Just how risky is it to nominate Bernie Sanders?

Let's do a cost benefit analysis

Bernie Sanders.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Win McNamee/Getty Images, Miodrag Kitanovic/iStock)

Democrats are freaking out that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the tentative frontrunner for their party's presidential nomination, may not only lose to President Trump in November, but also reverse their midterm election gains in the suburbs. The latest bit of evidence is an internal poll circulated by rival Michael Bloomberg's campaign, suggesting just that.

These are not unreasonable fears — I myself have argued the suburbs are not the most fertile ground from which to launch a socialist revolution — but they can be overstated. Bloomberg's potential in the suburbs must be weighed against Sanders' relative strength in the upper Midwest. Mitt Romney-Hillary Clinton voters in the suburbs did not decide the 2016 election; Barack Obama-Donald Trump voters in the Rust Belt did. The Democrats' easiest paths to the White House are to win back these Obama-Trump voters or to turn out progressives who didn't vote for Clinton. Sanders may be their best option for doing both at the same time.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.