The Working Families Party endorsed Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid, facing the challenge of uniting the political left after its candidate of choice, Elizabeth Warren, dropped out of the race.
The announcement came on Monday, shortly before another series of crucial primaries will be held which may be decisive for Sanders. He is facing the choice of whether to push through with his campaign or to step aside for Joe Biden, who has taken the lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“WFP supporters nationwide are mobilizing to help Bernie win so we can defeat Trump and build an America that works for the many, not the few,” the organization announced on Twitter on Monday.
The Working Families Party (WFP) is a socialist stronghold that endorses many progressive candidates.
In 2016, the WFP still endorsed Sanders in his former campaign for the Democratic nomination against Hilary Clinton. But in September last year, it switched to supporting Warren after an internal audit that showed that most of its members preferred Warren over Sanders—a move that angered many staunch Sanders loyalists.
“We understand that there are people on the fence. We are, just like them, Warren supporters who are disappointed that our candidate left the race, but there’s work that remains to be done, and we’re going to be committed to the change that brought us to the Warren campaign,” WFP national director Maurice Mitchell said, according to CNN. “Sen. Sanders’ campaign is a natural home for Warren forces that are looking to get the job done.”
But now that the party has switched to backing Sanders, it’s the Warren block that feels affronted. To make things even worse, Warren has never fully voiced her support for Sanders since her resignation, even though the two were in many aspects on the same page of the progressive roadmap.
Another left-wing group tightly knit to Warren, The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), took a similar approach as the WPF, but in a less direct manner. It stated that its members should vote “strategically” (i.e., for Sanders) “to stop the premature ending of this primary election.”
“Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders share many goals. If you love Bernie Sanders and his agenda, that’s the best reason to vote for him,” the PCCC wrote, according to CNN. “And if you are a die-hard Joe Biden supporter, by all means, vote your conscience.”
