Before we start giving the Moderate Hero 50-state landslides, what are some conditions?
Sanders defeated Trump in 2016 and had down ballot coattails which allowed Democrats to narrowly take back the senate. The GOP filibustered most of his agenda however and a mild recession ensued from 2017 to 2018. Republicans took back the senate, again quite narrowly.
Though unable to get most of his domestic agenda through congress Sanders pleased progressives at the federal level by appointing progressives to head the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Department of Labor and vastly scaling back DEA operations against marijuana. In 2018 and 2019 nearly a dozen states officially legalized it, either through the legislature or ballot initiatives with Colorado as a model for success. In the foreign policy realm he largely stuck to the Obama status quo, launching surgical strikes on ISIS while adamantly pledging to keep US troops out of harms way. As we approach the 2020 election the economy has improved somewhat with the unemployment rate hovering at about 5.5%. Fear of terrorism is still quite prevalent with several ISIS attacks narrowly thwarted. The GOP has a typically large primary field though hoping to avoid a repeat of 2016 the party establishment deliberately rigs the primary calender in favor of a more moderate establishment candidate. Sandoval is able to eke by a victory against Steve King (R)-Iowa, running as a "Trump conservative" and Ted Cruz as the runner ups. Sanders campaigns aggressively for Democratic congressional candidates to take back the house and senate in addition to progressives running primary challenges against conservative and Wall Street oriented Democrats. He repeatedly impugns voters and his base supporters to elect a Democratic majority to both houses so that he can finally in his second term get his domestic agenda through.
