Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary. But can he grow his base?

Bernie Sanders has relied on a narrow but fervent group of supporters to become an unexpected frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary.

But to capture the party’s nomination, he’ll need to win over more than his diehard loyalists.

Sanders won the most votes in the Iowa caucuses last week, won the New Hampshire primary outright Tuesday, and is expected to follow that up with a strong showing in next week’s Nevada caucuses. He is raising more money than the rest of his rivals, and even took the lead in a new national poll of the Democratic race.

But as the Vermont senator tries to become the Democrats’ putative nominee, he faces the difficult test of expanding his coalition of support among the party’s other voters, many of whom did not support him in 2016 and have not been swayed by his current campaign thus far.

It’s an obstacle any leading presidential candidate would face after the primary’s early stages, as they try to consolidate their opponents’ former supporters. But Sanders’ challenge is especially acute because of his history as an independent and widespread resistance from some of the party’s establishment and moderate factions.

“For him to win, he either needs a divided field of competitors, or he needs to grow his numbers. Both are viable paths for him,” said Jared Leopold, a veteran Democratic strategist. “But if the field gets smaller, then he’ll need to start showing momentum to pick up the new free-agent voters.”

In 2016, Sanders won roughly 40 percent of the party’s aggregate vote against Hillary Clinton. That shocked many Democrats who once predicted an easy Clinton victory, but he still fell short because of a lack of support among many voters who were not young, white and progressive.

Sanders has made outreach to African-American and Latino voters a priority for his 2020 campaign. And, indeed, he commands a larger share of younger nonwhite voters than any of his rivals.

But his support among older nonwhite voters still lags. Making inroads with those groups will be key in Nevada, where 20 percent of the Democratic electorate is Latino, and South Carolina, where 60 percent of primary voters are black.

“I think a very important test for Sen. Sanders after we get through the first couple of contests is how is his appeal working for African-American voters?” said Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic governor of Virginia. “How does he get communities of color to support his campaign? That is going to be very important for him in South Carolina.”

McAuliffe made clear he isn’t pessimistic about Sanders’ ability to expand his coalition. The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee said that even if Sanders’ specific agenda, like Medicare for All, isn’t in step with some Democratic voters, he’s at least focused on an issue, health care, that many consider to be their top priority.

Those same voters, McAuliffe added, also care more about the specifics of a legislative agenda.

“In politics you get credit for fighting for things you believe in and sometimes they’re popular and sometimes they’re not,” said McAuliffe, who credited Sanders for fighting for what he believes in. “But at least you’re consistent.”

McAuliffe also dismissed concerns that Sanders’ age, 78, and recent heart attack would deter some voters, with the 63-year-old saying he hoped that he looked as good as the senator when he reached that age. Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, a super PAC ran ads against Sanders, citing his age and health risk as a reason not to support him.

Sanders’ campaign aides and allies point to polls, like a CNN survey from January, that showed he had the approval of 57 percent of Democrats, about the same share as Joe Biden. He’s also the second choice for supporters of some rivals like Biden and Elizabeth Warren, according to a survey from Morning Consult. And whatever criticism does come, they add, is from Democrats who aren’t representative of the party’s broader grassroots members.

“There’s a few people who are paid to not like Bernie Sanders or have a financial interest themselves who don’t want it, but for the most part, it’s not a concern from what I’ve seen,” said Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, who has endorsed Sanders. “Real people have a very different position from some of the folks from so-called think-tanks or the political establishment folks, the ones who are paid.”

Some Democrats suggest that, to win over a broader group of supporters, Sanders could adjust his message to welcome new voters. But inside the campaign, advisers say they don’t see this as necessary because, in their view, the campaign’s message is already inclusive.

As one senior Sanders adviser put it, voters will ultimately choose a candidate based on their ability to both bring “progressive change” to Washington and defeat President Donald Trump, and they think Sanders will eventually convince everybody he’ll do both.

“Bernie’s posture has been inclusive and welcoming and progressive, and so of course people are going to kick tires on other candidates,” said one senior Sanders adviser, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “But when they ask themselves two questions, we think the answer is pretty clearly Bernie Sanders on both measures.”

Sanders’ allies like Pocan say the campaign has diligently tried to make sure it doesn’t alienate supporters of other candidates, past or present. Sanders himself, for example, passed on a chance to criticize Hillary Clinton during last week’s debate, even after his former opponent had criticized him.

“I think, quite honestly, as we face one of the great political crises facing America, our job is to look forward and not back to 2016,” Sanders said during the debate. “And I hope that Secretary Clinton and all of us can come together and move in that direction.”

Some Democrats don’t think Sanders’ supporters always make the campaign a welcoming place, pointing to what they say is a mass of online Sanders supporters who attack fans of other candidates. Their strident point of view, coupled with Sanders’ own rigid approach to politics, makes them unlikely to grow the senator’s support, these Democrats say.

“They’re not a coalition-building movement,” said Markos Moulitsas, founder of the liberal blog Daily Kos and frequent Sanders critic. “And that comes straight from the top. That is communicated from the candidates straight on down, the permissiveness of this obnoxious us-versus-them mentality.”

Despite his early success, Sanders is actually on track to win a lesser share of support than he did in what was effectively a one-on-one matchup with Clinton in 2016. In Iowa, for example, about one-quarter of caucus-goers backed him 2020, after he won roughly half of the state’s delegates in 2016.

Sanders took about 26 percent of the vote in New Hampshire Tuesday, far less than the 60 percent of the vote he won four years ago.

To Moulitsas, the decline is proof Sanders should consider expanding his message to bring in more supporters, though he says he doubts that will ever happen.

“He’s incapable of pivoting,” he said. “He never has, he never will. They look at 25 percent and think that’s a winning message. It blows my mind.”

This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary. But can he grow his base?."