Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders outperformed other candidates the week before the primaries in Iowa by 7%. This is evidenced by the results of a sociological survey conducted by the New York Times and Siena College.

According to the results, 25% of the members of the Iowa party assembly who will take part in the upcoming primaries are ready to vote for Sanders. The second place in the survey was taken by ex-mayor of South Bend Pete Buttidzhich, who is supported by 18% of respondents, former vice president Joe Biden was in third place with 17% of the vote.

Senator Elizabeth Warren scored 15% of the potential vote and took fourth place. The remaining candidates failed to overcome the 10% threshold.

The vote in Iowa is scheduled for February 3. It will be the first official expression of will in the framework of primaries, which, experts say, is extremely important for democratic candidates - their result can determine the further course of the election campaign and critically affect the chances of a politician to become a single candidate from the Democratic Party in the 2020 elections.

This is due to the fact that American voters pay more attention to the first primaries of the media, so a successful start contributes to a further successful campaign, Yuri Rogulev, director of the Franklin Roosevelt US Study Foundation at Moscow State University, explained in a conversation with RT.

“Today, Sanders is very successful, his election campaign, like last time, is very enthusiastic. Over the past month, he overtook Biden in nationwide polls because the American voter is tired of formal, duplicitous politicians. But the leadership of the Democratic Party relies on Biden, who has a rather sluggish campaign and which voters support quite formally, ”Rogulev notes.

Youth candidate

Analysts say the Sanders platform resonates mainly with the protest electorate, young people who believe that capitalism and liberal democracy do not fit their vision.

Bernie Sanders is popular in these circles due to the fact that he openly considers himself a politician of a social democratic nature and sympathizes with leftist ideas that are gaining popularity in the United States.

In October 2019, a survey by the YouGov sociological service showed that 70% of American millennials (those born after 1985. - RT ) would vote for a socialist politician, and among “Generation Z” (born after 2000. - RT ) this the rate was 64%.

“This speaks of the profound changes in American society, the party political system, which have been going on for decades after the end of the Cold War. In the USA, there is a request for unusual candidates with new fresh ideas, and Bernie Sanders acts as such, ”said Andrei Sidorov, head of the department of international organizations and world political processes at the Moscow State University’s faculty of international politics, in an interview with RT.

Recall that back in 1988, as mayor of Burlington, Sanders, as part of the US delegation, came to the USSR to establish relations between the two states. The politician decided to combine a working trip with a honeymoon: Sanders and his wife spent more than a week in Yaroslavl.

Inconvenient looks

Despite the steady performance in the ratings, Sanders rivals do not abandon attempts to weaken his position. So, the senator was criticized after his election headquarters posted a video on his Twitter, on which he was supported by the popular TV presenter and commentator Joe Rogan.

“I think I'll probably vote for Bernie ... He's been insanely consistent his entire life. He's basically been saying the same thing, been for the same thing his whole life. And that in and of itself is a very powerful structure to operate from. ”-Joe Rogan pic.twitter.com/fuQP0KwGGI

- Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 23, 2020

“I will most likely vote for Bernie ... All his life he has been incredibly consistent. All his life he spoke, in fact, the same thing and advocated the same ideas. And this in itself is already a very powerful basis for further activities, ”says Joe Rogan on the record.

It is worth noting that Rogan is one of the most popular leaders in the USA - the number of subscribers on his YouTube channel exceeds 7 million. Guests of his programs became such famous personalities as billionaire Ilon Mask, astrophysicist Neil Tyson, popular conspirator Alex Jones, Hollywood actors Edward Norton and Robert Downey Jr., as well as Bernie Sanders.

At the same time, Joe Rogan has repeatedly stated that he does not accept the culture of “political correctness” existing in the United States, the views expressed by him were repeatedly condemned by the progressive public.

In 2017, in particular, Rogan, a martial arts practitioner himself and repeatedly commenting on UFC fights on television, said that he considered the participation of transgender athletes in female fights wrong.

LGBT activists recalled this statement by the leader after Sanders posted a video on his Twitter with words of support from Rogan. Thus, one of the leading neoliberal NGOs MoveOn criticized the campaign of the senator.

It's one thing for Joe Rogan to endorse a candidate. It's another for @BernieSanders' campaign to produce a video bolstering the endorsement of someone known for promoting transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism and misogyny.

- MoveOn (@MoveOn) January 25, 2020

“We urge Senator Sanders and his campaign headquarters to apologize and stop giving thanks to Rogan for their support. We are in solidarity with everyone whose feelings were offended, ”MoveOn said on his Twitter.

"His ideas are too left"

Despite Sanders’s good performance from polls, analysts still doubt that the politician will be able to claim to be a single Democratic candidate.

According to Yuri Rogulev, the attacks on Sanders by the neoliberal establishment and related activist groups are understandable, since he is a left-wing politician who criticizes the government, big capital, banks, advocates for solving social problems and improving life.

  • Bernie Sanders rally
  • AFP
  • © STEPHEN MATUREN

A similar point of view is shared by Andrei Sidorov.

“Bernie Sanders does not appeal to abstract Americans and minorities, but to people employed in the manufacturing sector who are suffering from globalization. Democrats won’t make Sanders a single candidate. His ideas are too left-wing, so the most convenient figure for them is the centrist Biden, who personifies the traditional Democratic Party, ”Sidorov stated.

Political scientists recall that Sanders already participated in the presidential election in 2016, but then he lost to Hillary Clinton in the internal party struggle, which eventually became a candidate from the Democratic Party.

In 2016, the WikiLeaks portal published internal documents and correspondence of the national committee of this political force, from which it followed that the party elite actively promoted Clinton to the detriment of Sanders, instead of approving the most popular candidate among voters.

Analysts do not exclude that during the current election race this situation may repeat itself, despite the fact that Sanders is quite popular among voters.

“Bernie Sanders will lead until the National Committee of the Democratic Party removes him in the same way as it did in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was nominated,” predicts Andrei Sidorov.

Yuri Rogulev, in turn, calls Sanders “a stranger” for the leadership of the national committee and the elite of the Democratic Party, because in his opinion he is more of a European Social Democrat than an American Democrat.

“He is generally considered an independent candidate in the US, although he is a Democrat. This once again demonstrates that there is a program crisis in the Democratic Party. The party as a whole shifted strongly to the right under Bill Clinton, when he headed for financial regulation, reducing the deficit, spending, reducing the big government. Today, Democrats are rushing about, because if they go further along this path, they will practically not differ from the Republicans, ”the expert concluded.