Over the past four weeks, Bernie Sanders has won seven of eight Democrat contests in the United States presidential primaries. He will still, almost certainly, fail to win the party's nomination, because frontrunner Hillary Clinton retains a sizeable lead in the race to secure enough delegates to earn the party's nomination.
But Sanders' success points to a significant insurgency among Democrats: Clinton faces a far more daunting task than simply nabbing the nomination or winning the election – she must secure the future of the Democratic Party.
![To build a new majority, Hillary Clinton must fit supporters of Bernie Sanders into a new Democratic Party.](/web/20170425133451im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/x/q/m/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.go8lkk.png/1460942029530.jpg)
Over the next six months, the choices Clinton makes will help determine whether the Democrats will be the new majority party or be consigned to the wilderness for a generation. Can she bring Sanders supporters into an enduring majority, or will she alienate them and leave a fractious, fractured party in her wake?
The challenge – and opportunity – for Clinton comes from the unusual political conditions in the US. The two major parties are shuddering through a period of realignment. As the coalitions built in the 1980s and `90s break apart, a throng of interest groups are scrambling to shape new partnerships that will take their place.
![Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is making party leaders take note of his policies.](/web/20170425133451im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/8/k/d/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.go8lkk.png/1460960661378.jpg)
The Democrats are well positioned, compared with the Republican Party, which is now stuck with either a deeply unlikeable Senator Ted Cruz or an even more unlikeable mogul Donald Trump. The primary fight in the Democrat camp has been fierce but (mostly) clean, and there is no equivalent to the #NeverTrump wing of the GOP. Still, Clinton faces real problems as a party leader. She's the establishment candidate in an insurgency year. Her favourability numbers among Democrats have plummeted. And as a Clinton, she comes with more baggage than a Samsonite factory.
But these are not insurmountable obstacles. Indeed, almost 50 years ago, another unlikeable, establishment candidate managed not only to win the presidency but to build a new majority: Richard Nixon.
In 1968, the parties were going through another tumultuous unravelling. Alliances built in the 1920s and `30s were fracturing under the weight of social and economic change. Civil rights, the Vietnam War, inflation – the tumult of the era was ripping the Democratic Party in half – so much so that incumbent president Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the race halfway through the 1968 primaries.
As with today, insurgents were primed to take over the parties – conservatives in the GOP and "new leftists" in the Democratic Party. How the two nominees – Hubert Humphrey for the Democrats and Nixon for the Republicans – responded to these rebels highlights both the opportunity and danger confronting Clinton.
![As US president, Richard Nixon laid the groundwork for an enduring Republican Party coalition that won five of six ...](/web/20170425133451im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/i/v/5/g/w/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.go8lkk.png/1460942029530.jpg)
First, the danger. As Johnson's vice-president, Humphrey stepped into the race as the establishment candidate, propped up by party leaders rather than voters. Despite strong public support for peace candidate Eugene McCarthy, Humphrey won the nomination at the party convention as riots raged outside.
After Humphrey lost the general election, the party lurched leftward.
Nixon, on the other hand, courted his party's insurgents. For years, he'd wooed conservative leaders, convincing many of them he was on their side. He did not capitulate to them – they were one of several interest groups he juggled – but he offered a variety of symbolic gestures and practical policies to get them on side.
Nixon squeaked out a narrow victory in 1968. Four years later, he ran for re-election against left-wing darling George McGovern and won 49 states and 60.7 per cent of the popular vote. More important, he laid the groundwork for an enduring Republican coalition that won five of six presidential elections between 1968 and 1988.
What does this mean for Clinton? To build her new majority, she must fit Sanders supporters into a new Democratic Party; not by out-Sandersing Sanders – that would alienate moderate Democrats – but by taking seriously the concerns of Sanders supporters.
She has already taken steps in this direction. Over the past several years, she has renewed her focus on women's rights, and she has spoken openly and eloquently about white privilege.
Clinton has been less willing to engage on questions of economic justice, and here is where her real challenge lurks. If she wins the nomination and then ignores the economic politics that fuelled both the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Sanders campaign, she is in danger of replicating Humphrey's disastrous strategy.
Clinton does not need to swallow whole the Sanders diagnosis of the economy, but she does need to show that her more incrementalist policies, such as a $12 minimum wage and lower college costs for some, will affect the issues of economic justice that the Sanders campaign raises.
Coalitions come at a cost; Nixon's alienated black voters, a weakness that continues to cripple the Republican Party. Clinton's could cost Democrats the support of some white voters and some economic conservatives. That's no small thing: 21 per cent of Democrat voters identity as conservative.
But by bolstering supporters of President Barack Obama with some of Sanders' enthusiastic backers, Clinton could forge an enduring majority, a legacy far more lasting than the results of a single presidential election.
Nicole Hemmer is an Age columnist. She is a research affiliate at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and a visiting research associate at the University of Virginia's Miller Centre.
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