Bernie Sanders looks electable in surveys -- but it could be a mirage

[Skidmore]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/25/21152538/bernie-sanders-electability-president-moderates-data

The most important factor for Democratic voters in the 2020 primary is electability: A majority of Democrats say they would rather nominate a candidate who can beat President Trump than a candidate who agrees with them on the issues.

So, which candidate is most likely to beat Trump? Decades of evidence from academic studies suggests that more moderate nominees tend to perform better in general elections than more ideologically extreme nominees. For example, Democratic US House candidates who supported Medicare-for-all fared approximately 2.2 percentage points worse in the 2018 midterms than candidates in similar districts who did not.

But early polling testing how Democratic nominees would fare against Trump suggests a different conclusion: Bernie Sanders, the most left-wing candidate in the Democratic primary, polls as well against Trump as his more moderate competitors in surveys. Democratic voters have appeared to take these polls to heart, as a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Democrats believe Sanders has the best chance of beating Trump.

Why does Sanders look similarly electable to leading moderates in polls against Trump? We fielded a 40,000-person survey in early 2020 that helps us look into this question with more precision. We asked Americans to choose between Trump and one of the leading Democratic candidates: Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and Mike Bloomberg....

[guillaumeb]

1. Trump is, and was, an extreme candidate.

And the comparisons to McGovern fail to point out that Nixon was a wartime President.

[guillaumeb]

11. Obama was not a leftist,

but the GOP called him one.

Two points:

1) The Nicaraguan dictator was Anastasio Somoza, and the GOP supported him. Google Reagan/Iran-contra for more on this subject.

2) And google Fulgencio Batista/Cuba to see who the US supported pre-Castro.

After you research these two situations, respond back and we can speak further.

[guillaumeb]

16. You missed part of my reply.

This part:

Two points:

1) The Nicaraguan dictator was Anastasio Somoza, and the GOP supported him. Google Reagan/Iran-contra for more on this subject.

2) And google Fulgencio Batista/Cuba to see who the US supported pre-Castro.

After you research these two situations, respond back and we can speak further.

Have a good day.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. No mention of McGovern in the peer reviewed article

https://osf.io/25wm9/

[highplainsdem]

2. Subhead: "New research suggests Sanders would drive swing voters to Trump -- and

need a youth turnout miracle to compensate."


Hope everybody reads the complete article.

[Fiendish Thingy]

28. Swing voters are a myth

The path to victory lies in massive turnout of existing anti-Trump voters, including, but not limited to, young voters.

This is supported by Rachel Bitecofer’s model, as opposed to the “Chuck Todd school of political theory” which clings to the myth of the swing voter.

[HarlanPepper]

3. Dukakis was +18 over poppy Bush in the late summer of 1988.

[David__77]

4. The whole of ivory tower chattering wonkitude could be a mirage.

...

[guillaumeb]

12. But that wonkitude is beloved by the US corporate media.

[Gothmog]

25. "New research suggests Sanders would drive swing voters to Trump -- and need a youth turnout miracle

Link to tweet

[Mike 03]

5. This should be taken to heart:

We found that nominating Sanders would drive many Americans who would otherwise vote for a moderate Democrat to vote for Trump, especially otherwise Trump-skeptical Republicans.

Republicans are more likely to say they would vote for Trump if Sanders is nominated: Approximately 2 percent of Republicans choose Trump over Sanders, but desert Trump when we pit him against a more moderate Democrat like Buttigieg, Biden, or Bloomberg.

Democrats and independents are also slightly more likely to say they would vote for Trump if Sanders is nominated. Swing voters may be rare — but their choices between candidates often determine elections, and many appear to favor Trump over Sanders but not over other Democrats.

[democrattotheend]

6. Interesting analysis

This is why I am so torn about whether Bernie is less electable than the other candidates. Unlike some strategists, I don't think turnout and enthusiasm should be completely discounted. President Obama won twice in part by driving up a big turnout of the base, arguably moreso than by winning over swing voters. A lot of people in 2008 said that his crowd sizes didn't matter, that it wasn't necessarily indicative of turnout, but it's worth noting that he had bigger crowds than Hillary in the primaries and much bigger crowds than McCain in the general and he beat both of them. So the fact that Bernie is getting twice the attendance at his rallies as other Democratic candidates is something that weighs in his favor in terms of electability.

I also met several people when I canvassed for Hillary in PA in the final days of the 2016 election who had supported Bernie in the primaries but were voting for Stein or Johnson in the general. Much as we might roll our eyes at those candidates and their voters, the ability to win people who would otherwise vote third party could make the difference in a close race. OTOH, many or most of those people probably will not vote for more centrist down-ballot Democrats.

