No candidate will win without the black vote.

[sheshe2]

Period.

[OneMoreCupOfCoffee]

1. Joke rendered meaningless

[still_one]

2. Exactly. Typo, back-black?

[sheshe2]

3. I just fixed it, thanks.

[still_one]

5. +++

[sheshe2]

9. Thanks.

[onecaliberal]

4. That's a fact.

[BootinUp]

6. Cant wait to see the results :)

[Cha]

7. I was just saying that when

someone was acting like South Carolina didn't count.

Mahalo, she

[sheshe2]

10. Lol....

And Iowa does.

It's a hoot.

Thank, Cha.

[Cha]

12. lol again.. ikr!

smh.

[Hekate]

8. In which case, the DNC should do everything in its power to abrogate the New Jim Crow laws

Period

[Hortensis]

42. Wherever we get the power, federal and state, we will.

[Joinfortmill]

11. Well, Trump sure as hell isn't getting it.

Although he was trying hard at SOTU.

[Liberty Belle]

13. Do you really think many black people will vote for Trump?

I'm pretty sure the vast majority will vote for the Dem, even if not their first choice among primary contenders, though a high turnout would certainly help.

[sheshe2]

15. I did not mention trump.

Fact. No DEMOCRAT will win without the black vote.

I am talking about the primary black vote. You don't get it then you don't win. The only one at this point in the race shows Biden to have the majority of their support. No other PRIMARY candidate does. I wish mine did, yet at this point in time she does not. Things will change the closer we get to the end game.

[Docreed2003]

14. And it's not just the percentage of that vote either

It's increasing the black voting numbers. If we don't turn out blacks and other communities of color we won't win

[sheshe2]

17. Point!

Period!

Thanks.

Sorry, late and tired.

[peggysue2]

36. Exactly!

I don’t know what Dems don’t get about this. The AA community & other voters of color are the backbone of the Democratic Party. The idea that we can offer a candidate who lacks appeal and reach to these communities is sheer folly.

We’ll lose because those necessary voters will simply stay home. Insinuating they ‘have no choice’ is about as condescending as it gets. The result? Voters stay home and . . .

We lose. Everything.

Jesus! Get a clue people.

[Hortensis]

44. Voting machines are colorblind. BUT AA have been a dependable

bloc, seldom varying more than, what, 10% or so in most elections? And in 2016, at 13% of the population, they were 12% of everyone voting. Awesome!

That's why the GOP and Russia are doing their best to disgust and dishearten as many as possible.

[peggysue2]

46. Another exactly

Suppressing the vote through propaganda and limiting polling places is a tried and true strategy for the Republicans and their foreign buddies. As Democrats, we don’t need to help the negative process along by suggesting nominee choice is unimportant or that AA community will vote because “they have no other choice.” What sort of condescending BS is that?

We need all our people on the same page:

Fired up & ready to go!

[Hortensis]

47. +1000.

[Gothmog]

16. Agreed

Link to tweet

[scheming daemons]

19. Winning creates momentum. He won't be polling at 0% with black voters if he wins NH

In poll after poll, black voters state that their #1 priority is Trump's removal. If a candidate looks like he has momentum, he'll start picking up black vote.

[sheshe2]

20. Ouch!

Interesting.

Thanks, Goth.

[grantcart]

25. AA voters are historically slow to warm to New faces until they have shown an ability

To win.

S Carolina AA voters didn't move from Clinton until Obama won Iowa.

Getting support from people who don't really know you is the reason we have campaigns.

Discounting someone who has gone from absolutely zero to win the Iowa primary among a wide and deep field of high profile candidates with national name recognition is absurd.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

27. AA voters made the smart move to Obama... will do the same in going for Bernie.

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join The Revolution!!

[grantcart]

29. Lolol the infantilism of the kool aid devotees who are apparently uninformed

Of the hard numbers of the Sanders campaign is breathtaking.

Let's review actual numbers.

In 2016 Sanders got 49% of the Iowa caucuses.

In 2020 Sanders was the only one with an existing infrastructure and a four year head start. That is some momentum going from 49% to 27%

Result? Sanders comes in with HALF the level support of 2016. Yeah that's the kind of reverse momentum that inspires confidence, but then Sanders has always been about addition by subtraction. Something that sounds good in the RAH RAH but always results in less support.

