CNN commentator and Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avlon remarked the Democratic base was "so dumb" for increasingly forcing candidates to move to the left Tuesday on New Day.
Avlon said it was "totally conceivable" that Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton could lose Iowa or New Hampshire despite her huge leads in polling, due to the large enthusiasm generated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in the left wing of the party.
"Bernie Sanders is a function of the fact that the activist Left is more engaged, more active, more enthusiastic than at any time in the last 30 years, and he benefits from that," Avlon said.
New Day host Chris Cuomo said it seemed that already liberal candidates would have to more further left to appease the base.
"It does seem legit, though, that these left candidates are going to have to start moving more left," he said. "We are seeing patterns of that in elections across the country with Democrats, that the base is starting to say, 'You're not Democrat enough,'" Cuomo said.
"So dumb," Avlon muttered.
The idea of the centrist Democrat seemed to disappear in 2014, when red-state Democrats across the country were wiped out in a Republican wave election. More liberal voters stayed home, and the GOP took back a Senate majority for the first time since 2006. Sanders, a self-described socialist, is making surprising gains in polling for the Democratic nomination in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
In response to Sanders' surge, Clinton has moved to the Left on a host of issues to appease her base.