Bullish on Bernie: The Bernie Sanders 2016 Thread

[Tony Stark]

I don't think you can get a strong inkling one way or the other from Hillary's performance in red states or a Republican's in blue states as to how they're going to fare in the general. With the exception of New Hampshire, very few independents vote in the primaries, and so you're mostly looking at the base.

I agree. Obama lost plenty of states in the primary that he easily won in the general election and vice versa.

 

[Tony Stark]

Really the only problem that might arise is if Bernie shows up at the convention with more ordinary delegates than Hillary, but Hillary has enough Superdelegates to win a majority. That is when the grand-poobahs of the DNC would need to do some serious soul-searching. Saying "Bernie has more Dem voter support, but we're giving the nom to Hillary anyway" could get ugly. Like, '68 ugly...

As I recall, lots of superdelegates switched to Obama in 2008 in order to avoid just that situation.

 

[lobosrul]

Don't be so sure. Sanders is preparing for a floor fight.

Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic but a brokered convention means the delegates (including any "superdelegates") vote, and no candidate has a majority. Can't see that happening at the dem convention. Maybe if they are allowed to abstain?

 

[Childlike Empress]

There are 4051 pledged delegates total and thus one needs 2026 to get a majority of them.

According to 538, Hillary and Bernie have 770 and 551 pledged delegates, respectively.

4051-770-551 = 2730 delegates up for grabs.

2026-551 = 1475 more delegates required for Bernie to get a majority.

1475/2730 = 54%, the portion of the remaining pledged delegates that Bernie needs to get a majority of them.

I guess it isn't impossible but it is very seems very unlikely. In fact it seems that his most plausible path to winning the nomination involves a disproportionate number of superdelegates picking him over Hillary.

If you believe 5-38's assessment, you can see on their pretty brilliant presentation (if the data is equally brilliant remains to be seen) they think that at this point, Hillary needs 682 delegates to be on target, while Bernie needs only 639 to be on target. Hillary is overachieving at 113% right now, but their assessment means that the road gets friendlier for Bernie in the future. Add momentum. This is not over by a long shot.

Similarly you can see by the targets for the Republicans how toast Cruz is already (again if 5-38's projections are near accurate), although he only has 100 delegates less than Trump. Because he would need almost 100 more delegates than Trump at this point given that many of the rare places where he can impress with his fanaticism already have voted.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You misunderstand me. A floor fight is when there is no first or second round choice and you use your power bloc to attempt to convince enough now-freed delegates to your side. The side that can hold together without defections is usually the side that wins. There are materials and strategies being formulated to do just that. This often involves a single state's delegation and a VP pick of a "favorite son."

I know what a floor fight means. This is the crap part of your assertion: "there is no first or second round choice and you use your power bloc to attempt to convince enough now-freed delegates to your side."

They would have to be exactly tied and that doesn't look to be the case.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There are 4051 pledged delegates total and thus one needs 2026 to get a majority of them.

According to 538, Hillary and Bernie have 770 and 551 pledged delegates, respectively.

4051-770-551 = 2730 delegates up for grabs.

2026-551 = 1475 more delegates required for Bernie to get a majority.

1475/2730 = 54%, the portion of the remaining pledged delegates that Bernie needs to get a majority of them.

I guess it isn't impossible but it is very seems very unlikely. In fact it seems that his most plausible path to winning the nomination involves a disproportionate number of superdelegates picking him over Hillary.

Or he'd have to have blowout wins when all he's getting now are close splits with a few exceptions.

 

[lobosrul]

Let's assume the the GOP establishment, but pulling every dirty trick in the book;stop Trump;it goes to a brokered convention,they nominate Rubio or Kasich,and somehow manage to keep Trump from running as an Indy.(I admit the last statement is the one I find most difficult to believe happening).
How does that change the General election basics? IMHO Rubio or Kasich would find it easier to paint Bernie as a left wing wackjob then it would Hilary.

I can't see Rubio pulling too many independents/moderates his way. The man is only a smidgen to the left of Ted Cruz. He said this at a debate last month:

“We are going to be a country that says that life begins at conception and life is worthy of the protection of our laws, we’re going to be a country that says that marriage is between one man and one woman. We are going to be a country that says the Constitution and the rights that it talks about do not come from our president, they come from our creator.”

He would have a shot at taking Florida though.

Kasich on the other hand is easily the republicans best shot at winning the presidency. The odds of him getting the nom and Trump not running indy is almost negligible though.

 

[lobosrul]

Or he'd have to have blowout wins when all he's getting now are close splits with a few exceptions.

See what happens on March 22/26. Bernie needs some blow out wins then. I think he'll get them.

 

[lobosrul]

If you believe 5-38's assessment, you can see on their pretty brilliant presentation (if the data is equally brilliant remains to be seen) they think that at this point, Hillary needs 682 delegates to be on target, while Bernie needs only 639 to be on target. Hillary is overachieving at 113% right now, but their assessment means that the road gets friendlier for Bernie in the future. Add momentum. This is not over by a long shot.
Similarly you can see by the targets for the Republicans how toast Cruz is already (again if 5-38's projections are near accurate), although he only has 100 delegates less than Trump. Because he would need almost 100 more delegates than Trump at this point given that many of the rare places where he can impress with his fanaticism already have voted.

