Will the fight leave the Democratic campaign with Bernie Sanders?

The Democratic Party has foregone the offer of significant change with Sanders in favour of the more moderate Joe Biden. What will this mean in November?

By Emily Tamkin

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 18: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a vote on March 18, 2020 in Washington, DC. Senate Majority Leader Mitch is urging members of the Senate to pass as soon as possible a second COVID-19 funding bill already passed by the House. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“I wish I could give you better news, but I think you know the truth,” Senator Bernie Sanders said during his live-streamed address on Wednesday (8 April). His campaign is 300 delegates behind that of the former vice-president Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. “While we are winning the ideological battle… I have concluded that in this battle, for the Democratic nomination, we will not be successful,” Sanders said. And so he had made the “difficult and painful” decision to drop out of the race. Biden will be the Democratic nominee.

Sanders stressed throughout his speech that it was his campaign, not Biden’s, that put forward the more compelling vision. He described it as an “unprecedented grass-roots political campaign”, with an average donation of just $18.50. He won, as he noted in his address, the majority of voters not just under 30, but under 50, meaning, “the future of this country is with our ideas”.