The DNC removed the Sanders team’s access to the voter files as part of its investigation into the data breach, but said it would restore access Saturday.
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In a statement shortly after midnight, the Sanders campaign said the DNC “capitulated and agreed to reinstate Sen”.
What timing: Just before the final Democratic presidential debate of the year, tensions suddenly are boiling between front-runner Hillary Clinton and chief rival Bernie Sanders.
“What we were asking for, that they had been refusing to provide us with, is who on the Sanders campaign accessed the information, what information they accessed, and that they weren’t able to get access to it and manipulate that”, Wasserman Schultz said.
Based on this information, we are restoring the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file, but will continue to investigate to ensure that the data that was inappropriately accessed has been deleted and is no longer in possession of the Sanders campaign.
“The Sanders campaign doesn’t have anything other than bluster at the moment that they can put out there”, she said on CNN.
The suspension was a slap to Sanders’ hopes of scoring an upset over Clinton for the Democratic nomination because the database features information on voters nationwide, and candidates use it to plan strategy as they vie to replace Barack Obama.
Sanders’ campaign fired a worker involved in the data breach and campaign manager Jeff Weaver admitted that the worker’s actions were “unacceptable”.
But the DNC charged that “multiple staffers” from the Sanders campaign downloaded information that they did not have the right to collect over an extended period. Transparency at the DNC is essential.
Revelations that campaign workers for Sanders improperly accessed voter data compiled by the Clinton campaign have thrown a wild card into a debate that was shaping up to be centered on national security.
Even before the suit, Sanders’ campaign was trying for a political edge, sending a fundraising email to supporters that said the DNC had placed “its thumb on the scales in support of Hillary Clinton’s campaign”.
The dispute on the eve of Saturday’s Democratic debate in New Hampshire escalated a tense feud between Sanders’ insurgent army and a Democratic establishment often accused of stacking the deck to help Clinton.
“I don’t think this is an issue which will resonate with voters”, said Mo Elleithee, director of Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service and a past DNC communications director.
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“The Sanders campaign stole data from our campaign”, Mook said. But he accused the DNC of overreacting to the breach by suspending the Sanders campaign’s ability to access the computer system containing information about Democratic-leaning voters, including data the campaign has gathered about its own supporters. “Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign – one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history”. And in September, protesters supporting O’Malley and Sanders, including a top O’Malley aide, protested outside the Democratic Party headquarters, demanding more debates.
For Clinton, who has a commanding lead of 20 points or more in most national polls, the question was whether she would try to capitalize on the incident. And Democrats note the entire matter is complicated and highly technical, and might not translate well to the debate stage.
“One of the things that’s coming out in the polling is that Republicans are much more enthusiastic about the upcoming election compared to Democrats”, said Dr. Lara Brown of George Washington University.
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The factors that usually predict whether a person will vote for a Democrat or a Republican – like whether they’re registered in a party, whether they live in a heavily Democratic precinct or whether they’ve voted in a past Democratic primary – are far less powerful.