Like 2016 Democrats don't consider Sanders a serious candidate so his programs never got harsh examination because everyone is so worried that the emotionally devoted Sanders supporters will not support the nominee if their candidate is exposed to the kind of scrutiny that a GE campaign will bring.

So let's take a closer look at what Sanders has promised to date:

10 year outlay:

"Medicare For All" (by the way Medicare today is an entitlement that is, in fact designed 'for all')

Cost? $ 34 Trillion

Sanders Green plan ? $ 16 Trillion

Free college for everyone? $ 5 Trillion

Total $ 55 Trillion = $ 5 Trillion a year

$ 5 Trillion divided by 308 million equals an additional Per Capita tax load of $ 16,234 or a yearly cost of more than $ 60,000 per average family in INCREASED tax load.

In 1972 when an even more unpopular crooked Nixon was very vulnerable we nominated McGovern who, like Sanders, launched a series of unrealistic economic proposals (funded by a 100% inheritance tax). Result 49 states for Nixon.

Sanders would deliver a 40 state victory for Trump, but that isn't going to happen because Sanders is running at half the level of 2016 but only looks high because the any body but Sanders wing of the Democratic is split 7 ways. As the number of viable candidates decreases the non Sanders share of the pie increase. Sanders sinks, leaves the campaign in bitterness claiming unfairness even though he had. A 4 year head start. Sanders leaves the party again and offers unsolicited advice about how bad Democratic strategy and branding is.

Oh and those way over the top fantastical programs? They never had a chance of getting passed because in his long and storied legislative career Sanders has never passed any major legislation.

[Squinch]

30. Don't even bother. Their only answer to the fact that half

of Sanders's 2016 voters voted for others in this caucus is, "Oh yeah?? Well he beat Biden!"

I tried to have the conversation. Biden isn't my first choice. But all they could talk about was Biden.

Clearly not getting the point.

[Tom Rinaldo]

31. I find the argument that Sanders lost support in Iowa to be a poor one.

Yes, he did "worse" in a six person race in 2020 than he did in a two person race in 2016 I am counting Pete, Bernie, Liz, Joe, Amy, and Yang as real Iowa contenders in 2020 (that leaves out Steyer and of course Bloomberg).

There were only two real contenders in 2016, Bernie and Hillary. Iowa of all places demonstrates that people "win" by picking up votes from those whose first choice isn't viable but who do not want to fall in line with a front runner. In 2016 Sanders inherited virtually all of the voters who did not want to support Hillary, and that included voters who had hoped Warren would have run herself. Well this time Warrren did run herself.

As in every race once the field starts to narrow, candidates "win" with a combination of true believers plus those who find that candidate the most acceptable choice of the limited choices still available to them. Not all of the support Sanders got in Iowa in 2016 was from true believers. It never is with any candidate in a multi candidate race. That truth forms the basis for a compelling case for ranked voting. That truth is why in those states that utilize runoff elections the person who led in the vote count after round one often ends up losing in round two.The comparative degree of support that Sanders has this year will not be apparent until this field narrows to two, or at most three, main choices.

[Zolorp]

32. TL;DR

Sanders lost support.

[Tom Rinaldo]

34. Again, we are comparing apples and oranges

For much of the run up to the 2020 Iowa caucus there were at least 10 high profile candidates competing, in 2016 that number never exceeded two. But for the sake of discussion let's say I grant your point. The post I responded to asserted that Sanders lost roughly half of his support. That is at the very least extremely misleading because much of the support he had in Iowa in 2016 would gladly have gone to someone else had there been any other viable alternative to Hillary Clinton running.

The amount of support Bernie Sanders, or any other candidate for that matter, has will ebb and flow based on many factors, but a crucial factor always comes down to what real choices do people have? Even as we write that debate is going on in NH as potential voters do soul searching over whether the person they initially preferred has any real shot remaining to win the nomination. Bernie Sanders is one of the candidates who came out of Iowa remaining highly viable.

[Zolorp]

35. So what you are saying is about half as many people supported Sanders in the 2020 Iowa Caucus

Than in the 2016 Iowa Caucus.

