4 years ago, Sanders and Biden united Democrats. Biden needs young progressives again

Four years ago this week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ended his second bid for the White House, effectively cementing Joe Biden's path to the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders threw his support behind Biden. And unlike past displays of party unity after a primary fight, Biden and Sanders took a unique step to collaborate on a handful of policy-focused task forces in the hope of finding common ground between the candidates' coalitions.

Over the course of several months, the task forces produced a 110-page document focused on topics like the economy and climate, and Biden went on to incorporate a number of the recommendations into his campaign platform and first-term agenda.

The partnership between Biden and Sanders helped deliver the Vermont senator's supporters, including young voters, into Biden's camp.

Four years later, Sanders still backs Biden. The two appeared together recently in a video posted on the Biden campaign's TikTok account.

But as Biden seeks a second term with low approval ratings, he faces a new struggle to win over young voters who were crucial to his first election. And as an incumbent with no high-profile primary opponent to join forces with, a similar unity moment like the 2020 task forces may not be an option.

To Sanders' chief political adviser, Faiz Shakir, part of the difference now is that Biden has to answer to his own record.

"He owns the policy direction in a way that in 2020 he didn't," Shakir said. "He was offering policy directions and saying, 'Put me into office.' Now he owns the Middle East policy, Ukraine policy, migrant policy. There's an assumption, expectation, that Joe Biden has to deliver on different policy outcomes that particularly young people would like to see."

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