Bernie Sanders’s Legacy? The Left May No Longer Need the Rich

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/upshot/bernie-sanderss-legacy-the-left-may-no-longer-need-the-rich.html

But in broader historical terms, it might be something of a turning point in Democratic politics: the moment when the party’s left no longer needs an alliance with wealthy liberals to compete in national elections.

Connecticut, which held its primary April 26, vividly illustrates the huge difference between Mr. Sanders’s coalition and that of past liberal challengers.
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In 2000, a flagging Mr. Bradley lost the state by 13 percentage points to Al Gore. He lost badly among nonwhite voters — losing cities like Bridgeport and Hartford by more than 40 points. He lost by more modest margins in the rural, white, working-class eastern part of the state. But he won many of the state’s affluent areas — like Greenwich and New Canaan, along with much of the traditionally liberal western and northwestern part of the state near the border with New York and Massachusetts.

Mr. Obama won almost all of the same areas in 2008, but then added strong support from nonwhite voters — enough to give him a narrow victory over Mrs. Clinton in the state. He won places like Bridgeport and Hartford, even as he fared similarly to Mr. Bradley in places like Greenwich and New Canaan. He fared little or no better in the white, working-class parts of eastern and central Connecticut.