Sanders, although he has been in D.C. for many years, is seen as an outsider. His policy proposals are big and ambitious, and he attacks the existing political order that candidates like Clinton and Biden personify. His support is broad-based, a fact that is reflected in his massive grassroots funding as well as his resounding win in Nevada, the first state with substantial diversity, in which he got a greater share of the vote than Biden, Buttigieg and Warren combined. Like Obama and Trump before him, Sanders is bold, different and supposedly unelectable. But, like our last two presidents, he is winning anyway.