On the other hand, there are certainly independents, "Never Trump" Republicans, and maybe even some Democrats who won't be comfortable voting for Bernie who would be comfortable voting for someone like Biden or Klobuchar or Bloomberg (although I think Bloomberg would lose more votes on the left than the others). So there are good arguments to be made either way. Unfortunately, all of our candidates have some weaknesses in terms of electability this year. We don't have a superstar like Obama who is both charismatic enough to generate the excitement we need and capable of appealing to both moderates and progressives.

[tritsofme]

21. Not near the election, Oct 2012, 170k+ jobs were added and the unemployment rate declined to 7.8%

[frazzled]

13. In a parallel article ...

Sanders Says He’ll Attract a Wave of New Voters. It Hasn’t Happened.

...

And yet despite a virtual tie in Iowa, a narrow victory in New Hampshire and a big triumph in Nevada, the first three nominating contests reveal a fundamental challenge for Mr. Sanders’s political revolution: He may be winning, but not because of his longstanding pledge to expand the Democratic base.

The results so far show that Mr. Sanders has prevailed by broadening his appeal among traditional Democratic voters, not by fundamentally transforming the electorate.

In Iowa, for instance, turnout for the caucuses was lower than expected, up 3 percent compared with 2016, and the increase was concentrated in more well-educated areas where Mr. Sanders struggled, according to a New York Times analysis; in the Iowa precincts where Mr. Sanders won, turnout increased by only 1 percentage point.
There was no sign of a Sanders voter surge in New Hampshire either, nor on Saturday in Nevada, where the nearly final results indicated that turnout would finish above 2016 but well short of 2008 levels, despite a decade of population growth and a new early voting option that attracted some 75,000 voters. The low numbers are all the more striking given the huge turnout in the 2018 midterm elections, which was the highest in a century.

There was also no clear evidence across the early states of much greater participation by young people, a typically low-turnout group that makes up a core part of Mr. Sanders’s base and that he has long said he can motivate to get out to the polls. And Mr. Sanders has struggled to overcome his longstanding weakness in affluent, well-educated suburbs, where Democrats excelled in the midterm elections and where many traditionally Republican voters are skeptical about President Trump’s performance, meaning they could be up for grabs in November.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-voters.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Politics

[Skidmore]

18. I saw that

and just finished reading it. There is so much hinging on media hype. I've felt this way for a while. Most of our candidates remaining haven't been camped out in the first few states for five years or building dark money pacs. Proof that money doesn't buy you the best candidate, even when it purportedly comes from "small donors" donating many times.

[Wellstone ruled]

19. So agree,

like one of our Caucus Organizers mentioned Saturday,Sanders spent five years campaigning on College Campuses and only recently campaigned on a Non Campus setting.

Our back of the envelope guess-ta-ment Saturday showed Sanders pulled the College Kids as well as the Younger Culinary,while Biden pulled mostly Seniors,Teachers,Union Members from other Unions and Minority Caucus goers.

[BusyBeingBest]

15. Every single candidate has glaring flaws that may bite us in the ass.

There's no safe harbor, so choose accordingly.

[Gothmog]

20. trump would destroy a weak candidate with a ton of oppo that has been collected

I am very worried about down ballot races. sanders is a very weak candidate and would be easy for trump to destroy. In addition to the well written 101 page memorandum with oppo on sanders with a 1000 pages of backup from the Clinton campaign trump has his own oppo file on sanders that would destroy such a weak and divisive candidate like sanders.

Link to tweet

trump had a two foot thick book of oppo research on Sanders http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach....

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers....

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

sanders was such a weak primary candidate that the Clinton campaign did not use its oppo but trump would have fun destroying such a weak candidate like sanders

I will vote for the nominee of the party but I fear that the nomination of sanders will lead to a Speaker Kevin McCarthy

[standingtall]

22. If Sanders goes onto to win the nomination after the onslaught he is about to face

Then maybe he is electable maybe not. Decades of academic studies are not evidence. There just studies until they are put into practice. Often times studies can have totally different results then what was expected once put into practice. Candidates doing 2.2 points worse in a midterm election may not be that significant in a Presidential election with turnout being much higher.

[uponit7771]

23. ✨✨✨✨SANDERS 3 MONTH SWING STATE NUMBERS AGAINST TRUMP SUCK !!!✨✨✨✨

[Gothmog]

24. Research reveals that Sen. Sanders's electability is based on a polling mirage.

Link to tweet

[ibegurpard]

26. could be

[LaurenOlimina]

27. Joe Biden looked electable.

...until he wasn't.

We'll know a lot more in week.