Would Bernie Sanders have won?

[angrysoba]

Well sure, but all we can go on is what we know: Sanders couldn't even get enough Democrats to vote for him. In a GE against a candidate who had mobilized enough of the Republican electorate and enough of the swing states in general, I think it would have been harder for Sanders to win. I just don't see enough Democrats lining up behind him as they did for the all-but-elected Clinton.

Really? I think comparing the Democrat primaries with the General Election is a mistake.

I think that if it had been a head-to-head between Marco Rubio and Donald Trump then Rubio would have got the nomination for the Republicans, but Clinton would probably have beaten Trump.

I think if we imagine a level-playing field from the start for the Democratic primary, then *maybe* Sanders would have won that.

Besides, the question is not whether millions of people would have voted for Sanders in California or other places which would have voted Democrat anyway, the question is in the particular swing states.

Either Trump was unstoppable there, or maybe a candidate that best spoke in their interests would have won there. I *think* Sanders could have been that person.

And for those who say, "well who cares? Why bother talking about this now? What does it matter?" etc...

It matters because if the Democrats ever want to win the electoral college vote again, and hence the presidency, they need to reach out to the very voters who for some reason thought Trump was their guy.

Remember that Obama won those states. It cannot simply be voter suppression or racism that led to Trump winning. It could be a case of failing to get out the vote in the important areas (which I think is partly Clinton's fault, and which I think Sanders might not have made that mistake about).

 

[wareyin]

Really? I think comparing the Democrat primaries with the General Election is a mistake.

I think that if it had been a head-to-head between Marco Rubio and Donald Trump then Rubio would have got the nomination for the Republicans, but Clinton would probably have beaten Trump.

I think if we imagine a level-playing field from the start for the Democratic primary, then *maybe* Sanders would have won that.

Besides, the question is not whether millions of people would have voted for Sanders in California or other places which would have voted Democrat anyway, the question is in the particular swing states.

Either Trump was unstoppable there, or maybe a candidate that best spoke in their interests would have won there. I *think* Sanders could have been that person.

And for those who say, "well who cares? Why bother talking about this now? What does it matter?" etc...

It matters because if the Democrats ever want to win the electoral college vote again, and hence the presidency, they need to reach out to the very voters who for some reason thought Trump was their guy.

Remember that Obama won those states. It cannot simply be voter suppression or racism that led to Trump winning. It could be a case of failing to get out the vote in the important areas (which I think is partly Clinton's fault, and which I think Sanders might not have made that mistake about).

I get that some really, REALLY, REALLY wanted Sanders, but the facts are against the narrative that he could have won the general. Florida was a key swing state. Clinton campaigned heavily there in the general, and she won the primary there by some 30 points. How could Sanders have won there? Same with Pennsylvania, except Clinton "only" won there by 13-14 points (can't remember off the top of my head). How could Sanders have won these places that didn't want him in the primary, by large margins, but wanted Clinton by large margins, places where Clinton spent a lot of time and effort, but those places went Trump anyway?

Further, you do realize that voter suppression tactics went into high gear after Obama was elected, right? And racism, while probably not increasing, became more acceptable to openly practice (for some --cough--Trump--cough)?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The basic assumption of a Sanders win is that Clinton supporters would have been more rational than Bernie Bro's: yes, he probably would have won if Clinton supporters had backed him 100% -
but so would have Clinton if Sanders supporters could have held their nose and done their best to prevent a Trump presidency.

 

[angrysoba]

I get that some really, REALLY, REALLY wanted Sanders,

That does not describe me. I leaned towards thinking Clinton had more of a chance than Sanders, but now I am not so sure. I am not trying to put this forward as a dead cert, so there is no need to accuse me of motivated reasoning.

but the facts are against the narrative that he could have won the general. Florida was a key swing state. Clinton campaigned heavily there in the general, and she won the primary there by some 30 points. How could Sanders have won there? Same with Pennsylvania, except Clinton "only" won there by 13-14 points (can't remember off the top of my head). How could Sanders have won these places that didn't want him in the primary, by large margins, but wanted Clinton by large margins, places where Clinton spent a lot of time and effort, but those places went Trump anyway?

Further, you do realize that voter suppression tactics went into high gear after Obama was elected, right? And racism, while probably not increasing, became more acceptable to openly practice (for some --cough--Trump--cough)?

I think Florida is irrelevant in this case. Pennsylvania is important though. I think the question for me is whether some who ended up voting for Trump would have voted for Sanders but would never have voted for Clinton.

As for Trump being "openly" racist, I don't think that is the case. In fact, I have not been persuaded that Trump is racist. He may be, but I haven't seen it. But anyway, it is a secret ballot. People could have voted racist in Obama's elections without having to tell people, so why the openness makes a difference, I do not know.

