LAS VEGAS (AP) — A growing number of Democratic politicians, union officials, state leaders and party strategists agree that Bernie Sanders is a risky nominee to put up against President Trump. There's less agreement about whether — and how — to stop him.
Critics of the Vermont senator, who has long identified himself as a democratic socialist, are further than they've ever been from unifying behind a moderate alternative. None of the viable centrists in the race is eager to leave the campaign to clear a path for a candidate to become a clear counter to Sanders. And Sanders is looking to Saturday's Nevada caucuses to post another win that would further his status as an early frontrunner.
With fear and frustration rising in the party's establishment, a high-stakes math problem is emerging. It could be impossible to blunt Sanders so long as a trio of moderate candidates — former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar — stay in the race. And with former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the 14 states that vote on Super Tuesday, March 3, the effort to stop Sanders will become even more challenging when the campaign goes national in March.
"You see this tremendous angst in the party — 'What are we going to do?'" said Terry McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor who was chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "We need to unify as fast as we can."
The dynamic is complicated because each of the major moderate candidates has glaring vulnerabilities.
Biden began the campaign as a frontrunner, but the aura around his operation took a hit after a fourth-place finish in Iowa and a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire. Buttigieg has proved to be the most effective centrist in raising money from high-dollar donors, which puts him in a strong position to compete in an expensive national contest. But the 38-year-old faces lingering questions about his experience and his ability to win support from black and Latino voters, a challenge that could come into greater focus if Buttigieg loses badly in Nevada and South Carolina.
Kloubchar is emboldened after a third-place finish in New Hampshire, but she too has little support among minority voters and has run a bare-bones campaign.
"When you have three or four candidates in that same lane, math becomes a problem," said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Firefighters and a Biden loyalist, who acknowledges being "disappointed" by Biden's bad performances and Sanders’ rise.
Though the opening contests of the primary have only begun, time may run out quickly for a moderate alternative to emerge.
By the end of Super Tuesday, more than one-third of Democratic delegates will have been awarded. Should Sanders build a significant delegate lead — and his strength in California alone makes that possible — it would be difficult for any other candidate to catch him in the slew of state-by-state elections that follow, based on the way delegates are apportioned.
"We have a lot of good candidates, but in general we're incredibly frustrated that the field hasn't winnowed," said Robert Wolf, a major fundraiser for Barack Obama, who said he has donated money this cycle to more than a dozen Democrats. Sanders is not one of them.
