Bernie Sanders is an anti-establishment presidential candidate running against Hillary Clinton, a high ranking member of the establishment, for the Democratic nomination. Sanders is highly progressive on many issues such as health care reform, immigration, campaign finance reform and Wall Street. These issues are at the forefront of political discussion right now, in part because of Sanders’ candidacy. While Clinton claims to be in line with Sanders on progressive ideals, she has switched her views on key topics many times. When Sanders announced his entrance to the presidential race, he was seen as a very minor candidate, but now he is polling at or above Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. Many people say that Sanders is a single issue candidate, but his wide range of progressive views have proven otherwise. Popular opinion suggests that he is not electable compared to Hillary Clinton, but his performance in national polls against the Republican candidate is significantly better than Clinton. Sanders’ entire candidacy has been criticized because very few people believed he could make it this far. Sanders has consistently kept up with Clinton in the polls, but his performance in the primaries and caucuses has been dismal despite a string of recent wins. The Democratic National Convention and mainstream media have played a negative role in Sanders' performance and many believe that the reason there is a very clear bias for Hillary Clinton is her long history with the establishment and the media. This bias has made Sanders work much harder to get results, but regardless of whether or not he wins the nomination, he has shaped the conversation towards more progressive policies and has given Clinton real competition.

Sanders has been a progressive throughout his life and he has been extremely consistent in his political career. In 1962, Sanders was arrested for being an agitator of rioting by posting signs detailing police brutality against African-Americans. In the early 80s, he ran for Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and one of his platforms was to abolish all laws discriminating against homosexuality. Sanders later went on to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act as a congressman. On all of these issues, Sanders is still vehement in his views and his consistency is simply not matched by Clinton. She has historically supported DOMA, the Iraq War and NAFTA, and Secretary Clinton has changed her mind since then presumably to catch up with the political views of the time. This should be troubling to voters because it shows misguided foresight. Sanders has been on the right side of history since he began his political career, while Clinton is altering her views so that she might be viewed as a progressive.

Sanders’ overwhelming support among millennials is perhaps due to his concentration on wealth inequality and higher education. Sanders believes that all public universities should be tuition free and this is a pressing issue for young voters as the rising student loan debt seems insurmountable. In 2012, 71% of all students graduating from college had student loan debt and the average debt was $29,400. The rising debt is a major issue that Sanders and Clinton are tapping into, but Sanders is the only candidate with a comprehensive plan to erase debt from the past and the future. Wealth inequality is a significant problem to young voters as they see a large amount of money going to the extremely wealthy while almost no money goes to the poor. This problem transcends between young and old voters, but it is more pressing on millennials as this economic behavior will affect the rest of their lives. Sanders and Clinton have been attacking the issue and they both do a fine job however, Sanders has not only been consistent on this issue, but he is the only candidate who isn’t fighting the system from within. Clinton is a member of the 1%, but she says it is an important issue to her. Sanders has been fighting this issue for decades, and in 1976, he said this, “The fundamental issue facing us in the state is that half of one percent of these people—the richest half of one percent—earn as much as the bottom 27 percent and the top three percent earn as much as the bottom 40 percent.” Of course these numbers have changed drastically, but the issue of wealth inequality continues to be one of the most pressing domestic issues.

Clinton has consistently had the support of African-Americans since the primaries began in February. African-American voters make up a big share of southern voters and Hillary’s husband, Bill Clinton, won over southern blacks by a large majority when he ran for and won the Presidency. This popularity is explained, in part, by her former residency in Arkansas and it is explained by her husband’s legacy as the former President. The surprising part of this favorability to Clinton over Sanders is the fact that Sanders was arrested while fighting for Civil Rights in the 1960s while Clinton was campaigning for Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was an extreme conservative in the 60s and he was a staunch supporter of the now infamous "separate but equal" Supreme Court case. Clinton was very young at the time and her views have changed since then however, this example shows the terrible foresight she possesses and adds to the argument that Sanders has been on the right side of history. Black voters in America either do not care or they do not know about Clinton’s troubling past with segregationists.

Mainstream media outlets have been harsh or impervious to the Sanders campaign throughout this primary season. Many outlets have either refused to cover Sanders, or when they do, they paint him in a bad light. One notable example of this behavior involves The Washington Post and their involvement with at least 16 negative news articles on Sanders in just 16 hours. This occurred starting in the middle of the night on March 6, which was just a few days after Super Tuesday. This type of behavior has unfortunately been common since the beginning of his candidacy and The New York Times has even been accused of altering pro-Sanders articles to be negative. There is no clear reason as to why the media has been negative to Sanders, but it may have something to do with the intense lobbying that most media companies implement. These lobbying attempts would be unsuccessful to a candidate who refuses to take money from special interests, and if they can not invest in the candidate, then they are less likely to support him/her with positive coverage. This reason for negativity seems to be the general consensus of many experts.

