Former Bernie Sanders Staffer Gets Crushed In Iowa House Primary

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 13:  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during a rally against the Republican tax plan on December 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 13: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during a rally against the Republican tax plan on December 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
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A top staffer for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has finished a distant third in his bid for a key swing House seat.

Pete D’Alessandro, who ran Sanders’ Iowa operation and a number of other states for the candidate, pulled just 16 percent of the primary vote on Tuesday, far behind newly minted nominee Cindy Axne’s 57 percent showing and trailing another Democrat in the contest. The Associated Press has called the race.

He’s one of the few Democratic candidates Sanders has gone all-in for this midterm cycle — and the latest to fall short in his bid for office, as many of Sanders’ endorsed candidates have lost their elections in the past few months.

Sanders held a February rally for D’Alessandro, cut a TV ad for him and helped him raise nearly half of his campaign funds in the race, but it wasn’t enough.

D’Alessandro told TPM on Monday that he wouldn’t have been competitive at all against Axne, who had most of the establishment support, and second-place finisher Eddie Mauro, who self-funded his campaign, without Sanders’ support. But it doesn’t appear that it ended up doing much for him in the end.

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Notable Replies

  1. Perhaps if Bernie was actually a Democrat he would have more influence in a Democratic Primary.

  2. “D’Alessandro told TPM on Monday that he wouldn’t have been competitive at all…without Sanders’ support. But it doesn’t appear that it ended up doing much for him in the end.”

    “It’s a ‘Mr. Death’, dear. He says he’s here about the ‘reaping’…?”

  3. Was he competitive?

  4. Avatar for pshah pshah says:

    I’ve seen longer coattails on a cutoff t-shirt.

  5. Can we stop with the constant Bernie smearing on here? This is not even a story and will just stoke the primary war fire some more.

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