A Joe Biden win represents an opportunity for disappointed progressives

Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former Vice President Joe Biden, right, participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate. Photo / AP

If South Carolina was make or break for Joe Biden, then so was Michigan for Bernie Sanders. After falling behind Biden in the Super Tuesday primaries last week, Sanders needed Michigan — where he won a stunning upset against Hillary Clinton four years ago — to reinvigorate his campaign and restore its glow of victory in the wake of his Nevada caucus win.

But Biden had too much momentum. Both nationally and in Michigan, most Democrats were ready to commit to the former vice president. In its most recent poll of the entire Democratic race, Quinnipiac University found Biden with 54 per cent support to Sanders' 35 per cent. And in its average of polls for the Michigan primary, FiveThirtyEight found Biden with roughly 54 per cent support to Sanders' 31 per cent. By the time news networks called the race, the results were close to the polls, with Sanders rising to over 40 per cent but Biden claiming a 53 per cent majority.

Strictly speaking, the Democratic race isn't over. But even if he fights to the convention, it's hard to see how Sanders could win a majority. All signs point to a decisive victory for Biden.

What comes next? A world where Biden wins the nomination and then the presidency — which is well in the realm of possibility — feels like one where the Democratic establishment has successfully marginalised the progressive left, where supporters of Sanders have no future in electoral politics. Some of those supporters might even drop off the map in apathy and despair.

There is another possibility, though. It's not as viscerally thrilling as an outright win — few things are. But if the goal is to move America to the left — to craft and pass policies that help ordinary people — then a Biden candidacy isn't the end of the game. He represents an opportunity. You can see what this might look like in Virginia, where the Democratic majority in the General Assembly just finished its legislative session.

In 2017, Virginia Democrats faced a difficult choice about the future of the party.

Would they nominate a forceful, dynamic left-wing politician who stood against "establishment" politics and called for structural political change? Or would they fall behind a party stalwart with conservative instincts and an unremarkable record in office?

The progressive candidate, Tom Perriello, ran a vigorous campaign for the nomination. But the stalwart, Ralph Northam, won the race, cruising to victory with heavy support from African-Americans and moderate suburbanites. And despite fumbles and flops throughout the fall campaign against Ed Gillespie — a pro-business Bush Republican masquerading as a Trumpist demagogue — Northam won the governor's mansion in a sweep of the state's most populous regions.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, visits outside a polling location in Detroit. Photo / AP

As governor, Northam has been unexpectedly controversial. And true to form, he hasn't challenged the overall status quo of Virginia politics, where powerful business interests hold huge sway over lawmakers in Richmond. But the anti-Trump wave that put Northam into office also energised progressives, who seized the opportunity presented by a Democratic governor to advance their interests and build power ahead of the next election cycle. When that cycle came, in 2019, progressives spearheaded the charge that broke the Republican Party's hold on the state Legislature. Years of careful, difficult work — of building relationships and investing in marginalised communities — paid off in a statewide sweep that put Democrats in the driver's seat of Virginia politics.

Northam is still governor and most of the caucus is either moderate or conservative. But for the first time, progressives have a major say in policy, and they have used it to push an unabashedly liberal agenda through the Legislature, raising the minimum wage, legalising collective bargaining for public employees and expanding the right to vote. Just last week, Virginia lawmakers — led by Lee Carter of Manassas, a member of Democratic Socialists of America — passed one of the nation's lowest caps on the price of insulin.

Progressives may have wanted someone else for governor, but for the first time ever, they've been able to stake a claim on power in the state. You could dismiss this as half a loaf — especially in light of Northam's opposition to far-reaching reform, like ending

Virginia's right-to-work law — but I think it's more significant than that. These are the kinds of victories that can build on themselves. Progressives may not win the governorship in 2021 (Northam is term-limited) or 2025, but they are on the path to winning the reins for one of their own.

There's every chance for the progressive left to make this happen on a national scale. It looks like Biden will secure the nomination, but Sanders won the policy argument. Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina support Medicare for All; Democrats in California, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia support free college. And the future of the Democratic Party — the youngest voters — are with Sanders.

If Biden goes on to win the White House, there's real space for the pro-Sanders left to work its will on policy. It can use its influence to steer Biden toward its preferred outcomes. It can fulfill some of its goals under the cover of Biden's moderation, from raising the minimum wage nationally to pushing the American health care system closer to single-payer.

This may sound a lot like wishful thinking. And if Biden were a different politician — if, like Sanders, he was strongly ideological — I might also doubt his malleability. But Biden, like Northam, is a creature of the party. He doesn't buck the mainstream, he accommodates it. He doesn't reject the center, he tries to claim it. You saw this during the Obama administration, when Biden reversed himself on a career of moderation to embrace and champion the former president's most liberal policies.

If the two Sanders campaigns have, over five years, pulled the center of the Democratic Party as far left as it's been since before Ronald Reagan, then Biden is likely to hew to that center, not challenge it.

Speaking to supporters after his win in Michigan on Tuesday, Biden promised to unite the Democratic Party and work with Sanders to "defeat Donald Trump." Biden knows he needs the Sanders left. He's going to extend a hand. Progressives should take it — and keep planning for when they can make moderates compromise with them.

Written by: Jamelle Bouie
© 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES