Senator Bernie Sanders heads to New Hampshire Wednesday to officially start campaigning as a Democratic presidential candidate. Sanders is holding town hall meetings in Concord and Portsmouth on Wednesday, with a house party in Epping. His New Hampshire supporters say his local ties and longstanding practice of holding town hall meetings and people-to-people campaigning will serve him well in the state that holds the nation's first primary.
Chris Galdieri, professor of political science at St. Anselm College, said that former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has already been making statements showing that Sanders is pushing her to the left.
"If you look at the statements Hillary Clinton has been making recently, she's really trying to shore up that left flank with statements on issues like immigration, the minimum wage, other economic issues. I think she knows that's the place she could be vulnerable in the primary, so she's trying to head that off before it happens," Galdieri said.
Sanders is very popular here in Vermont, easily winning elections here, but that doesn't necessarily mean he has widespread name recognition in New Hampshire, Galdieri said.
"I think he's got something of a head start. He's been coming here quite a lot over the past year or so. He's doing all the things you would expect to see someone who's running for president doing to make themselves more of a known quantity to voters here in New Hampshire."
But actually winning in the primary is a big challenge. Galdieri points to Hilary Clinton's popularity in the Granite State. She won the 2008 primary there, even after losing to Barack Obama in the Iowa caucuses.
"I do think an upset is unlikely, but I do think Sanders is running less for the prospect of actually being the democratic nominee, than he is for having a platform for having his views out for trying to push, not just Hillary Clinton, not just the democratic party, but I think the political conversation generally to the left and make the sorts of ideas he's talking about part of the mainstream dialogue as opposed to being sort of fringey ideas that serious people don't tend to take very seriously," Galdieri said.
One of the challenges for Bernie Sanders may be the way he's portrayed in the national media, often as a fringe character. But some respect will come with the debates.
"At some point Bernie Sanders will be on a stage with Hillary Clinton," and any other Democratic candidates, Galdieri said. "I think that in and of itself is inherently legitimizing. I think once you have Sanders as part of a conversation about policy with the frontrunner for the nomination and other challengers, I think that will do a lot to put him in the mainstream of things. Again, I think if you look at the campaign that Secretary Clinton is running I don't think you're going to see her get up there and say, 'Get out of town, Bernie, you crazy socialist.' I think she's going to point out all of the things she has in common with Senator Sanders and all of the statements she's made in recent months since she's become a candidate that put her closer to him than people might have imagined in the past."
The conventional narrative from most media outlets and other Democrats is that the best Sanders can do is force Hillary to talk about issues like income inequality that she might otherwise ignore if he were not in the race, but Sanders insists he's in it to win. However, Galdieri said, he's still a long shot.
"It's really difficult to see a scenario where he becomes the nominee. Really, since the day after the 2012 election, you've seen lots of prominent Democrats coming out and endorsing Hilary Clinton even before she became a candidate," Galdieri said. "And historically it's that elite support, especially support from elected figures and other people in the party that really is make or break for a candidate. So I think one of the bigger challenges for Bernie Sanders is going to be not just appealing to voters, but appealing to people in his party, appealing to party leaders, most of whom have already come out for Hillary Clinton. That's a really daunting task for Bernie Sanders, or anyone in this race who's not named Hillary Clinton."