Democrats say Sanders needs to step up in midterm fight. His allies say he’s doing more than most.

By Sarah Ferris, Patrick Svitek, CNN

(CNN) — Bernie Sanders has spent the last decade growing his political movement by muscling left-wing hopefuls through Democrat-on-Democrat primary fights across the country.

Now for the first time, Sanders’ handpicked candidates are battling it out in some of the toughest – and most expensive – races of the general election. And top Democrats privately believe that the Vermont senator and other left-wing groups are not investing enough to get them over the finish line, particularly in the costly battleground state of Michigan, according to nearly a dozen people familiar with internal conversations.

In recent weeks, Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has directly asked Sanders to step up his contributions in Michigan, where outside GOP groups have targeted Democrat Abdul El-Sayed with attack ads as national leaders seek to make him a bogeyman, according to two of those people.

Multiple House candidates that won Sanders’ coveted endorsement, too, have directly asked his team for more financial support, according to another source familiar with the conversations.

Sanders is doing more in the final five weeks to help candidates he backed in the primary – and some of his allies privately argue he’s contributing more than any other senator in Washington.

This week, Sanders announced he is giving “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from his roughly $23 million war chest to left-wing Senate and attorney general candidates in Minnesota and Florida – his largest direct candidate contributions ever. He’s used his famously robust email list to help fundraise for a trio of key House candidates. This weekend, he’s headed to an ultra-competitive House race to support his endorsed candidate, Randy Villegas, who’s challenging Republican Rep. David Valadao, and he said Tuesday he plans to campaign for all his endorsed Senate candidates, including El-Sayed — “and maybe some others.”

“If you look all over this country, in red states, blue states, purple states, progressives have taken on establishment candidates, they’ve defeated them in the primaries, and now I want to make sure they win in the general election, as well,” Sanders told reporters Tuesday.

Yet tensions are still rising behind the scenes.

Within hours of Sanders’ announcing that he’d spend to support Senate candidates in Minnesota and Florida, many Democratic operatives were quick to note that he is not spending in Michigan, where many in the party feel the money is most needed. One Democratic operative involved in the Michigan Senate race said it was “absurd he’s spending in a safe election” — referring to the Minnesota contest — “before showing up for El-Sayed.”

Even in his fundraising email for the three House candidates, Sanders did not include the candidate that top Democrats say could use the most help – Will Lawrence, who Sanders had previously endorsed.

“At some point, the measure of success has to be bigger than beating other Democrats. It’s about beating Republicans, winning real majorities and actually governing so we can make change and hold Trump accountable. Governing majorities aren’t won in July, they are won in November,” one Democratic leadership aide told CNN.

People close to Sanders reject the contention that he’s not doing enough. In addition to his just-announced contributions to Flanagan in Minnesota and Angie Nixon in Florida, they argue, he’s also personally raised $2.8 million for candidates he endorsed in their primaries, including $500,000 for El-Sayed.

When Sanders helps a candidate, his defenders say, he’ll barnstorm, he’ll utilize his massive listserv and deploy on-the-ground organizers — but he does not fund TV advertisements. (When progressive House candidates have asked him in the past, he’s turned them down, too, according to multiple familiar with the discussions.)

“His whole agenda is ending the corrupting influence of billionaires and special interests in politics, and it is indicative of the rot in the Democratic party that all they can talk about is money instead of actually recognizing that part of the reason you’re in such trouble because all you focus on is money,” one person familiar with Sanders’ thinking said.

There is an inherent tension in the calls for Sanders to spend more for his candidates. Sanders’ longtime opposition to big money in politics leaves him with few options beyond tapping his campaign funds to give candidates $5,000, the maximum amount allowed under federal law. For Minnesota and Florida, he chose to give to state parties, with the money set aside for his preferred candidates.

Democrats in Washington, however, see Sanders’ anti-super PAC crusade as mostly quixotic in the final weeks before the midterms.

“We’re at the point of the cycle where there’s no secret bank account,” one Democratic operative involved in Senate races said.

In the primary, Sanders and other progressive groups spent nearly $2.5 million on the airwaves and another $60,000 in direct donations to their progressive candidates. But in the general, an analysis of FEC data finds that those same progressives have spent just $384,000 as of late September to help those same candidates.