Clinton has always been the presumable nominee for the Democratic Party and Sanders pretty much came out of nowhere to challenge her for it. He was never a member of the party until he decided to run for president, and this is a strong and suitable point to make when voters are determining whether or not to make him their party’s candidate. The nomination is not set in stone yet, but with Sander’s recent losses and polling, Clinton will most likely win the nomination with a comfortable margin. Nevertheless, he has certainly proven to be useful in the primaries as he challenges Clinton by preparing her for the general election. Clinton will need to be prepared against the eventual Republican nominee because it will most likely be Donald Trump. Trump has been aggressive in debates, and he will not let Hillary back away from questions or cower from responses without scolding her for it. Sanders has been useful by making her fight, and he has forced her to reveal her policy. Many have accused Sanders of being too harsh on Clinton in this primary season, but Trump will be significantly more rude and demeaning in the debates just as he has been in the Republican debates.

Despite all of the previous examples of this race being an uphill climb for Sanders, there has been some real merit to his candidacy. He has given a fight to the biggest political machine in modern history by refusing to back down, and he has done this while remaining positive. Sanders has never run a negative ad in his entire political career and this is a major reason he probably hasn’t performed in the primaries as he had hoped. Clinton has ran many negative ads against Sanders in this race, but he has risen above the petty political games and he has run a completely issue-based campaign. Despite this, the Clinton campaign has publicly renounced Sanders for being too aggressive with Clinton, but Sanders has refuted that he is simply telling the truth. If telling the truth is considered being negative then the truth must be bad. Clinton supporters have also stated that Sander’s remarks will irreparably hurt Clinton in the general, but many believe that this is exactly what she needs to be prepared.

Sanders has also been a costly surprise to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) since he entered the race. Before Sanders, Clinton was the clear choice, and she was a shoe in for the nomination. Sanders has faced an uphill battle with the DNC because they have acted very biased towards Hillary Clinton. The initial debate schedule appeared structured so that viewer count would be extremely low. These debates were decided by the DNC chairwoman, Debbie Schultz, and the time slots of the debates were placed in very low rating areas. One debate was placed on the Friday before Christmas, which is a day known to be a ratings black hole because no one watches tv on that day. The DNC also banned the Sanders campaign from accessing DNC voter files in 2015 which led to a lawsuit that Sanders is still pursuing. Many people have criticized the DNC because it appears they have tipped the scales so that Clinton can win the nomination. Sanders has consistently battled with the DNC, and he has often won these battles. He expanded the debate schedule, and he was restored access to voter files. One battle he may not win, however, is the matter of superdelegates.

The DNC uses superdelegates to give high level members access to choose the nominee. As of now, Clinton has 513 superdelegates compared to Sanders’ 38 superdelegates. This lead gives Clinton a sort of confirmation bias. Voters see that she is up by such a large amount, and they want to vote for the winning side, thus leading to further disparity. Despite all of this, Bernie Sanders has come out ahead of the establishment, and he has proven that a small campaign can drastically alter the entire primary race. Hillary has been forced to debate more, and she has been forced to convey her policies more clearly to voters. Sanders has worked very hard to ensure that the democratic primaries are competitive, fair, and progressive.

The establishment and mainstream media are fighting aggressively to keep Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination, but his results in Washington, Michigan and many others are promising. Sanders won Michigan despite being down by over 20 points in polls just one day before their primary, but he lost New York after campaigning heavy and spending $3 million more than Clinton. The gap has widened dramatically in favor of Clinton with her string of wins in the South and, more recently, her big win in New York. The election is pulling away from Sanders faster than ever, and the fact that he has won as much as he has is nothing short of a miracle. He started this race 70 points behind Clinton, but he is now tied in national polls with the Secretary. Sanders has shifted the narrative of the race by asserting his key issues and forcing Clinton to respond. Without a competition, Clinton would not have been held accountable for many of her platforms and proposed policies. There is no doubt that Sanders was an unforeseen threat by the DNC, but now that he is a real competitor, the national political conversation has shifted from moderate policy to far leftist policies. Competitiveness is a key part of any democracy and Sanders has offered just that.