Hillary-Bernie Split Further Divides Virginia Democrats

After the Democrats’ vicious 2016 presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders left the party deeply divided, history appears to be repeating itself for the party in Virginia’s gubernatorial primary between Ralph Northam and Tom Perriello. Perriello has embraced the far-left Bernie-wing of the party,while Northam has received the backing of many supporters of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, including incumbent governor Terry McAuliffe and both of the Commonwealth’s U.S. Senators.

Reports from both the Washington Post and CNN yesterday highlighted the increasing prominence of the Hillary-Bernie split in the primary race and national liberals’ attempts to inject themselves into the race. But just as Sanders and Clinton left Democrats bitter and resentful toward one another nationally in 2016, Northam and Perriello’s increasingly brutal primary fight is leaving Virginia Democrats deeply divided, further limiting their chances of uniting to win this November.

The Washington Post reports:

“With just over two weeks to go before the primary, Virginia has become the center of a family dispute between national progressive Democrats and state activists over the identity and future of the Democratic Party…

Perriello’s first meeting with Sanders was arranged by Perriello campaign manager Julia Barnes, who also ran Sanders’s successful New Hampshire campaign during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

The senator had identified the Virginia governor’s race as part of his mission to reorient the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction. ‘Bernie and I had talked about this race quite a few times,’ said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s top political adviser. ‘It obviously was a race that was on everybody’s radar’…

‘I find it really troubling the conversation is being steered away from what’s really happening in Virginia and what’s happening on the ground . . . and toward a broader conversation about the future of the Democratic Party and resisting Trump,” Grim said. ‘All of that is obviously important, but this isn’t a national race. This is a state-level race.’”

CNN reports:

“If Democratic voters thought — or hoped — the Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton saga was long since settled, then they apparently need to think again.

Just across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, a fierce fight is playing out in the race for Virginia governor pitting the Sanders wing of the party, as channeled by former Rep. Tom Perriello, against the Clinton wing of the party, represented by Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam.

The comparison seems apt on paper. Northam boasts support from all of the state’s prominent Democrats and has a lengthy career in state government, which helped make him the consensus pick of the party establishment. Perriello, meanwhile, entered the race late, has zero experience in state government and is running as an unabashed liberal… 

‘It is really more a battle between the national wing of the Democratic Party versus the Virginia wing of the party,’ said Democratic political operative Ben Tribbett, who is not supporting a candidate in the race but has been tracking voting trends in the party for years.”