This race to the White House is not like any other, especially when you look at the front-runners of each party. In past elections, voters generally have fallen in love with their candidates of choice, giving each a boost in favorability ratings. The winning candidate usually has the highest favorability rating — the one that is most “likable,” but such is not the case in this election cycle. Polls show that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton are both deemed highly unfavorable by the voters. In fact, of the three remaining candidates for president, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has the highest favorability rating.
What has bothered many Democrats lately is the fact that Trump and Clinton are now neck-and-neck in a hypothetical match-up for the November general elections. This is bad news for Clinton, who used to have a double-digit lead over billionaire business mogul/reality star Trump.
Despite his unconventional campaign, questionable conservative principles, and bizarre policies and platform, Trump has defied expectations and the Republican Party leaders’ attempt to deny him the nomination.
Critics explain the reason behind the narrowing margin between Trump and Clinton is the fact that Republicans are now starting to rally behind their presumptive nominee, whereas Clinton is still in the race against Sanders to be the democratic nominee. Many of the Democratic party establishment leaders blame Sanders, saying his continued criticism of Clinton just increases her unfavorability and trust ratings among voters, not to mention the time and resources she is spending to compete with Sanders, which should otherwise be used to start unleashing her arsenal to defeat Trump in the general elections.
But the Sanders campaign is not giving up, vowing to fight all the way to the convention in July.
Why won’t he?
He continues to win in state primaries and receive donations from ordinary citizens who believe in his cause for a political revolution that would give power back to ordinary working Americans and not just to the top 1 percent of the richest American corporations and citizens.
The Sanders campaign contends that the primary election isn’t over until all states have made their voices heard and not until Clinton has won the required 2,383 delegates to clinch the nomination without the weight of the superdelegates — elite Democratic party officials who have given Clinton 525 delegates. Sanders only has 42 superdelegate counts. As of press time, Clinton has 1,776 unpledged delegates (from ordinary citizens’ votes from different states that have completed their primary elections), while Sanders has 1,533 unpledged delegates.
The Clinton camp says the superdelegates’ votes should catapult her to be the party nominee even before the delegate-rich states of California. Sanders says this is something he will fight until all votes from all states have been counted, and up until the Democratic National Convention in July.
The Sanders campaign believes that should Sanders win big in the remaining states, especially in California, then he can make his case for the superdelegates to shift their votes to him to reflect the will of their constituents.
Moreover, Sanders contends that he is the stronger candidate to defeat Trump, with his double-digit lead over Trump in the polls. He also points out how he has energized new and returning voters to align with the Democratic Party, even attracting more independent voters and moderate Republicans, especially in states where Democrats need to win. The Clinton campaign argues that the reason for this is because Sanders is not really vetted yet, and has not really been the target of the GOP’s arsenals of negative ads.
But beyond this, Sanders continues to be in the race to fight for his progressive agenda, which is supported by almost half of the Democratic primary voters. Even if he ends up losing to Clinton, he has already pushed Clinton to embrace more of his policy and platform, which he wants to be part of the Democratic Party platform that will be presented in July and all through the general election campaign season against the Republicans.
So what do you think? Should Bernie Sanders remain in the race and fight all the way to the convention?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com and https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
