Ahead of the New York primary, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders met with Pope Francis on Saturday during his visit to the Vatican. University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato told CNN that the meeting could help garner the Catholic vote in New York.
“Even though Sanders would be the first Jewish president, he’s doing very poorly among Jewish voters in New York. He’s losing to Hillary Clinton by 20 or more percentage points,” Sabato told CNN. “I think Sanders probably hurt himself with older Jewish voters, with his comments on Israel. Think about the voters in New York: it’s 6 percent Jewish and in the Democratic primary, it can be a lot higher than that in New York City, often 20 percent.”
The professor believes Sanders could use the Pope meeting to use his advantage with Catholic voters.
“But Catholics in New York are 39 percent of the population. So what Sanders may have lost among Jewish voters, he potentially could make up with Catholic voters,” he said.
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Sanders insists the Pope meeting was not political.
“We chose not to do pictures. We didn’t want anyone to think this was political,” Sanders told CBS News.
“But it is political, isn’t it?” CBS News correspondent Seth Doane asked Sanders.
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“No, if I was really being political, I’d be in New York City right now and not in Rome,” Sanders responded. “For me, the issues that the pope is talking about are issues that I’ve been talking about for many, many years.”
Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences chancellor, had arranged for Sanders’ invitation to the major Vatican-sponsored forum.
Margaret Archer, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, initially had told Bloomberg Politics that she was not pleased with Sanders politicizing the conference.
“Sanders made the first move, for the obvious reasons,” Archer told Bloomberg. “He may be going for the Catholic vote but this is not the Catholic vote and he should remember that and act accordingly — not that he will.”
Archer called Sanders’ failure to contact her directly about his attendance “a monumental discourtesy.” The Sanders campaign responded that the trip wasn’t a calculated political play for the New York Catholic vote and they had received an invitation.
“This is not the calculus at all. Bernie Sanders has a lot of affinity for the Pope. I think when this invitation came through, he was deeply honored and accepted,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told Bloomberg.
The Vatican had said on Friday that there would be no meeting planned between Sanders and Pope Francis because of the pontiff’s trip to Greece, but then a surprise five-minute meeting happened early Saturday morning.
Republican rival Donald Trump told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” Saturday morning, that the surprise five-minute meeting with the Pope was a last ditch effort to save face in going on the trip.
“Five minutes sounds like ‘Try and get me in to see him so I don’t get myself embarrassed before I come back to New York,” Trump said.