Democrats on Tuesday shared their concerns Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., could hijack the party's presidential nomination the same way President Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, The New York Times reports.
The newspaper notes that Sanders, like Trump, is a candidate over the age of 70 who came from outside the party structure, cannot be intimidated or incentivized, and has a strong hold over his base of support. Some Democrats have begun to wonder how they can fight Sanders' campaign without lending credence to his claim the Washington establishment is "out to get me."
Sanders has already outraised his primary opponents by several million, and has topped several polls on potential Democratic nominees.
"There's a growing realization that Sanders could end up winning this thing, or certainly that he stays in so long that he damages the actual winner," said David Brock, a longtime political operative and the co-founder of Media Matters for America.
"One thing we have now that we didn't in '16 is the uniting force of Trump," former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "There will be tremendous pressure on Bernie and his followers to fall in line because of what Trump represents."
"If he is consistently raising $6 million more than his next closest opponent, he's going to have a massive financial advantage," said Rufus Gifford, who was former President Barack Obama's finance director in 2012. He added he is dismayed by the lack of action from major Democratic donors, saying, "I feel like everything we are doing is playing into his hands."
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