Competing for Sanders' New Hampshire Voters: Yang and Gabbard

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that Smith voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the 2016 Democratic primary. Sanders was exactly the sort of outsider Smith said he was looking to support four years ago.

But he won’t be voting for Sanders this time around. Instead, Smith said, he is leaning toward two other candidates who have, in their own ways, taken on outsider and anti-establishment labels: entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

“I don’t want Trump to win in 2020, and I want someone who I think can beat him,” Smith said, minutes before Yang arrived at an event to open a campaign office in Plymouth last week. “Though I love a lot of what Bernie says, I think he’s not going to pull some of those voters over who are in the middle — especially those a little bit on the right. I think Andrew Yang and Tulsi can; they’re a little more moderate.”

The popularity of Yang and Gabbard in New Hampshire among young people, libertarians, disaffected Democrats and independent voters poses a potential threat to Sanders in the state’s crucial Feb. 11 primary — a contest that, for Sanders, is close to a must-win. These voters flocked to Sanders in 2016, when he crushed Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire with 60% of the vote, and he is counting on their support next month in what is expected to be a tight contest among himself, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana.

Yet Yang and Gabbard appear to have inspired and energized these voters far more than Clinton did in 2016, creating the very real possibility that they will siphon off some of the support for Sanders and make New Hampshire even more competitive. While neither Yang nor Gabbard is in striking distance of winning New Hampshire — and they appear even less viable in Iowa — it is their strongest early state.

New Hampshire polling averages published by FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics, along with a new Monmouth University poll released Thursday, show a close four-way contest at the top among Sanders, Biden, Buttigieg and Warren, who are all separated by just a few percentage points. Yang and Gabbard draw 3% to 4% support each. In such a tight race in which no candidate has a commanding lead, polling analysts said, the defection of even a modest number of Sanders’ past supporters to Yang or Gabbard could hurt his chances to win here again.

Interviews with voters at campaign events, as well as the polls themselves, suggest that a sizable share of the New Hampshire voters backing Yang and Gabbard are the very sorts of voters who propelled Sanders to victory here in 2016. That year, he had the support of 72% of independents, who are known as undeclared voters in New Hampshire and are allowed to cast ballots in the Democratic primary. (They accounted for 40% of the electorate, according to exit polls.) Sanders also won 83% of voters ages 18 to 29 in his binary contest with Clinton.

Now Sanders is facing much stiffer competition for those voters, including from Gabbard and Yang. In Thursday’s Monmouth poll, Sanders drew the support of 20% of non-Democrats, while Gabbard had 8% and Yang 3%.

And in a Quinnipiac University poll from November, Sanders was the first choice of 29% of voters ages 18 to 34, leading all candidates among that group, but Yang had 12% support and Gabbard 4%.

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To be sure, independents and younger voters are also supporting Biden, Buttigieg and Warren, who have often performed better than Gabbard and Yang among those demographics in surveys. But Gabbard and Yang could still act as a drag on Sanders’ chances, particularly among younger voters, who are some of his strongest supporters.

“Is Yang cutting into Sanders’ support? Potentially,” said Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac poll. “They’re appealing to some of the same voters.”

Though the Quinnipiac poll showed that voters who support Sanders overwhelmingly picked Warren as their second choice, a noticeable share — 8% — chose Yang. It is possible, Schwartz said, that Yang may make a “small dent” in Sanders’ support that could play an outsize role in determining who wins a tight primary contest.

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Like Sanders, both Yang and Gabbard have attracted an eclectic, loyal and passionate following in New Hampshire, a state that has sometimes shown an appetite for the unorthodox. Voters here said they were drawn to all three candidates because of their outsider credentials. Some who said they were choosing between Yang and Sanders said they liked that both candidates had refreshingly blunt messages about the country’s problems and were offering ambitious solutions, like Yang’s plan to provide a universal basic income to every American adult and Sanders’ push for a $15 minimum wage.

Both Yang and Gabbard have said they supported Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. Yang has at times even pitched himself to voters directly as a younger, more technologically savvy and “more Asian” version of the septuagenarian Vermonter. And in many ways, his campaign is reminiscent of Sanders’ 2016 run, powered by a significant online presence and millions of dollars from grassroots donors. Last fall, Yang’s campaign even scooped up advertising firm Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, which helped orchestrate Sanders’ insurgent campaign four years ago.

Several voters who said they had supported Sanders in 2016 and were switching to Yang said they had become worried about Sanders’ health after he had a heart attack in the fall. Many said they found Yang’s ideas to be fresher, and some thought he might be better able to compromise with Republicans in Congress to get legislation passed.

“I think a president has to be more of a coalition builder,” said Paul Phillips, 59, of Plymouth. He added of Sanders, “I’m concerned he’s not really someone who works well with others.”

Many undecided voters at the Yang events also said Gabbard, 38, was at the top of their lists. They praised her military service, foreign policy stances and willingness to buck Democratic Party leaders.

“I did have some interest in Bernie Sanders, and I appreciate him,” said Jennifer Schwartz, 47, an independent from Wolfeboro who said she was drawn to both Gabbard and Yang. “But as far as the message goes, what I hear from Bernie Sanders sounds a lot like class warfare.”

A spokeswoman for Sanders’ campaign said that it was confident in its efforts in the state and that Sanders planned to win New Hampshire a second time.

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Both Yang and Gabbard also appear to be banking on success in New Hampshire. Thursday was the 14th consecutive day Gabbard had campaigned in the state, and a spokesman for her campaign tweeted that she had opened her first campaign office in New Hampshire this week. The spokesman declined to comment for this article.

Yang did a four-day swing in New Hampshire over the New Year’s holiday, went to Iowa and has now returned for another five days of campaigning.

Steve Marchand, one of the Yang campaign’s senior advisers and a former mayor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, said that the state’s large subset of undeclared voters tended to be “willing and eager to look for new, interesting, outsider candidates.” As such, he said, New Hampshire represents a real chance for candidates like Yang to surprise.

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Some of Yang’s supporters said they were acutely aware of how important it is for him to do well here. And those who supported Sanders four years ago said they had given considerable thought to how to ensure their vote has the most impact.

Kia Sinclair, 28, of Grafton, New Hampshire, said that if she lived in a different state, she might wait to see which candidates had the best chance to win the Democratic nomination and possibly then vote for Sanders.

But Sinclair said she no longer “feels the Bern” as she did in 2016. And while she is worried that shifting her vote to Yang could result in a candidate like Buttigieg winning, she said, “my stronger thought is that Yang deserves a real, fair shot.”

“My New Hampshire vote counts a lot,” she said. “And it’s really important to make a statement.”

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Adam Rhodes, 37, of Walpole, New Hampshire, said his calculus was slightly different. He supports both Sanders and Yang and is still doing the math in his head.

“I wouldn’t want Bernie to lose New Hampshire, but if Yang doesn’t get a big enough turnout, that could impact the rest of his campaign nationwide,” Rhodes said, sounding slightly exasperated. “That’s why I’m torn!”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .