Sanders Says Early Voting Shows He Can Beat Trump

Miller is one of several analysts in both parties who see parallels between the Republican contest in 2016 and this year's Democratic primary. In both cases, a party outsider held a grip on a tight group of supporters while a bevy of centrists split the vote against him. As Trump kept scoring victories in the 2016 primaries, he eventually won backing from Republican voters who might not have liked him but were focused on defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The question for Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, is whether the party will warm to him if he can pile up more victories. For now, much of the Democratic establishment thinks it's impossible for him to win the presidency during a growing economy. Some House Democrats are expressing concern that a Sanders nomination could cost the party control of that chamber.

Miller said that argument may not resonate with Democratic voters who, like Trump supporters, are increasingly skeptical of political institutions.

"A lot of voters have lost confidence in their ability to predict who will win," he said.

Sanders will have a challenge finding a winning path against Trump. He is poorly positioned in the perennial swing state of Florida, with its older voters and population of Cuban immigrants, many of whom have a visceral dislike of socialism. It's unlikely that Sanders could flip growing Sun Belt states like Arizona, Georgia or Texas, because a Democratic victory in those places depends on both motivating the states’ expanding minority populations and converting moderate white Republicans.

That leaves Sanders’ clearest path through the trio of Rust Belt states that gave Trump his 2016 victory — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Sanders has proposed banning fracking, which could be a liability in Pennsylvania, where the drilling process is a key part of the state's economy.

But Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders, said the senator has routinely been underestimated by election handicappers.

"This electability thing has been greatly overblown by candidates who had a more traditional approach but haven't proved that electable," Weaver said. "I do think the American people are hungry for someone who will take on the political and economic elite."

Weaver said Sanders wins about one-quarter of Republicans in his home state in Vermont and noted that he won 23 states in the 2016 Democratic primaries against Clinton. He identified rural Western states such as Montana and the Dakotas as places Sanders could contest in the general election, and said that Democratic gubernatorial candidates in the key Rust Belt states of Michigan and Wisconsin asked Sanders to campaign for them in 2016.

"Some of the moderates say, 'We've seen the polls and we want Bernie Sanders here in the general election,'" Weaver said.

Sanders seems to be retooling his stump speech in ways that might ease concerns from some moderates. As he campaigned in Nevada over the past several days, he did not call for political revolution or mention democratic socialism.

And when he attacks his rivals, Sanders is focusing less on ideological purity and more on what it will take to beat Trump.

"In order to win in November, we are going to need a multigenerational, multiracial campaign of energy and excitement that creates the highest voter turnout in American history," he said at the Clark County Democratic Party dinner on Saturday.

Then he turned to Bloomberg, the billionaire who is emerging as a centrist foil to Sanders.

"The simple truth is Mayor Bloomberg, with all of his money, will not create the sort of energy and excitement to have the voter turnout we must have to defeat Donald Trump," Sanders said.

That's resonating among his supporters. Jeanette Kano, an information technology worker in Las Vegas, knows plenty of Trump Republicans from growing up in Kansas.

"They say they would have voted for Bernie," she said.

She thinks Sanders can peel that sort of voter away from the president.

Margaret Hines, a writer and artist in Reno, voted for Clinton in the 2016 primary but backs Sanders this time precisely because of the significant changes he's proposed.

"I don't think vanilla is going to do it this time," she said.

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