Would Bernie Sanders have won?

Would Sanders have won?

  • Yes

    Votes: 23 28.4%

  • No

    Votes: 37 45.7%

  • Don't know

    Votes: 18 22.2%

  • Planet X

    Votes: 3 3.7%
  • Total voters
    81
angrysoba said:
Trump spoke the language of those voters better than Clinton did and I think the appeals to breaking the glass ceiling or whatever were preaching to the choir.
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IMHO, this was part of the 'branding' problem in the election.

"Break the glass ceiling " = it's about clinton's career
"Make America great again" = it's about America (it might be BS,but it's at least nominally about America)

Which of those two slogans appeals to the rust belt? How would sanders have campaigned? (Probably not in a way that was "it's about me")
 
I said this numerous times before he even lost the primary. Practically everyone who was for Clinton would have chosen Sanders over Trump and Sanders was more populist and would have gotten higher turnout and some of the people who voted Trump because they hated Clinton.
 
thaiboxerken said:
https://thinkprogress.org/2016-a-case-study-in-voter-suppression-258b5f90ddcd#.qywos59wm

The fact that VoterID laws were passed is evidence of voter suppression.
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Well, okay, but my request was not so much for evidence of voter suppression but evidence that "voter suppression played a part in Clinton losing states that she otherwise would have won".

I think that the article does suggest at least Wisconsin could fall under that category. However, with the state only won by 30,000 votes, would that number have voted for Sanders making the voter suppression irrelevant?

If, for example, Sanders had won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that would have been 46 electoral college votes.

Trump's final total of 304 - 46 = 258
Clinton's final total 227 + Sanders's extra 46 votes = Victory.

The question here is who in those states thought that voting Clinton would be a good thing but that they couldn't vote for Sanders?

And if Sanders was running, who among those who voted for Trump may have voted for Sanders?

I don't know the answer but anecdotal evidence tells me that at least 2(!) people who I know from Michigan would have voted for Sanders, one of whom voted for Trump and the other decided not to vote at all because he thought a choice between Trump and Clinton was no choice at all.
 
I don't understand the question. Are we assuming he wins the primary? Then the electorate is not the same as the one that voted in November. Are we assuming same primary outcome but Clinton gets hit by a bus and he takes over? Do we factor in the pall placed over his nomination in that case?
 
BobTheCoward said:
I don't understand the question. Are we assuming he wins the primary?
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Yes.

BobTheCoward said:
Then the electorate is not the same as the one that voted in November.
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Yes, it is. Why wouldn't it be?

BobTheCoward said:
Are we assuming same primary outcome but Clinton gets hit by a bus and he takes over?
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No.

BobTheCoward said:
Do we factor in the pall placed over his nomination in that case?
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No need for that.
 
angrysoba said:
Yes.



Yes, it is. Why wouldn't it be?
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It seems like a problematic hypothetical. So, we are assuming the people are more amenable to his views than they actually are. But we are not defining the extent of the change. We can make them so amenable that he captures 99% of the popular vote. If people were more amenable to Trump he could have won the popular vote.

What am I missing?
 
Mumbles said:
Maybe.


Hillary won the popular vote, after all. But there's no use crying over things...
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Popular votes, plural. The distinction is important, here. Sanders would likely have won the same popular votes that Hillary won, in the deep blue urban enclaves.

The question is whether he would have won the popular votes he needed, in the swing states Hillary failed to effectively contest.
 
BobTheCoward said:
It seems like a problematic hypothetical. So, we are assuming the people are more amenable to his views than they actually are. But we are not defining the extent of the change. We can make them so amenable that he captures 99% of the popular vote. If people were more amenable to Trump he could have won the popular vote.

What am I missing?
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Argumemnon said:
I think that Bob's point is that in order for Sanders to win the primaries we have to assume that the electorate has a different view than it has in reality, making any predictions of his performance against Trump speculatory at best.
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Ah! Okay, I get it. Yes, this is the problem with trying to do alternative history, I suppose.

If you move one piece what prevents you moving everything else?
 
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were brought up as tipping points that Sanders may have won, but in the primaries, Sanders narrowly won Michigan and lost big time in Pennsylvania. If he couldn't carry PA in the primaries, why assume he could carry it in the general election? If he barely won Michigan in the primaries, why assume he could tip it in the general? Yes, he won Wisconsin by 14%, but without PA, he still would have lost. And recall, he couldn't win the primaries with no negative campaigning against him. Why assume that the GOP would have continued to support him had he won the primary?
 
What have we learned in the past three months that makes this question worth rehashing?
 
wareyin said:
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were brought up as tipping points that Sanders may have won, but in the primaries, Sanders narrowly won Michigan and lost big time in Pennsylvania.
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He also won Wisconsin

If he couldn't carry PA in the primaries, why assume he could carry it in the general election? If he barely won Michigan in the primaries, why assume he could tip it in the general? Yes, he won Wisconsin by 14%, but without PA, he still would have lost.
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Primaries are for the members of the party. While Wisconsin and Michigan are open, that doesn't mean folks came out for the primary. Clinton got more votes in the GE from Wisconsin than there were votes in the Dem primary.

And recall, he couldn't win the primaries with no negative campaigning against him. Why assume that the GOP would have continued to support him had he won the primary?
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fair point. he also didn't have the cumulative effect of a 30 year smear campaign against him. Burn out and disinterest hurt Clinton badly. Maybe a candidate with less perceived baggage and the full resources of the DNC would have derailed the Trump Train's populism.

But, this is all just idle specualtion. I try to imagine a world without hyoptheticals
 
Argumemnon said:
I think that Bob's point is that in order for Sanders to win the primaries we have to assume that the electorate has a different view than it has in reality, making any predictions of his performance against Trump speculatory at best.
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Didn't Hillary secure a substantial number of superdelegates before the primaries even began? It wasn't just a question of the electorate. It was a question of whether the party leadership were actually interested in having a horse race.

I thought the biggest thing to come out of the Russian 'hacking' was the revelation that no, they weren't interested in having a horse race.
 
Donal said:
He also won Wisconsin
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I realize that, and said he did. But to win the general, he would have had to win every state Clinton won, plus those three. Not just one of the three.



Primaries are for the members of the party. While Wisconsin and Michigan are open, that doesn't mean folks came out for the primary. Clinton got more votes in the GE from Wisconsin than there were votes in the Dem primary.



fair point. he also didn't have the cumulative effect of a 30 year smear campaign against him. Burn out and disinterest hurt Clinton badly. Maybe a candidate with less perceived baggage and the full resources of the DNC would have derailed the Trump Train's populism.

But, this is all just idle specualtion. I try to imagine a world without hyoptheticals
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It is all idle speculation, I agree. We could also argue that Sanders refusing to concede even after it was clear he could not win the nomination hurt Clinton, and that even after he finally began to support Clinton, he did so half-heartedly. Had Sanders not wounded Clinton in the eyes of his supporters, and had he been enthusiastic about his support after she secured the nomination, perhaps we would have had fewer Sanders or bust voters. That alone may have been enough to tip the election by the necessary 1% in those three states to give Clinton a victory.
 
theprestige said:
Didn't Hillary secure a substantial number of superdelegates before the primaries even began? It wasn't just a question of the electorate.
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Yes, I thought about that after posting. However I wonder if those superdelegates would've changed their vote if Bernie had a substantial advantage halfway through the primaries.

It was a question of whether the party leadership were actually interested in having a horse race.

I thought the biggest thing to come out of the Russian 'hacking' was the revelation that no, they weren't interested in having a horse race.
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There's no question that the Democratic party seriously misread the political situation.
 
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