 

[angrysoba]

The basic assumption of a Sanders win is that Clinton supporters would have been more rational than Bernie Bro's: yes, he probably would have won if Clinton supporters had backed him 100% -
but so would have Clinton if Sanders supporters could have held their nose and done their best to prevent a Trump presidency.

Indeed. I believe I have said as much.

 

[wareyin]

That does not describe me. I leaned towards thinking Clinton had more of a chance than Sanders, but now I am not so sure. I am not trying to put this forward as a dead cert, so there is no need to accuse me of motivated reasoning.



I think Florida is irrelevant in this case. Pennsylvania is important though. I think the question for me is whether some who ended up voting for Trump would have voted for Sanders but would never have voted for Clinton.

As for Trump being "openly" racist, I don't think that is the case. In fact, I have not been persuaded that Trump is racist. He may be, but I haven't seen it. But anyway, it is a secret ballot. People could have voted racist in Obama's elections without having to tell people, so why the openness makes a difference, I do not know.

Florida is irrelevant? Your electoral math differs from everything I've read.

 

[angrysoba]

Florida is irrelevant? Your electoral math differs from everything I've read.

If Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania had gone to Clinton then she would have won. Florida would thus have been irrelevant.

 

[3point14]

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?

The definition of the word 'hypothetical'?

 

[eeyore1954]

I voted no but I also would have voted Trump couldn't possibly win. So I guess my no vote means he would have won.

 

[The Shrike]

Would die-hard Clintonians have voted for Sanders? Yes, I think so. They were an older demographic and I think more pragmatic about making sure a lunatic like Trump didn't make it to the White House.

Much of the Bernie support was from younger, more idealistic and naive people who either stayed home or supported Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. People who were really ticked off that the DNC put their thumb on the scale to make sure Hillary got the nomination did not vote for Clinton. Heck, a lot of those might have held their noses and voted for Trump, because the saner populist parts weren't that far off from Bernie's.

So, in a general election pitting Sanders against Trump . . .
*some proportion of Trump's support goes to Bernie
*there is no Jill Stein
*there might not have been Gary Johnson
*diehard Hillophiles vote for Bernie despite their disappointment
*enormous surge in the youth vote coming out for Bernie
*"can't vote for a socialist" << "absolutely loathe the Clintons"
*Sanders destroys Trump in debates because he doesn't need to worry about being perceived as a "bitch" if he gets too excited
*there is no Benghazi, no covering up for philandering spouse, no history of shady real estate dealings or affairs, no email scandal, no Goldman-Sachs speech . . .
*a lot of Jews in Florida -I mean, a lot

The main arguments against Bernie winning the general boil down to 1) Hillary crushed him in the primaries and 2) America wouldn't vote for a socialist.

My response (1) - of course she buried him in the primaries. The DNC pre-ordained her presidency in 2008. With a Sanders/Trump choice, however, those people would have come out to keep Trump away from the nuclear codes.

(2) Trump v Sanders in the debates would've provided ample opportunity for Bernie to share his populist message to the tens of millions who would never have listened to it of their own volition. They'd have realized that they could have all the "let's negotiate better trade deals" without the racism, xenophobia, lying, narcicissism, nepotism, cronyism, etc. that comes part and parcel with the Great Cheeto.

My $0.02.

Yes, a purely academic discussion, except that many Democrats are still so blinded by their own bubbles that they're seriously discussing Hillary 2020!

 

[The Don]

The main arguments against Bernie winning the general boil down to 1) Hillary crushed him in the primaries and 2) America wouldn't vote for a socialist.

I found this article linked by pantsorama to be very interesting

http://europe.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044?rm=eu

Among other things it provides an insight into how the GOP may have tried to battle Sanders - based on alleged access to the GOP Sanders playbook.

 

[angrysoba]

I found this article linked by pantsorama to be very interesting

http://europe.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044?rm=eu

Among other things it provides an insight into how the GOP may have tried to battle Sanders - based on alleged access to the GOP Sanders playbook.

Thanks. That's a good read and quite possibly the opposition research would have sunk him. Yet, the bit that also rings true for me is the people complaining about Trump who nevertheless voted for Jill Stein or refused to vote because of Clinton. A friend of mine spends almost all his time on Facebook bitching about the stupidity of the American people who voted for Trump yet he declared himself a Stein voter and someone who couldn't vote Clinton. I think I may have persuaded him in the end to change to Clinton if he felt the way he did about Trump as it would be hypocritical to be angry about letting Trump win when the only way to do it was vote Clinton. But it is the very people who that reporter wanted to punch that would have voted Democrat if Sanders had been the candidate.

 

[pantsorama]

Thanks. That's a good read and quite possibly the opposition research would have sunk him. Yet, the bit that also rings true for me is the people complaining about Trump who nevertheless voted for Jill Stein or refused to vote because of Clinton. A friend of mine spends almost all his time on Facebook bitching about the stupidity of the American people who voted for Trump yet he declared himself a Stein voter and someone who couldn't vote Clinton. I think I may have persuaded him in the end to change to Clinton if he felt the way he did about Trump as it would be hypocritical to be angry about letting Trump win when the only way to do it was vote Clinton. But it is the very people who that reporter wanted to punch that would have voted Democrat if Sanders had been the candidate.

