The dynamics of the Democratic presidential primary campaign could change dramatically if Vice President Joe Biden enters the race. ButBernie Sanders' campaign says it has no plans to change its basic strategy if Biden decides to run.
Until now, the Democratic race has essentially been a two-person contest between Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But polls indicate it would become a competitive three-way race if Biden becomes a candidate.
Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, says the campaign will stick to its basic economic message regardless of what Biden decides to do.
"You know, the bread and butter issues that Americans are facing ... We're going to continue to focusing on those issues regardless if the vice president is in the race or not," Weaver says.
Some national political observers say that Sanders can't win the Democratic nomination unless he strongly criticizes Clinton's use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State. Weaver says Sanders will highlight differences on issues with Clinton, but that's it.
"We're not going to go into email servers and foundations and all of this other stuff. You know, people don't want to hear about that, they want to hear about what the future president is going to do about the issues that are important in their daily lives," Weaver says.
New polls show Sanders maintaining a 7-point lead in New Hampshire but trailing Clinton by more than 25 points in Iowa.
Megan Remmel, a political science professor at Norwich University, says the Sanders campaign must expand its political base if it hopes to win the nomination.
"It certainly seems like he's got kind of a fire under him right now, but I do think he's picked up all the support that is kind of the low-hanging fruit for him," Remmel says. "So it's going to be much more challenging from here on out for him to pick up the supporters that he would need to actually get the nomination or even more so the general election."
Former Middlebury College political science professor Eric Davis says the Sanders campaign faces two major challenges. The first is attracting a larger number of African-American and Latino voters. Davis says this is important because these two groups make up roughly 30 percent of all voters in the various state Democratic primaries.
"That percentage varies from state to state. It's very small in Iowa, it's very small in New Hampshire. It's quite large in some of the southern states and in California," Davis says. "All the polls I've seen so far both nationally and state-based indicate that Hillary Clinton continues to have a large lead over Bernie Sanders among African-American and Latino voters."
Davis says money is a second big challenge for Sanders. Sanders hopes to raise $50 million by February, but Davis says Sanders could still be outspent by a 20-to-1 margin. Davis says this could be critical on March 1 when a dozen states hold a primary election and expensive TV advertising will play a key role.
"The Hillary Clinton campaign is talking about maybe $300 million during that same time period and when you add the super PACs supporting Hillary Clinton you could see close to $1 billion on that side of the campaign," Davis says.
Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, says he's convinced that a strong grass roots campaign will be able to offset the money raised by Clinton's super PACs.
Copyright 2015 Vermont Public Radio