But they are already factoring in that the road gets easier down the road. If Bernie was at 100% of the target he'd still be behind in delegates right now. He needs to do even better in the demos where 538 thinks he should do well. Which is possible, certainly!

They consider Cruz to be toast because the south has pretty much all voted now. However, Cruz took Idaho which was a bit of a surprise to me. So who knows.

 

[Childlike Empress]

But they are already factoring in that the road gets easier down the road. If Bernie was at 100% of the target he'd still be behind in delegates right now. He needs to do even better in the demos where 538 thinks he should do well. Which is possible, certainly!

Correct, that's what leads to their 113% to 86% "on track" numbers, which are closer together than the naked delegate numbers. Nobody said that this would be easy for Bernie, yet some have already thanked the forum gods that certain polls have been anonymous...

 

[Tony Stark]

Or he'd have to have blowout wins when all he's getting now are close splits with a few exceptions.

Well yes, getting blowout wins is what is needed for him to get 54% of the remaining delegates.

 

[dudalb]

Well yes, getting blowout wins is what is needed for him to get 54% of the remaining delegates.

And that is going to be hard.
One factor is that there are no winner take all states in the Democratic primaries;so he not going to pick up 60 plus delegates in one state the way that someone in the GOP can.

 

[Fudbucker]

Bernie's not going to contest the nomination. He won't even take the kid gloves off in his campaign against Hillary. I think when he started, his goal was simply to push her further left, and when he started to catch fire, he went with it, but he won't go down in history as a spoiler.

 

[BenBurch]

Bernie's not going to contest the nomination. He won't even take the kid gloves off in his campaign against Hillary. I think when he started, his goal was simply to push her further left, and when he started to catch fire, he went with it, but he won't go down in history as a spoiler.

He won't contest it AFTER the convention. But we are going all the way to there.

 

[BenBurch]

Well yes, getting blowout wins is what is needed for him to get 54% of the remaining delegates.

Have you looked at the margins on those places he HAS won?

 

[Tony Stark]

I know what a floor fight means. This is the crap part of your assertion: "there is no first or second round choice and you use your power bloc to attempt to convince enough now-freed delegates to your side."

They would have to be exactly tied and that doesn't look to be the case.

There are an odd number of total delegates and two candidates so it isn't even possible for there to be a tie. Unless the requisite number of superdelegates abstain to make it that way. Though I cannot think of any reason for them to do that as they wouldn't need a floor fight get the nomination to go the way they want. They could just vote for that person the first round.

The outcome will be known before the convention. And if Hillary has the most delegates, she will be the nominee. There is nothing Bernie could do to stop that. Unless maybe convince enough super delegates switch over to him. But wouldn't even be a floor fight. If that happened, he would win on the first vote. Not that it is even slightly reasonable to believe that would happen.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Have you looked at the margins on those places he HAS won?

While it looks like Sanders had big wins in 7 states and Clinton in 8, even those differ significantly.

Notice the pie slice sizes in this pie chart by state.


The numbers of pledged delegates represent the popular vote. So by the numbers Sanders has won in some of the lower population states. In the same link popular votes are listed for the primary states, (in the caucus states it's not as clear). The only large population block state Sanders prevailed in was Michigan and he only won by 2%.

Sanders is convinced the variable for Clinton's wins is the South. He predicts wins in the remaining states. But he's only won one population dense state and that was by a small margin.

So is Sanders correct that Clinton's wins are only in the South, or is it that Clinton's wins are in the population dense states? We'll see next Tuesday. Sanders is closer to Clinton in Ohio but there are already a fair number of early ballots in. We'll see.

 

[Tony Stark]

Have you looked at the margins on those places he HAS won?

Clearly they weren't big enough given that he is behind target. To get back on track he would need even bigger blowouts. And that probably wouldn't by itself be enough. He would also need repeats of his Michigan upset in states like Florida, Illinois, and Ohio (or at least make sure that he doesn't lose by much).

It isn't impossible that he will pull it off but certainly isn't likely. Believing otherwise is just wishful thinking. It reminds me of how Republicans were sure that Romney would win even though he was clearly the heavy underdog. I'm sure they made themselves feel better by convincing themselves of what they wanted to believe. Until they were hit hard by reality. Though in that case, I found it hilarious because I hate Republicans. I won't find it funny in the likely event that the same thing happens to people who are convinced that Bernie is going to win.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

A vote for a third party it defadt a vote for Trump.

I'm curious why you think the Democratic Party owns my vote.

 

[Tony Stark]

I'm curious why you think the Democratic Party owns my vote.

You can do what you want. But if is Hillary and Trump, one of them will become President of the United States. It is not possible that someone else would win the election. The only thing that people who vote for Jill Stein because Hillary Clinton is not ideologically pure enough for them could conceivably collectively "achieve" is make it more likely that Donald Trump becomes the President. If that is acceptable to you, so be it.