ST. PAUL - A month before the Democratic National Convention, after the numbers made it clear Bernie Sanders would not be the party’s presidential nominee, Sanders supporters in Minnesota were still holding out hope.
“The media’s been lying to everybody, and this is not over yet,” Erika Onsrud said at a “Unity for Victory” fundraiser held to help delegates afford convention attendance.
As the convention drew close, many erstwhile backers of the Vermont senator, including Minneapolis’ U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, endorsed Hillary Clinton. Sanders himself appeared with the former Secretary of State in New Hampshire in mid-July and said he would work for Clinton’s election. But the Minnesota split between Sanders and Clinton has not yet mended.
“I was elected as a Sanders delegate to go to the national convention and vote for Sanders so that is what I’m going to do,” Onsrud, a delegate from Minneapolis, said after others fell in line behind Clinton. Although she acknowledged Clinton most likely will get the nomination, she said: “Until somebody crosses that finish line, I think that anything is possible.”
In Minnesota’s March caucuses, voters overwhelmingly favored Sanders over Clinton. That gave him a delegate boost among the Minnesotans going to the national convention and a reason for Minnesota leaders to work extra hard to woo them.
“Party leaders, like myself, have to make sure that the party is open to new voices, new leadership,” said Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin, who has long supported Clinton. Among the state’s elected delegates, 62 percent support Sanders, but almost all of the superdelegates, who also get a vote, support Clinton.
The Minnesota delegation has Sanders and Clinton co-chairs, sent both Sanders and Clinton supporters to key convention committees and had planned an all-delegation event at Gov. Mark Dayton’s official residence in St. Paul. While the party at the residence did not happen - Dayton was busy with the aftermath of storms, a police shooting and protesters camped at his door - Martin said he believes the Democratic divisions are not too deep, at least among Minnesota delegates.
“I feel like we are in a better place here in this state than they are in other parts of the country going into the convention,” he said.
But that does not mean all are settled on the outcome.
“Sometimes for people, it takes them a while to adopt to the reality that Bernie didn’t get through and somebody else did,” said Ellison, an early and vocal Sanders backer who was appointed by Sanders to the committee that worked on this year’s Democratic Party platform. But Ellison said people’s passions for Sanders will be converted, and they will support Clinton.
That doesn’t mean the convention in Philadelphia, which starts Monday and ends Thursday when Clinton is expected to accept the party’s nomination, will be without its divisions.
A battle over the party’s positions is possible Monday, including whether to downgrade the power of superdelegates. Superdelegates are members of the convention who win their right to vote by virtue of their positions in the Democratic Party, not primary or caucus results. Sanders backers tend to favor the move, and the Minnesota DFL voted to support it. Tensions in the party over the actions of Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz have also been running high since last year, and that might spill over to the convention.
Like in the Republican convention, there will likely be a roll call of delegates that will show the divide between those representing Clinton and those favoring Sanders. Casting votes for Sanders might give his backers some solace. In 2008, when Clinton ran against Barack Obama, she moved to suspend the roll call and led the convention to endorse Obama by acclamation. There has not been word on whether Sanders will do the same.
The Clinton campaign has been working on winning electoral gains in Minnesota. On a recent weekday, a dozen Clinton volunteers sat at long tables in an airy Minneapolis office on Lake Street working toward November. The work - on that day they were collecting names for future volunteer events - forms the basic building blocks of any organized campaign.
The campaign for Republican candidate Donald Trump has had none of that in Minnesota. Rather than diplomatically invite supporters of Trump’s former rivals into the fold, Trump and his supporters have continued to mock those he vanquished. Those divisions were starkly evident during last week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and some delegates left that gathering still unsure whether they could vote for the Republican nominee.
At the Republican convention, however, Trump did, in some ways, reach out to Sanders backers.
“I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders - he never had a chance,” Trump said in his nomination acceptance speech.
Sanders himself rejected the appeal on social media. Although each candidate capitalized on voters’ frustrations in both style and substance, Sanders and Trump share little in common.
But Sanders backers around the country have been buoyed in recent weeks by Democrats’ policy discussions. The party changed its platform to call for a $15 an hour minimum wage, paid family and federal leave and criminal justice overhaul. While it is widely acknowledged to be one of the most progressive platforms the party has ever had, it does not condemn the Trans-Pacific trade pact, nor does it go as far as some would like toward single-payer health care.
Minnesota had three members on the platform committee - two Sanders supporters and one Clinton backer - and Ellison was a Sanders appointee to its drafting committee.
Ellison said he is confident that most Sanders supporters will come around to Clinton. The issues are too big - and Trump too bad - for them to sit it out. From the convention stage, where he will speak this week, he plans to drive that message home.
“It’s basically going to be a message about motivating people to vote … helping to give people a sense of what’s at stake,” he said. He hopes to make people see that the energy they have spent working with Black Lives Matter, climate change and a $15 minimum wage “really must be converted to electoral gains.”
Delegate Claudia Cody, a Clinton backer, said there might be some battles, but after Philadelphia the party will be united.
“It’s the nature of the political beast,” she said. “Folks are finally coming around and saying: ‘We are one.’ … We are first of all Minnesotans, and second of all we are all Democrats. And together, in unity, we will win.”
