Bernie Sanders’ withdrawal from race a letdown to Clark County supporters

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ announcement that he was ending his presidential campaign was a letdown to his local supporters.

“It’s a little disappointing to a pretty significant portion of our membership,” said Mike Pond, chair of the Young Democrats of Clark County. “A lot of them were Bernie supporters.”

Pond added that there is some ideological difference between the county’s young Democrats and the main branch of the party, reflective of the broader divide between younger and older voters across the country. Sanders’ strongest coalition was made up of younger voters, who supported the independent candidate from Vermont’s championing of universal single-payer health care and removing the influence of money from politics.

“We are a little bit more progressive than the Clark County Democratic Party. We try and work pretty closely together, and our leadership is part of their leadership,” Pond said. “Washington did eventually tip for Vice President Biden, so I think that there is definitely some room there for coalescing and coming together.”

During Washington’s May 10 primary election, Clark County voters showed support for Biden and Sanders in near-equal measure. But Biden squeaked ahead, drawing 37.7 percent of the Democratic vote to Sanders’ 35.2 percent.

Based on the primary election results, Democrats across the state are similarly tilting more moderate — as a whole, 37.9 percent of Washington’s Democratic voters went for Biden and 36.5 percent went for Sanders.

In 2016, Sanders was the only major presidential candidate to visit Clark County, holding a rally at Hudson’s Bay High School that drew about 7,000 people. Bill Clinton also visited Vancouver, campaigning for his wife at an event at Clark College that drew 1,100 people. In the November general election, Hillary Clinton outpolled Donald Trump in Clark County by a margin of 316 votes out of more than 200,000 cast.