Got it.

[highplainsdem]

37. +1,000,000

[HarlanPepper]

43. Excellent post

Let’s say for the sake of discussion Bernie wins and we get a very narrow majority in the senate. Does anyone think someone like Joe Manchin, for example, is going to vote for “free everything”? Not a chance.

[scheming daemons]

18. Every Dem candidate will get 90%+ of the black vote in the General Election

[sheshe2]

22. You have to get there first though.

You will not win the primary without them.

Fact.

[SaschaHM]

23. And frankly I wouldn't be so quick to pretend our support is guaranteed.

We're not voting for Trump and the Dem nominee is going to get 90% of those voting. However, if overall turnout is below what Hillary got, Trump is going to get 4 more years.

And before someone says "Then they deserve Trump." We've been through worse. We've gotten worse when showing up and filling the gap left by white voters fleeing to the GOP. Four more years of Trump is going to be hell, but frankly, we were facing imminent and what felt like imminent dangers before voters put that moron in the white house.

[Meadowoak]

26. +1

[RockRaven]

28. It's not just about percentage, it is also about turnout.

There are more votes to be had (in absolute numbers) amongst EVERY demographic, not just black voters, by changing turnout than there are by changing minds.

[Sunsky]

39. Yes but

90% of 500 is less than 90% of 5000. Turnout in the black community is the key.
Who will inspire us to turnout in numbers needed to defeat Trump, retake the Senate and keep the House?

[scheming daemons]

40. Frankly, the candidate that most effectively goes after Trump

This is why Steyer is up to 18% in polls in SC. It is why Bloomberg is growing support.

[Sunsky]

41. I agree 💯

That's what I'm looking for. Honestly, I care about bread and butter issues but, what good is the best plan if you're not in the position/ Whitehouse to implement them?
#1 We need to get Trump out of the Whitehouse. Therefore, we need someone who isn't afraid to go after him. We know he's going to fight dirty and now he has the arsenal of the federal government to his disposal.

[jcmaine72]

21. The absolute truth.

[sheshe2]

24. Yep.

[Tom Rinaldo]

33. 2016 proved your point, especially in regards to winning the nomination

It's possible that someone may win the Democratic nomination without the support of a majority of black voters, or even of a plurality of black voters, but they will at the very minimum need to remain competitive at winning the support of black voters. They can't be blown out of the water in Southern primaries and then expect to win the national nomination.

[highplainsdem]

38. Exactly, sheshe!

[pecosbob]

45. IMO female turnout will determine both the candidate and the general election winner

If female voters stay home in the general we lose, period. Females comprise a majority among Democratic voters and among non-voters as well.

[Gothmog]

48. sanders' problems with African American voters is not going to to away

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

49. Bernie Sanders Support with Black Voters Cratered by More Than Half in a Week

Link to tweet

Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders saw his support among black voters crater by more than half in a national poll amid a roiling controversy over his decision to brag about an endorsement by comic Joe Rogan, and stand by it after the comic’s history of bigoted remarks emerged.

Sanders was enjoying a bit of a surge with black voters in the weekly Economist/YouGov poll, going from 12 percent three weeks ago to 17 percent the following week in a poll that was taken two days after Sanders tweeted a video of Rogan praising the candidate’s consistency and saying he would “probably” vote for Sanders.

But in the most recent poll, taken Sunday through Tuesday of this week, Sanders’ support among black voters has plunged to eight percent.

There’s no way of telling exactly what caused the swing, but the Rogan controversy began to erupt just before last week’s poll was taken, as past comments by Rogan — including a clip in which he compared a black neighborhood to the fictional Planet of the Apes — began circulating, and the Sanders campaign responded by standing by their embrace of the endorsement in spite of those comments.....

Elsewhere in the same poll, former Vice President Joe Biden maintained a massive lead among black voters, but his support did slip slightly, from 46 to 43 percent, while former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg — who has spent over a quarter of a billion dollars on ads so far — surged from three to 11 percent, and Mayor Pete ticked up three points with black voters — from one percent to four. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was the only other candidate in double digits with black voters, maintaining 14 percent in both polls.