I think you should consider the fact that this view stems from, in (large? maybe) part, the fact that you are part of the demographic that Sanders activated and spoke to. So what is probably true about your cohort - that Clinton voters would readily switch to Sanders were he the nominee - may not hold true outside of your cohort.

Clinton won the nom in no small part by appealing to non-millennial minorities and women. It may be true that they would have switched to Sanders, but you can't just take it as a given. As such I see a lot of taking Bernie's viability with the core Clinton crowd on faith; not a lot of evidence or support to back up that assertion. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that AFAIC its an utterly baseless statement right now - it's not even wrong.

 

[theprestige]

Florida was a key swing state. Clinton campaigned heavily there in the general, and she won the primary there by some 30 points. How could Sanders have won there?

How Sanders performed against Clinton in the primary does not tell us anything about how he would have performed in against Trump in the general.

 

[pantsorama]

How Sanders performed against Clinton in the primary does not tell us anything about how he would have performed in against Trump in the general.

I wouldn't go that far. Let's say it is loosely correlated.

 

[Bob001]

I didn't ask you to agree, I suggested you read to understand, since you obviously don't.

Joel's self description is a purposeful troll to highlight the concept he doesn't fit into any molds and calls himself contradictory mutually exclusive descriptors to make people examine their own belief systems. You should try it. Might make you reconsider your belief, "These are protections for all of us" .
.....

You should be able to summarize the book or cite a couple illustrative examples. But apparently you can't. I note again that "regulations" are not preventing this guy from running a successful business. If "regulations" require him to label his products accurately or treat his livestock humanely or pay his workers fairly or dispose of his waste safely or pay his taxes on time, those are protections for everybody else in the community he is part of.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

You should be able to summarize the book or cite a couple illustrative examples. But apparently you can't. I note again that "regulations" are not preventing this guy from running a successful business. If "regulations" require him to label his products accurately or treat his livestock humanely or pay his workers fairly or dispose of his waste safely or pay his taxes on time, those are protections for everybody else in the community he is part of.

Again you don't get it. Because you refuse to actually READ his examples. The regulations are designed to force him to raise his animals in the industrial models which treats animals inhumanely, causes waste disposal problems, causes pathogen outbreaks, etc etc etc....he is breaking the law when he refuses to follow their regulations and raises his animals in an ethical, economical and environmentally sound manner. It's a constant battle.

 

[The Shrike]

Among other things it provides an insight into how the GOP may have tried to battle Sanders - based on alleged access to the GOP Sanders playbook.

Yeah, there would have been a smear campaign against Sanders, sure. Some of the stories would also have had legs. But Sanders is not exactly a shrinking violet. He'd have hit back, and been freer to hit back harder than Clinton was able to, without the risk of coming off as "shrill." He would also be battling a smear campaign that had a few months to sink into the American psyche, as opposed to 20 years + of anti-Hillary stuff.

So, true that Sanders might have been unelectable, but I'm unconvinced that he was definitely unelectable.

 

[Bob001]

Yeah, there would have been a smear campaign against Sanders, sure. Some of the stories would also have had legs. But Sanders is not exactly a shrinking violet. He'd have hit back, and been freer to hit back harder than Clinton was able to, without the risk of coming off as "shrill." He would also be battling a smear campaign that had a few months to sink into the American psyche, as opposed to 20 years + of anti-Hillary stuff.

So, true that Sanders might have been unelectable, but I'm unconvinced that he was definitely unelectable.

The other thing is that the smears against Sanders would have had to go all the way back to the Vietnam era. As a mayor, a congressman and a senator, his positions and voting record were largely mainstream Democrat, and liberals even criticized him for being too conservative about gun laws in his rural state. Smears against Clinton, justly or not, were about her recent conduct as SecState.

 

[MrFliop]

If we look at the primaries and see who won what state we could get a better clue(
(Red=states Trump won, Blue=states Hillary won)

Hillary:
Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia IllinoisIowa Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Massachusetts Mississippi Missouri Nevada New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Virginia

Bernie:
Alaska Colorado Hawaii Idaho Indiana Kansas Maine Michigan Minnesota Montana Nebraska New Hampshire North Dakota Oklahoma Oregon Rhode IslandUtah Vermont Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Now, I'm not saying that just because Bernie won these red states in the primary it means he would have won them in the general but if we look at county results

We see that Bernie did very well with white voters in rural areas, small towns, ex-urban areas, and suburbs. These have been republican party loyalists for a long time. If Bernie did so well with these voters in PA, MI, and WI then he could easily have won!