Bernie Sanders may have just packed it in after all
After Bernie Sanders got blown out in every state yesterday, one of his senior campaign aides leaked to Yahoo News that the campaign was in total disarray and began pointing the finger at other senior aides. Then today Sanders lost his cool and used the F-word when a reporter asked him if he was dropping out. But now there’s evidence tonight that Sanders may have indeed packed it in.
When the news broke this morning that Bernie Sanders was suspending his campaign ads on Facebook, this was mistakenly interpreted as Sanders suspending his campaign, period. Sanders quickly denied this. But it was still a big deal that he was ceasing campaign expenditures like this. Then, when his latest campaign email went out to supporters today, the Washington Post spotted a telltale sign: it was no longer seeking donations. Why does this matter?
It’s one thing for a failing campaign to stop spending money. But when a campaign stops even trying to bring in money, that campaign is essentially suspended by default. The only reason to cease seeking donations is if you’re seriously considering dropping out, and if you do end up dropping out, you don’t want to be seen as having continued to seek donations while you were in the process of dropping out.
So it’s not surprising to see WaPo reporting tonight that members of the Bernie Sanders campaign are signaling that he may indeed be looking to drop out. It’s even more notable that WaPo is also reporting on ongoing talks between the Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders campaigns that have been playing out for the past week. As Palmer Report explained earlier this evening, Sanders’ best shot at getting a “win” out of this – in terms of policy concessions – is if he drops out and endorses Biden now, while such a move is more valuable to Biden.
