Surveys show that no other candidate approaches Sanders' support of Californians who don't earn much money.
Despite all that is talked about eligibility, Senator Bernie Sanders would have the Democratic presidential nomination won if each voter were like Ryan Frye, his two adult brothers, his sister-in-law and their parents.
The family, which shares a house in the small rural town of Newman in the Central Valley of California, has promised its loyalty to Sanders in the campaign.
"He knows more about the kind of problems that have been affecting me and he seems to be really worried … Financial problems, income inequality, access to medical care," said Frye, 30, who lives from approximately $ 200 he earns from computer repair and the $ 194 he receives in food stamps every month.
For Frye, Bernie's appeal is obvious: "Because his policies are really aimed at helping people with low incomes."
The Vermont senator has a dominant advantage in virtually every California primary election. But he can count on a particular group of voters: people who don't earn much money.
What the polls say
In California, 42% of potential Democratic voters in households earning less than $ 40,000 a year said they would vote for Sanders, according to a February 7 to 17 survey of the California Public Policy Institute. That is substantially higher than its support among all likely voters, which stands at 32%.
In most counties in California, that income threshold would be close to living in poverty. In some of the most expensive counties, such as Santa Clara and San Mateo, a family of four would be considered below the average state poverty, taking into account the local cost of living.
No other candidate has as much support from low-income voters as Sanders. Biden has only 15% of the voters in the low-income group, almost reflecting its overall support of 14%. Senator Elizabeth Warren had only 11% of low-income voters, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 6%. Those actions are below their general California voting numbers of 13% and 12%, which means that low-income voters are less likely to support them, according to the survey.
https://infogram.com/ca-primary-polling-by-income-1h0n25l0mjdj4pe?live
National surveys have similar results, although the differences are slightly less pronounced. Two polls, one from the Washington Post-ABC and another from Quinnipiac University, found that Sanders earned a disproportionate share of those earning less than $ 50,000 among registered voters with a Democratic trend.
Experts warn against emphasizing these figures too much. The surveys offer diffuse estimates of how the public feels. And estimates based on increasingly smaller subsets of respondents (for example, from middle-class voters, to low-income voters who support Sanders) are especially uncertain.
The sampling error is plus or minus 5.7 percent for the 573 likely voters of the Democratic primary elections in the Public Policy Institute survey. Only 164 low-income voters were surveyed, which means that the sampling error is greater for them.
However, two other recent polls had surprisingly similar results: more than a third of Californians with limited resources supported Sanders.
In mid-January, a survey by the Berkeley Institute for Government Studies found that 40% of likely voters earning less than $ 40,000 supported Sanders (compared to 26% in a general vote). In a Monmouth poll of likely voters in California, Sanders had the support of 35% of those earning less than $ 50,000 (compared to 24% overall).
That could give him a big boost in the Golden State, where many feel the pressure. More than a third of California households earn less than $ 50,000 a year, according to the Census Bureau's US Community Survey.
What is the appeal to Bernie?
There are several reasons why Sanders attracts people who don't earn much money. The easiest explanation is, as Frye says, that Sanders' positions, which include expanding public benefits dramatically and then charging the rich, attracts the financial interest of the working class and the poor Californians.
A conservative critic of the senator could explain it this way: these are voters who seek charity from the government
"Her message is explicitly economic," said Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Participation Project at the University of Southern California. “Then he is talking about wealth inequality, economic inequality. He is talking about 1% and 99%. He is very anti-establishment, at least that is how he identifies himself. ”
Sanders can do especially well in a state where residents are increasingly worried about a growing economic gap. Approximately eight out of ten likely voters in California said they thought poverty was a big problem or some problem and seven out of ten said the gap between rich and poor is growing where they live, in a survey conducted in January by PPIC.
Sanders, of course, is not the only candidate with a populist streak. Warren's economic policies reflect many of Sanders' plans. And although the other candidates are more moderate, most have also made employment and inequality a hallmark of their platforms and distorting speeches.
Sanders' broader appeal may also be due to the recognition of his name in California. Since the 2016 primaries, where Sanders made a surprisingly strong fight against Hillary Clinton, she has been a known entity. And compared to Warren's sometimes extravagant messages and social programs tested by the media proposed by other candidates, Sanders' proposals are easy to analyze: Medicare for all, free college education.
