On Wednesday, March 11, Bernie Sanders announced his commitment to continuing his campaign for president, despite the disappointing losses in the state primaries. Sanders vows to participate in a debate with Joe Biden to discuss topics including health care, climate change, criminal justice and education.
Sanders and his aides have long awaited the day where he could go head to head with Biden, and the time has come. Sanders has been very transparent in what he will be asking Biden, beginning with “Joe, what are you going to do for the 500,000 people who go bankrupt in our country because of medically related debt? And what are you going to do for the working people of this country and small business people who are paying on average 20 percent of their incomes to health care?” He continued with two more frequent talking points for his campaign: campaign finance and income inequality. His approximate 10-minute remarks came a day after his path to nomination narrowed down significantly, due to the loss of Idaho, Michigan and Missouri in the state primaries. However, Sanders is not one to give up, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him.
Sanders took a jab at Joe Biden when he stated: “We cannot be satisfied by just winning older votes.” Sanders’ platform is heavily focused on the youth seeing as they represent the future. He believes that in order to win in the future he needs to win the voters who represent the future, the youth. Speaking on issues that concern them, enhances the voter turnout and gets them excited to make a change in the world. Many people do not believe that Sanders can defeat Biden, regardless of his commitment to his campaign. People have mentioned that they support what he stands for, but will vote for Biden because he is the seemingly better candidate to take Donald Trump down. To revive his campaign, “Sanders needs to prove he’s the best candidate to take on President Donald Trump and lead the country at a time of duress” his aides and allies say. Due to Biden’s assertiveness, Sanders will need to bring the heat. According to a Sanders advisor, “We’re going to take him on around the issues and make him defend his record. He’s deflected on those in earlier debates because there’s so much chatter happening on the stage. But when you’re one on one, you change the dynamic.”
With the current Coronavirus pandemic, Sanders sees it as a way to expose the healthcare system as being dysfunctional, while also pushing “Medicare for All” and other liberal policies. This allows Sanders to push Biden to the left. This gives Sanders an opportunity to talk about his policies and not just in an aspirational, abstract sense, but in a way of here and now. Because of the uncertainty of the outbreak of the virus, the need for digital accessibility has increased. The Biden campaign had difficulties running its first virtual town hall, while Sanders and his team have live-streamed almost every public event. The Coronavirus has shifted voters towards Biden. Democratic primary voters trust Biden more than Sanders to lead during a crisis. Sanders’ team aims to change that, along with everything else, in the upcoming debate.
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