Elliot Williams (@elliotcwilliams) is a CNN legal analyst. A principal at The Raben Group, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm, he was formerly a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department and an assistant director at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the Obama administration. The views expressed here are the author's. View more opinion on CNN.
(CNN)Establishment Democrats have every reason to be freaking out at the prospect of Bernie Sanders being the party's nominee in 2020.
He struggles to say what his ambitious plans will cost. If elected, he would become the oldest president in US history and he has flip-flopped on whether he would release his full medical records (this is after having already suffered a heart attack). He all but ensures that his Republican opponent will make the election a referendum on socialism. Some down-ballot candidates in close races are afraid of being dragged down and are keeping their distance. Attack ads from President Donald Trump and his allies assailing Sanders' views on Fidel Castro and Soviet Russia practically write themselves. And don't get me started about the conduct of some of his supporters and even some of his staffers online.
But it also might be time for Democrats to take a deep breath. Bernie Sanders has as good a shot as any of the other candidates at beating Trump -- maybe even a better one.
Above all else, the numbers don't lie. A February 10 Quinnipiac poll among registered voters has Sanders beating President Trump 51-43 -- right in the ballpark of the amounts by which former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden lead the President, and a little ahead of where Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg fall. He won the Nevada Caucuses with the support of voters who identify as "liberal," finishing a close second to Biden among black voters and moderates (two camps that, months ago, were rock solid for Biden).
Of course, in presidential elections, all that matters is the Electoral College map. Still, Sanders is in comparatively fine shape there, too. According to a Quinnipiac Swing State Poll released last week, Sanders leads the President in must-win Pennsylvania and Michigan. Even Wisconsin, which Trump won in 2016 remains a toss-up; polls from Marquette and Fox News last month had Sanders beating Trump by narrow margins. Certainly, it's early and none of this suggests a slam dunk for Sanders (or any Democrat, for that matter). However, the notion that based on polling today a Sanders victory is any less likely than one by any other Democrat is just foolish.
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In addition, Sanders inspires an intensity in his supporters that few candidates in history can claim. Where Bill Clinton felt voters' pain, Bernie Sanders channels their anger. And that means something in 2020. This level of passion has galvanized a movement reminiscent of other major "change" candidates in history -- Kennedy, Reagan and, whether we want to admit it or not, Trump. One of the central points in Sanders's appeal -- that he is an populist outsider singlehandedly taking on the Washington establishment -- is at the heart of Trump's appeal to his supporters (in addition to his racist nativism, but that's a story for another day).
And don't forget: Many Democrats are singularly motivated toward seeing Donald Trump lose and are going to spend money to help it happen. Sanders has proven to be a fundraising juggernaut; the campaign received donations from an estimated 1.4 million people through the end of 2019, dwarfing the other candidates in the race. He collected $96 million from donors in 2019, without holding any high-dollar fundraisers. And that's only Sanders's fundraising; it is impossible to envision a world in which in the face of a second Trump term, major Democratic party donors stay home and sit on their checkbooks. Even Bloomberg -- perhaps as big a target of Sanders' supporters' ire as Trump -- has pledged to spend millions helping to elect the Democratic nominee, even if it isn't him.
None of this is an argument that everyone should start feeling the Bern. There are still plenty of votes to be cast between now and the Democratic National Convention in July. About a third of the party's pledged delegates are at stake on Super Tuesday on March 3. Primaries are inherently contentious (remember George H.W. Bush -- the eventual Vice President -- blasting Reagan's "Voodoo Economics?"), and there is a path to the nomination for any number of Democrats running for president now. Even with Sanders' current lead, anything is possible.
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In the end, the question of whether Democrats are doomed in 2020 doesn't necessarily hinge on whether Sanders is the nominee. In fact -- wait for it -- having him as the nominee may not end up being all that bad.
Inhale, Democrats. Now exhale. And on to South Carolina.
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