While Bernie Sanders candidacy for president officially ended on Wednesday, the race for the Democratic nomination effectively ended last month.  That’s when Joe Biden went on a major roll, winning a series of high-profile primaries, beginning in South Carolina and following up days later on Super Tuesday.

The coronavirus outbreak then froze the race, with virtually all the remaining primaries being postponed until later this spring. 

Now the question is: What will Bernie’s supporters do? 

Hardcore Hillary Clinton fans remain sore about the fact that a certain percentage of Sanders supporters didn’t back the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election against Donald Trump. Some opted to go third party with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Some didn’t show up in November. And a certain percentage voted for Trump.

St. Petersburg resident Chuck Terzian is a major Sanders supporter who voted for Clinton in 2016. He says now he won’t be fooled again.

“I just won’t do it anymore,” he says of voting for the establishment favorite in Biden. “I won’t give power to people who are working against me.”

Terzian says he votes on the issues, not on personality. If Biden were to move on certain key issues, he says he could get behind the former vice-president. But he says that doesn’t appear likely.

“If I saw Joe Biden and the DNC adopting their platform with unwavering support for Medicare for all and the Green New Deal because those are the two issues involving the survival of the species and our survival as individuals,” he said. “If they were on my team on that? Then yeah, I’m an issues voter.”

Pasco County resident Elise Mysels says she can’t support Biden, saying he lacks the vision necessary to change the country. 

A host of progressive groups representing millennial and Generation Z voters sent a letter to Biden this week listing a series of policy proposals and personnel choices that they say he needs to move towards to get their support. 

Mysels says she’d like to hear Biden adopt some of Sanders’ positions, but remains cynical that he’d actually implement them.

“I can’t trust that someone is just going to say something that’s popular to get my vote,” she says. “With Bernie I can trust. He has a history. I know he’s steadfast on all of his policies throughout his entire career. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing that with Biden.”

Mysels doesn’t want to hear from Democrats who say her lack of support could make the difference in Biden winning Florida. She says historically there have only been a handful of times in our history when an incumbent hasn’t won reelection (Of our 44 previous presidents, 10 failed to win reelection). 

Kofi Hunt with the Pinellas Democratic Socialists of America is a fervent Sanders supporter who will vote for Biden. But he’s not happy about it. 

“I don’t think Joe Biden is the best candidate, but with him being the only candidate left as the Democratic nominee, I’m willing to vote for him – but only to push the movement further that Bernie Sanders started of making a better world for working people,” he says. 

Hunt says that compared to Sanders, the policies that Biden are espousing are “just a step above” President Barack Obama’s policies from 2012, which isn’t anything for him to get too excited about. 

Although Biden dominated the primary calendar following his first three primary/caucus losses, he never won the majority of voters under 45 years old.  Hunt, 37, says what young and left-leaning voters want are solutions.

“They want health care for everyone. They want debt free college for everyone. They want a Green New Deal to solve -not poke at – the climate crisis. That’s what Bernie Sanders is offering.”

But the majority of Democratic-primary voters weren’t buying it – at least when it became a two-person race after candidates like Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race. 

Although Sanders will no longer compete in future Democratic presidential primary elections, the Vermont Senator says he’ll keep his name on the ballot to amass as many delegates as possible at the Democratic Convention to have influence over the party platform.