Low-income voters are also more likely not to belong to a political party, so Sanders' status as a Socialist Democrat outside the big tent of the Democratic Party can also help him with this group of voters.
For Isabel Gurrola, 21, from south central Los Angeles, Sanders seems to speak directly about her financial concerns: the costs of medical care and college, a minimum wage that does not extend enough, and inadequate protection of the place of job.
Gurrola, a CSU Fullerton student, receives financial help to pay for her university tuition. She works part-time in a store to help cover her expenses and help her mother, four younger siblings and grandparents. His mother cannot vote because of his legal status, but his grandparents can. Both trust Gurrola's trial, he said, so they also plan to vote for Sanders.
"Bernie wants everyone to have universal medical care … so, for my family, it would be great … to have medical care," he said, adding that "free higher education for my younger siblings" is also welcome.
Latinos like Gurrola and his family are probably one of the most important voting groups for Sanders in California.
"It has also made a lot of reach in the Latino community," Romero said. "And yes, Latinos often have lower incomes."
A quarter of California's Latinos do not have enough resources to cover the basic cost of living in their area, and more than another quarter live on the edge, with family incomes between 100 and 150% of California's average poverty. Among Californians under 30, 43% live in poverty or near poverty.
Here is the irresolvable puzzle, given the limitation of surveys: low-income Californians seem to like Sanders, but low-income Californians are also much more likely to be Latino, young or both, said Dean Bonner, associate director of surveys at the California Public Policy Institute. And those groups also like Sanders.
"There is some tangle there," said Bonner. "With Sanders, all this is reinforced because your support is greater among Latinos, it is greater among young people, it is greater among younger Latinos."
So, does Sanders get high ratings from low-income voters across the board? Or do those numbers simply reflect that it is popular in communities that make up a large portion of low-income voters? Are working-class, older, white, and low-income Democrats likely to support it?
Pollsters like Bonner can't say it. The number of respondents who fall into these multiple overlapping categories is too small to be representative of anything.
https://infogram.com/sanders-california-base-primary-electorate-ppic-1h8j4xgwjje86mv?live
Mixed appeal
The question is important because it speaks of the attraction of Sanders in California, and potentially throughout the country. As an ecumenical working-class hero who attracts low-income Americans regardless of race and age, Sanders could reach the Democratic nomination, and perhaps the White House.
But Sanders' appeal may be a bit more limited. Young voters may be attracted to the senator's ideological purity, his message of dramatic social change and his credibility against the establishment. California Latinos can disproportionately support Sanders for a wide variety of reasons, including the long and concerted outreach effort across the state. And that may not translate so well to other states, with fewer young and Latino voters.
In particular, Warren's economic plans do not differ much from Sanders' plans, but in the survey she is far below him among Latinos.
If that is the case, could the Sanders candidate continue to have the support of low-income older white Americans, whose vote was decisive for President Trump in electorally significant states during the 2016 elections?
Romero said that Sanders is making a risky electoral wager, but that it has a huge potential benefit. Low-income people, Latinos and young people: what all these subsets of the Sanders base can have most in common is that, historically, they are not likely to vote.
California voters tend to be older, wealthier and whiter than the general population
https://infogram.com/california-votes-skew-old-wealthy-white-1h0r6r5om3984ek?live
Sanders' promises to inspire a wave of traditional non-voters to go to the polls have not yet been confirmed. In the primary elections of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, their supporters were largely traditional Democratic voters.
"We heard election after election about the possible youth vote or the possible Latino vote and then we heard that it was not as loud as we wanted," Romero said.
But surveys are one thing, participation is another.
Ramiro Olvera, a 64-year-old retired state employee in the Coachella Valley who lives with less than $ 40,000 a year in Social Security and retirement earnings, plans to vote for Sanders, mainly because he wants immigration reform and universal medical care. Olvera is a frequent voter because she is the voice of her family and friends who are not citizens and cannot vote. But he was surprised to see how the senator is motivating a younger generation to get involved.
“I am also surprised to see the large crowd of young people who support him. I have talked with my nephews in family gatherings and we agreed on many of their plans, ”said Olvera.
–
You can read the article in English here: https://calmatters.org/projects/low-income-voters-bernie-sanders-secret-weapon/
Ben Christopher and Jackie Botts are reporters at CalMatters. Jacqueline García is a reporter for La Opinión. This article is part of The California Divide, a collaboration between newsrooms that examine income inequality and economic survival in California.
