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Democratic Presidential Candidates Say Front-Runner Sanders Can't Beat Trump

Ken Bredemeier

   U.S. Democratic presidential contenders targeted front-runner Bernie
   Sanders in a raucous debate late Tuesday, contending that the
   self-declared democratic socialist would lose to Republican President
   Donald Trump in November's national election if he is the party's
   nominee.

   "Bernie will lose to Donald Trump, and the House and Senate will turn
   [Republican]," former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the 10th
   Democratic presidential debate on a stage in Charleston, South
   Carolina, four days ahead of Saturday's key presidential primary in the
   mid-Atlantic state.

   Sanders retorted that national surveys show that in the last 50
   hypothetical matches against Trump, he had beaten him 47 times.

   But Bloomberg responded, looking directly at Sanders, "Can you imagine
   a moderate Republican voting for him?"

   Another candidate, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime
   ally of Sanders, contended that, "I would make a better president than
   Bernie," saying that she could advance the progressive policy goals
   they share and that he would not be able to.

   Sanders' opponents lobbed one attack after another at the 78-year-old
   lawmaker, chiding him for favoring a government-run health insurance
   program that could cost $60 trillion over a decade and end private
   insurance plans that 160 million Americans use to help pay their health
   care bills. They also assailed Sanders for opposing bills in Congress
   that would have held gun manufacturers liable for gun violence in the
   U.S.

   Sanders defended his signature "Medicare for All" health plan, saying
   it would cut health care costs for millions of Americans. He conceded
   his vote on the gun legislation "was a bad vote."

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