SALT LAKE CITY — Lex Scott, one of the leaders of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in Utah, sobbed softly Wednesday as she described her reaction to the winner of the state’s Super Tuesday primary dropping out of the race.
“I have a pain where my heart is,” Scott, the founder of Black Lives Matter Utah and one of five who chaired the Sanders Utah campaign, said. She believes the feeling is shared by other Utahns who gave the Vermont senator a victory in the March 3 primary with 35% of the vote.
“We saw this coming, but I do just want to warn there are so many disenfranchised people out there. Bernie was more than a candidate for us. Bernie is a movement for us. Bernie is a revolution for us. We have a deep connection,” she said. “So many people are heartbroken right now about what has happened.”
But Scott said she’ll work for the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president, former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden finished second in Utah’s Democratic presidential primary, trailing Sanders with 18.5% of the vote.
“I don’t like Biden. I do feel like he’s the lesser of two evils. I will go out and vote for Joe Biden,” Scott said. “I will try to get our followers to vote for Joe Biden. … I feel like voters who felt disenfranchised by Bernie not getting the nomination last time will feel even more disenfranchised this time, so it’s our job to try to mobilize them.”
Scott said she hopes to avoid what happened In 2016, when Sanders supporters in Utah and other states ended up not voting in the November election for the party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, calling it “terrifying. It feels like Groundhog Day. It feels like we’re reliving the 2016 election.”
Scott Howell, a former Democratic minority leader in the Utah Senate and a surrogate for Biden, said the vice president’s campaign also hopes to win over Sanders’ supporters as well as Utahns who voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.
“We all have to be realistic about it,” Howell said of the chances Utah could flip from red to blue this election year, even with a nominee he said appeals to moderate Democrats and Republicans. The Beehive State hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1964.
For Sanders supporters in Utah, Howell said, “If they do want to make a difference, if they do want to make a change, they have two choices. Stay home or vote.” The Democrats’ pick for president may not be perfect, he said, “but it’s a lot better than we have today” in the White House.
Utah Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Merchant acknowledged that Sanders’ decision to drop out of the race will be hard on many.
“Here in Utah in particular, I think that today is a disappointing day for a lot of Democrats. Obviously, the majority of Democrats in our state supported Bernie Sanders and it will take some time to get over this loss. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for us as Democrats to unify,” Merchant said.
That means not losing the “bigger perspective,” he said, “that even for the ardent Bernie fan or supporter, Joe Biden represents a far more viable option than Donald Trump.” The party leader called on Democrats to get behind their party’s nominee.
“Beating Donald Trump is going to have to be our No. 1 priority,” Merchant said.
Sanders picked up 16 Utah delegates to the Democratic National Convention, now moved to August in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Under party rules, Sanders will retain nine of those delegates, Merchant said, but the rest will go to Biden.
“The reality of the situation is that it doesn’t matter,” Howell said, since Biden’s last serious challenger to the nomination has dropped out of the race.
Sanders campaigned in Utah just before the Super Tuesday primary, attracting a huge crowd to the Utah State Fairpark. He urged them to “transform this country,” laying out a platform that included Medicare for all, making higher education tuition free, canceling student debt and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Utahns went big for Sanders in 2016, giving him 80% of the vote in a party-run presidential preference election held during Democratic caucus meetings. Trump, who easily won this year’s Republican primary, came in third place in the 2016 GOP caucus vote, behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich.