The spike in voter turn out in the midterms came almost entirely from moderate suburbs, a trend that continued in the primaries. These voters prioritize a return to civility, normalcy. They don’t see the US as fundamentally corrupt, why would they want an activist president.
Bernie’s campaign for some reason leaned into the activism brand. Warren also abandoned focus on economy and embraced elite lefty identity rhetoric. Neither could appeal to the normie Dem voter over Biden whose core image was a nice bipartisan guy who likes ice cream & Obama.
Bernie’s number one challenge this campaign was not to be pigeonholed as an angry activist, but as someone who could work alongside Obama, Republicans and moderate Dems to get things done, as a statesman. Instead he went in the opposite direction fell into the Corbyn trap.
The campaign seemed liked it was critically wounded by Hillary’s 2016 smear campaign and spent much of the time defending “socialism” and doing everything it could to prove they weren’t all white “BernieBros.” A complete waste of time.
