‘To his credit, and I wish we could do better, [Joe Biden] is doing very, very well …’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Reacting to Joe Biden’s primary wins on Tuesday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blamed Bernie Sanders’s string of losses on the “generational divide in the Democratic Party,” especially when it comes to policy.
“There’s no sugar-coating it. Tonight is a tough night,” she said during an Instagram Live video. “Tonight is a tough night electorally. Older voters, which we know are more reliable voters, which we know turn out, have decisively gone to former Vice President Biden.”
It’s hard to be a “young person” in the Democratic Party, Ocasio-Cortez added.
“There’s a generational divide within the Democratic Party on health care, on climate change, on foreign policy, pretty much every policy imaginable,” she said. “As a younger person in this movement, I take a lot of that as information for how we navigate the next decade.”
Ocasio-Cortez has long claimed that the youth vote would propel Sanders to victory, since he tends to be much more popular among younger Americans than older voters.
Young Americans, however, still don’t vote.
Voters under the age of 30 made up just 11% of the electorate in the past several primary elections, according to NPR, while 35% were between the ages of 45 and 64.
Even Sanders admitted that his campaign has failed to “bring young people into the process.”
“Have we been as successful as I would hope in bringing young people in? The answer is no,” Sanders told reporters after his Super Tuesday losses. “I think that will change in the general election, but I will be honest with you, we have not done as well … It is not easy.”
Sanders then argued that his voter base is more likely to influence the future of the Democratic Party than Biden’s — even if Biden wins the Democratic nomination.
“To his credit, and I wish we could do better, [Joe Biden] is doing very, very well with people 65 or older. We’re not,” Sanders told MSNBC. “We’re doing phenomenally well with people 30 or under. Now, which group of people is there more potential to grow the base, to bring people in?”