Bernie Sanders, boosted by his Tuesday victory in Wisconsin and a steady stream of campaign donations, will attack Hillary Clinton on her lack of trustworthiness going into the New York primary, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell said Wednesday.
"He is just hammering away at her trustworthiness," Mitchell said. "If you look at those exit polls, she has got a real problem going forward."
Sanders has attacked Clinton for taking campaign donations from oil and gas lobbyists, industries that are unpopular with the liberal base of the Democratic Party. He has also pressed Clinton to release the transcripts of her pricey Wall Street speeches, which averaged $225,000 per speech.
Mitchell said that Sanders has the financial backing and passion to make this a "really nasty campaign," especially after his Wisconsin victory.
"She has to figure out how to get rid of Sanders, and now she can't," Mitchell said. "He has the money. He has the will, and he has the belief in himself now, and he is not going to let up."
The Vermont senator has boasted that, in contrast to Clinton, his campaign is powered by small-dollar, online donations. Sanders has outraised Clinton for three months, topping her fundraising total by nearly $15 million in March.
Clinton’s trustworthiness problem existed before Sanders emerged as a serious threat, but Sanders’ apparent authenticity and sincerity has only exacerbated an underlying problem. Clinton’s scandals, including an ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private server as secretary of state and her husband’s sexual adventures with women, have led to consistently low honesty numbers.
Mitchell said that the Clintons "should not be feeling as good as they probably are feeling" because of the long slog ahead, which includes the "battle for New York." New York is Clinton’s adopted home state and Sanders’ home state.
Mitchell said that Sanders believes he can win over superdelegates, Democratic Party elites who are currently supporting Clinton 469 to 31, as well as pledged delegates, by arguing that Clinton "is so damaged, she should not be the frontrunner."