On April 13 Bernie Sanders officially endorsed Joe Biden for president in a joint livestream, a sight far more common due to the coronavirus. This is the second consecutive campaign in which Sanders has chosen to bow out of and endorse the other Democratic candidate. However, this time Sanders endorsed his fellow Democrat far earlier in the election process doing so in mid-April as opposed to endorsing Hillary Clinton on July 12, 2016.

While this is upsetting news for the more extreme Sanders supporters it is not too shocking as even as far back as Super Tuesday on March 3, Biden took 10 states compared to Sanders four. Also, throughout March and April, Biden has been consistently ahead in the polls leading to an ultimately bleak situation for Sanders. All of this culminating in Sanders removing himself from the presidential race and endorsing Biden. This in an effort to not have the Democratic vote split, and to bring their supporters together to defeat Donald Trump.

However, while on paper this plan looks good there is quite a long way to go as some of the key things Sanders stood for are not necessarily on Biden’s agenda, such as Medicare-for-all and taxing the wealthy. This causes a slight rift which they acknowledge and “their latest joint appearance demonstrates this. The two men also announced that they’ll be forming six task forces to devise policy ideas, on the topics of the economy, education, health care, criminal justice, immigration and climate change” (Waldman and Sargent).

However, even with this acknowledgment, there is a lot more work to be done in order for Sanders’ supporters to be swayed to support Biden. “What Sanders’ movement must demand from Biden is not mere words of support for aspects of this agenda. Rather, Sanders must secure commitments that people willing and able to implement the Sanders agenda are installed in high posts in a Biden administration” (Adler-Bell and Segal).

As Adler-Bell and Segal explain, without assurance and actual action this support of policies is just merely words. In order to win over Sanders’ supporters more drastic action may be needed in the form of guaranteeing the people who support the grand ideas of Sanders such as “Medicare for All,” the Green New Deal, free public college, a jobs guarantee, and an end to endless war” (Adler-Bell and Segal). These social democratic policies and ideas were the backbone of Sanders’ presidential campaign, and in turn, will need to be fulfilled to some extent in order to win over the support of his more extreme supporters.

It should be noted that it has only been a mere four days since Sanders’ announcement so this is all in the early stages and most of it still stands as speculation and will remain an interesting story to stay updated on as it progresses closer and closer to election time. As Trump is the incumbent he only faced three challenges to his nomination all of whom have since dropped out of the race, meaning that Biden will have to win over the great majority of Sanders’ supporters in order to defeat Trump; which will be no easy task.

While Sanders dropping out of the race was a hit to voters looking for more radical social changes, hopefully, Biden and Sanders will successfully be able to work together to still implement them to some degree. This attempted combining of ideas and policies should serve as one of the most intriguing and interesting stories for months to come and might ultimately end up shaping the 2020 Presidential Election.