Bernie Sanders won mostly Solid Red States, Hillary won Most Solid Blue States

[SirBrockington]

So how does that square with his message of far left progressiveness when the
states he won, outside of New England/Washington/Oregon, were mostly solid red.

What is a/the hypothesis?

I am interested to hear possibly explanations for this phenomena.

[redgreenandblue]

1. He was our chance to mend the rift that runs through the country. nt

[SirBrockington]

3. Do you think the Dakotas, Montana etc

Would have voted Democrat in the General? What where his total numbers in those states vs. Trump?

[Maru Kitteh]

14. Nobody polls us in Montana, lol. There's only about 26 of us spread over

147,000 square miles.

BTW, I'm proud to say that Hillary took much more of Montana than was expected! She's going to thump Trump! It may be the faintest of hopes, but Trump's negative pressure may flip a LOT of states. Montana has some Democratic tendencies. A girl can hope.

Either way, the Democrats of Montana are taking the long view! Keep working, keep pushing, keep speaking. It's the only way to move forward.

[elleng]

2. They recognize the need for CHANGE.

[SirBrockington]

5. I think the majority of Dems would vote against Citizens United

Which made bringing in massive amounts of money into politics a necessity. But then, the Supreme court ruled 5-4.
Thus the need to CHANGE that by electing a democrat. Are their any democrats for Citizens United?

I think the change Bernie was for was to eliminate the big money. I think that only happens through the Supreme Court.

[Armstead]

21. Citizens United is a Red Herring

People behave like that was the worst thing that ever happened.

But that was merely icing on the cake. Things have been horrible in campaign finance for decades. The Clinton Democrats were masters at attracting Big Money,m and becoming beholden to Big Money Power.

Bernie also has attacked Citizens United. But he went much further and actually demonstrated that it is possible to go to the people rather than Big Donors to raise cash, if politicians actually sell messages that people respond to and support.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. It angered me when people discounted Southern States Clinton won

Because they were conservative.

Let's stop this crap now.

States are not monolithic. Democrats in those states are not like their conservative neighbors.

It is time to unify.

[SirBrockington]

6. You dont think its a legitimate question?

The narrative for why he lost the Southern states has been the higher African American population. Maybe there were other hypothesis

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. I felt it was illegitimate to say black democratic voters in the South

Should be discounted because the states they lived in were run by Republicans.
I don't think this is a legitimate question.

For me, it's time to fight Trump.

[SirBrockington]

12. That is my point

The narrative for why Hillary won in the south was stated primarily as Black Democratic voters. That was widely discussed.

But I haven't heard an explanation why Most of the conservative red states were won by the progressive?

[Agnosticsherbet]

15. Hopefully, some of Sander's Supporters will want to defend or discuss that point.

[SirBrockington]

19. Hopefully

[99th_Monkey]

7. Hillary fans insist that GOP cross-over voters were to blame

Ill-intentioned disingenuous RWers willing to throw their Primary vote away on Sanders,
merely to spite Hillary. The theory has it that these same GOP voters would then vote
Republican in the GE.

I'm sure there are holes in this argument, but have not researched it enough to know
where/what they are. I think a much more likely reason is that those are anyone-but-Trump
GOP voters, voters who would have stayed with Bernie in the GE, but not Hillary.

[KingFlorez]

8. Maps show that he had appeal to conservative Democrats

Clinton is tied to Obama and conservative Democrats can clear see that, so Sanders was a good protest vote for those people.

[SirBrockington]

9. That is interesting

I did not see anything stating he had appeal to conservative democrats. A protest vote from the right of the democratic party does makes as much sense as a protest vote from the left. I had not thought of that.

[KingFlorez]

39. Appeal mostly for not being Obama

At the same time there are a few conservative Democrats left in the south that do believe in a more left-leaning economic message. But for the most part Sanders was a protest vote against Clinton.

[Armstead]

24. Sanders appeals to conservative Democrats primarily?

Jeeze I've always heard the opposite that he us the candidate of crazy leftists.

It all gets confusing when one deals in simplistic stereotypes, instead of looking at voters as people with varying individual viewpoints and motivations for choosing candidates.