The stakes are high for both the progressive and establishment wings of the party: Democrats in Washington believe this is their chance to seize power from President Donald Trump for good. And for progressives, it’s a critical test of their ability to show they can win in competitive territory ahead of the next presidential election, and potentially rebuild their party’s brand.

“We see a major responsibility to show these races are not only ones we can win but we can win with an economic populist message, without triangulating,” said Ravi Mangla, a spokesperson for the Working Families Party, which plans to spend seven figures to help progressives it backed in primaries win in November.

Democrats stress over GOP spending in Michigan

Democrats’ most critical contest is Michigan, where El-Sayed is being buried by outside spending from GOP groups and facing regular attacks by the president and vice president as he tries to defend the party’s Senate seat. Republicans are currently on track to outspend Democrats $43 million to $24 million on advertising in the final five weeks of the Michigan Senate race, according to AdImpact. Senate Majority PAC is shouldering a large majority of the Democratic spending – $18 million.

Privately, Democratic party operatives argue that they are the ones who are forced to respond to the GOP’s increasingly nasty attacks on El-Sayed on the airwaves. And they fear it could get worse for El-Sayed and Democrats if Trump’s own super PAC or the powerful crypto groups currently pummeling Sherrod Brown in Ohio decide to pile on. That could turn a winnable seat in Michigan into a “catastrophe” for Democrats, one operative said.

El-Sayed’s campaign said Sanders’ support is “critical as we build a broad coalition to beat Mike Rogers in November.”

“We look forward to having [Sanders] back to Michigan,” El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner said in a statement.

In Lansing, Michigan, Democrats are also worried about a House race that once stood as one of their top pickup opportunities of the cycle. The race between Sanders-endorsed Will Lawrence and GOP Rep. Tom Barrett has worried top Democrats, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his allies fearful that Lawrence – a one-time democratic socialist who has made disparaging remarks about the leadership of older Black Democrats – has made the seat much tougher to flip.

How campaigns are thinking

Sanders endorsed five House candidates in their primaries who are now in toss-up races, according to the Cook Political Report: Villegas in California’s 22nd district, Lawrence in Michigan’s 7th district, Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s 3rd district, Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania’s 7th district and Brian Poindexter in Ohio’s 7th district.

Some – but not all – have welcomed his help.

Cooke’s campaign is in talks with Sanders’ team about a potential visit to her western Wisconsin district. Cooke said in a statement she has heard from many “Bernie-Trump crossover voters who feel like our political system is broken and want the kind of independent perspective Bernie Sanders has.”

In California, an aide to Villegas’ campaign said its polling shows Sanders’ populist economic messaging is “popular with swing voters” in the heavily working-class district.

One Democratic operative working on a competitive race where Sanders endorsed in the primary said the senator may not be as helpful in the general election – but he still has value. His anti-establishment, working-class message aligns with the case that Democrats are increasingly making against Republicans in battleground districts, the operative said, and he remains a turnout booster for young people who are hard to galvanize in any election.

In Montana’s 1st Congressional District, which is more of an uphill battle for Democrats, Sanders endorsed Sam Forstag in the primary. But since then, Forstag removed Sanders’ endorsement from his campaign website as part of a section on national endorsements that was entirely scrapped.

Republicans have put Sanders in some of their ads in these races, showing how the GOP still sees him as an effective boogeyman.

One ad from Ohio Republican Max Miller opens up with a clip of his general election opponent Poindexter embracing Sanders during a rally from the primary. A narrator calls Poindexter a “socialist,” and then the ad shows an Ohio man named Marty.

“Bernie — he belongs in a nuthouse,” Marty says.

The Poindexter, Lawrence, Brooks and Forstag campaigns did not respond to requests for comment on whether they would want Sanders’ help in their races at this point.

Nixon’s campaign in Florida has been especially appreciative of Sanders, who endorsed her two days after her upset primary victory. Nixon is challenging appointed Sen. Ashley Moody for her full term in a state that Trump won by 13 percentage points in 2024.

“Sen. Sanders sees the opportunity here and is willing to help us seize it,” Nixon campaign manager Eunic Epstein-Ortiz said in a statement. “He knows Florida is competitive, believes Angie can win, and understands this is a race worth investing in.

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