Two oldest Democrat contenders, Sanders and Biden, are close in age; their supporters are not

Just 439 days separate Joe Biden’s and Bernie Sanders’ birthdays.

But while Biden and Sanders ages aren’t far apart, that’s not true of their supporters. Polls show older voters backing Biden, 76, while Sanders, 77, enjoys more support from younger voters.

The two oldest candidates are not, of course, the only candidates. More than 20 people are running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and neither Biden, a former vice president, nor Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, is assured of anything. Polls also show sizable support for South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg as well as Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, with Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke further behind.

Voters of all ages will get to hear Biden, Sanders, and 18 other candidates Wednesday and Thursday, June 26 and 27, when they take the stage, 10 at a time, for two Democratic National Committee-sponsored debates in Miami. Biden and Sanders are in the Thursday group.

Biden has consistently led the pack of all would-be nominees, in part because he’s the top choice of older voters; a CNN poll from late May found Biden leading Sanders, 45-to-10 percent, among voters 45 and up.

The same poll also shows that younger voters prefer Sanders; he leads Biden 26-to-19 percent among voters under age 45. A Quinnipiac University poll from May showed Biden leading Sanders by 38 percentage points among voters over 50, but the two were tied among 18- to 49-year-old voters.

A Monmouth University poll also conducted in May found 40 percent of 50-and-older voters picking Biden while just 4 percent backed Sanders, with the pair effectively tied among voters younger than 50.

Biden also is leading in California, which hopes to have a bigger say in the nomination process by moving its primary from June to March.

Young and old

Biden’s name recognition – and the impression he can beat Trump among the white, blue-collar voters that make up the president’s base – fuel his front-runner status, academic observers said.

“He’s a former vice president for a well-regarded president,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science and international affairs professors at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

“Further, his decades of experience in politics and his blue-collar background combine to create a sense that he is the safe choice for Democrats who care more about beating Trump than which candidate is the nominee.”

By contrast, Sanders’ brand of progressive politics and Warren’s detailed policy plans on issues like student debt appeal to younger voters who tend to be more liberal, said Kristen Coopie, an assistant political science professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

“(Sanders) was the progressive that started it all,” Coopie said. At first, “his ideas (like universal health care and tuition-free college) were seen as too liberal … Now, more progressive candidates are coming up in the party and saying ‘Hey, these might not be bad ideas.’”

“Younger voters are becoming more politically active with long-term issues that will affect them down the road,” said Mara Suttmann-Lea, an assistant professor of government at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. “They see candidates (like Sanders and Warren) who are thinking long-term and proposing big, bold solutions.”

Coalition building

Older voters’ support for Biden also might reflect a rift between liberal and moderate Democrats. Younger voters’ social media activity might give the impression of a more leftward moving party when “there’s a lot more nuance, as I understand it, in the makeup of the Democratic Party as a whole,” Suttmann-Lea said.

While Biden has a sizable lead among older voters, “no one candidate has built a similarly large lead among younger voters,” said Maclen Zilber, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist. “No candidate is anywhere near building up the kinds of leads among young voters that Bernie Sanders built in 2016 or Barack Obama did in 2008.”

“Biden has less of a clear coalition than he has a broad popularity across demographics, which allows him to lead in the polls early, but also gives him less of a base to fall back on if support starts slipping,” Zilber said. “The breadth of Biden’s support will make him a natural target of attacks, because virtually every candidate will see him as a roadblock on the way to building their specific coalition.”

“ … Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s theory of the case is likely that if Biden remains the front-runner, there is room for a more progressive alternative to run as the ‘anti-Biden,’ similar to the role Bernie Sanders played in 2016 or that Barack Obama played in 2008.

“On the other hand,” Zilber said, “Buttigieg, Harris, Booker, O’Rourke, and the others are looking at a pathway that almost by necessity involves Biden’s support collapsing, as he is currently strong among groups that are essential to those candidates’ coalitions.”

More unity?

In 2016, anger at what they saw as a rigged process favoring Hillary Clinton led at least some Sanders supporters to stay home during the general election or cast votes for a third-party candidate or even Trump.

Will a crowded, competitive 2020 race breed similar hard feelings? Not necessarily, experts said.

“Democrats seem very focused on making Trump a one-term president, so it seems likely that just about all of the party’s voters will back the eventual nominee with enthusiasm,” Farnsworth said.  “Support for Trump among those people who identify as Democrats is in the single digits, so there is little evidence he will get much of a crossover vote in 2020.”

“Nor does Trump seem likely to benefit from disillusioned Democrats staying home in November as some did in 2016. No candidate is remotely as polarizing among Democratic activists as Hillary Clinton was among the Sanders supporters of 2016, and Trump has an exceptional ability to energize both his supporters and his opponents.”

Voter turnout for the 2018 mid-terms was exceptionally high, leading to predictions of even higher turnout — from both sides of the political aisle — next year.

“We saw in 2018 that Democrats appear to – at least for the time being – have learned their lesson about unity,” Zilber said. “Democratic nominees in many down-ballot congressional races were receiving 95 percent, or even 98 percent of the Democratic vote, truly unheard-of numbers, and that can be directly attributed to Donald Trump.”

“Nothing unifies like a common foe, and Donald Trump has certainly put the party on track to retain its focus through 2020.”

Democratic debates

When: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., June 26 and 27

Where: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami

June 26 candidates: Bill de Blasio; Cory Booker; Julian Castro; John Delaney; Tulsi Gabbard; Jay Inslee; Amy Klobuchar; Beto O’Rourke; Tim Ryan; Elizabeth Warren.

June 27 candidates: Michael Bennet; Joe Biden; Pete Buttigieg; Kirsten Gillibrand; Kamala Harris; John Hickenlooper; Bernie Sanders; Eric Swalwell; Marianne Williamson; Andrew Yang.