[KingFlorez]

41. I've studied politics for 20 years

And particularly close in the past eight years, which means that I know vote patterns. Sanders' best counties in the south were some of the most conservative counties around, with some of them being Romney's best counties in 2012. For conservative Democrats he was a preferred choice, because he's not tied to Obama and they could send a statement by voting for him.

[athena]

42. Thanks for making this point.

It makes a lot of sense.

[hobbit709]

11. TX, SC, GA, AR, LA, OK, AL, MS are solid blue?

[unc70]

17. Or NC and TN?

[SirBrockington]

18. Related to the General

Outside of New England the ones that vote solidly blue in the General election the majority were won by by Hillary.

[thesquanderer]

13. I think it's correlation rather than causation.

There are clearly reasons that Bernie generally did better in caucus states and in states with open primaries. The fact that many of those happened to be "red" states is, I think, a "red" herring.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. All Red, except for all the Blue States. Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Hawaii are not Red States

And Hillary won Texas, Georgia, NC, SC, Alabama, and a long list of very crimson places.

So there is nothing to your premise at all.

[SirBrockington]

38. I believe outside of Hawaii I listed each one you mentioned

[NCTraveler]

20. I would ask Sanders supporters in those states to join us.

Every one of those states would gain by increasing support for democrats.

[jillan]

22. You have it backwards. Look at these maps. Contrast and Compare.

[TwilightZone]

25. That doesn't make the point you think it's making.

The bottom map looks nothing like the top one. Two examples:

Sanders has a rather solid block of red states (excepting SD) in the plains and northern Rockies.

Clinton has a lot of blue states in the West, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Northeast.

But, hey, other than that, they're exactly the same.

[jillan]

27. Of course the bottom one doesn't look like the top one. LOL! One is the results of the primaries

the other is the result of the last presidential election.

Hillary's biggest voting bloc came from the deep red south. States that will never vote blue.

[lancer78]

30. Yes,

and those southern states are punished by having fewer delegates at the national convention when based on population. An example is California has more than twice the pledged delegates than Texas, but only has 50% more people.

[LiberalFighter]

40. The electoral value of each state. Clinton: 402 -- Sanders: 136

Electoral votes of each state won by Obama in 2008.
Clinton: 264 -- Sanders: 84

Number of states won by Obama in 2008.
Clinton: 17 -- Sanders: 12

[Armstead]

23. Like Obama said -- There are no red states or blue states -- There are purple states

You have to look at each state individually to accurately analyze why one candidate or the other won. A whole host of different factors were involved, including the demographic composition, the nature of the primaries (open, closed, caucus, etc.) and the level of activism among the Democratic populace, among otehrs. Also at very localized factors within each state.

You can't say, for example, that Clinton won in some of those Deep South states because the overall population is so liberal. You also can't say Bernie won in Minnesota because it is a deeply conservative state than never elects Democrats.

In otehr words you can't generalize just based on the Red Blue template.

[azurnoir]

26. you mean like Minnesota and Michigan? but didn't you get the memo

it's because Republicans luv Socialism, free stuff , and revolution in fact most Republicans are really secret Socialists

[onecaliberal]

28. She did NOT win California. She also didn't win other states in her column.

I don't know who thinks the southern states who ALL went for Hillary are blue, but whatever.

[RandySF]

31. CA?

seriously?

[SirBrockington]

33. How does one even respond to that

If that's the premise, then nothing else matters.

[w4rma]

34. They are still counting California. The gap is probably too large to overcome, though.

But it will get much closer.

[RandySF]

35. That's assuming all uncounted ballots are (D)

[w4rma]

37. No. It assumes that late mailers will break to Sanders. The provisional ballots surely will. (nt)

[SirBrockington]

36. ICD-10 CM

F22

[onecaliberal]

43. KMFAYPB

+500000

[RandySF]

29. It means nothing for the general

Hillary will win VT, NH, WI, MN, WA, OR, HI, MI and ME. If Trump survives past the convention,I think his weakness will put some red states on the table.

[TheFarseer]

32. My take

Speaking for Nebraska, where there basically isn't a democratic party establishment, I think states without an entrenched establishment were more likely to go for Bernie because there wasn't anyone screaming in my ear I have to vote for Hillary and we are less likely to care that Bernie was an independent.