CNN: Democrats slept on Bernie Sanders. Now he's surging as Iowa approaches

[Donkees]

By Gregory Krieg and Ryan Nobles, CNN

Updated 4:23 PM ET, Thu January 9, 2020

Excerpts:

(CNN)--He has been dismissed, shrugged off, and, most gratingly to his campaign and supporters, ignored for long stretches by other leading primary rivals and national political pundits.

But with less than a month before the Iowa caucuses, this volatile 2020 presidential primary has taken yet another eye-popping turn: Bernie Sanders is being recognized by the Democratic establishment, sometimes in puzzlement and others in fear, as the real deal -- a legitimate contender, even a front-runner, to become the party's next presidential nominee.

It happened slowly, then, as the year turned, seemingly all at once. Maybe it was his fourth quarter fundraising total -- $34.5 million, more than anyone else and a personal best -- or the recent early-state polls, which suggest a Sanders sweep of Iowa and New Hampshire is very much in play. The 78-year-old democratic socialist always had the firmest voter base. He has not made any meaningful adjustments to his campaign strategy. What's changed is that he is beginning to show concrete signs of expanding his support in a way that few outside his loyal circles predicted.

The contrast between Sanders and the top tier of the Democratic field, even as it has moved left over the past few years, played out in miniature in the aftermath of the recent US strike in Iraq. When most candidates initially responded by couching their condemnations of the attack with reminders of Soleimani's own bloody rap sheet, Sanders skipped straight to warning against a military escalation and calling for congressional action to arrest any push for war.

It was, simply, exactly what you'd expect from Sanders.

"He's been consistent on every single issue, not just for this last campaign, not just for this last year, but for his entire career," Katz said. "There's no caveats. He's in the position he is because everybody knows what he says is what he believes, because he's been saying it for decades."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/09/politics/bernie-sanders-iowa-2020/index.html

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