Campaigning for Bernie in France

[LongTomH]

The Expat Crew Campaigning for Bernie Sanders in France

PARIS—The air conditioning was on at full blast inside Joe Allen, the self-proclaimed “oldest American bar in Paris,” where about 30 people were gathered to watch a video playback of the second round of the first Democratic debates of the 2020 campaign cycle.

Some just wanted to learn about the candidates; at least one person arrived in a Beto O’Rourke T-shirt. But prominently situated at the room’s center, a handful of people were there for one man, filling out bingo cards with squares for when a certain wild-haired senator from Vermont mentioned millionaires and billionaires or “bullie[d] a CEO.” They pounded their table when he declared health care a human right. They booed when another candidate denounced socialism.

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But for many left-leaning voters living abroad, 2016—and the rise of Donald Trump—marked a turning point. Democrats Abroad, which functions like a state party, sending 21 delegates to the Democratic National Convention on behalf of Americans living overseas, saw its global membership double in advance of the 2016 primary and then steadily increase, according to Julia Bryan, the organization’s global chair. The group, which has chapters in 55 countries and organized the Joe Allen debate party in Paris, has also seen increases in voter registration and ballot requests, Bryan says. Civilian and military voter participation abroad, regardless of party, increased by 50 percent between the 2014 and 2018 midterms, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

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In France, where, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, about 169,000 voting-age Americans live, the turnout rate in 2016 was 7.3 percent. But France for Bernie members argue that the candidate has particular resonance in countries like their adopted one—a version of the society that Sanders envisions, with universal health care, a robust social safety net and higher taxes on higher earners.

“The fact that I live here makes me believe in his ideas even more,” says Claudia Quiros, 32, France for Bernie’s outreach coordinator. “It was making me feel like I was going crazy from abroad in 2016, when the media and politicians were saying all these ideas that Bernie had, for tuition-free college and a universal health care system, are pie-in-the-sky ideas, when I live in a country where these things are a reality.”