General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Hey it's green party celebration day! They got their wish [View all]stevenleser
(32,886 posts)The only states that Sanders potentially does better that are potentially in play are Michigan (which is doubtful since the margin between Sanders and Hillary there was paper thin) and Wisconsin. Hillary crushed Bernie in Pennsylvania, so he logically does worse than she did against Trump there, and she crushed him in every state south of Pennsylvania on the eastern seaboard.
The problem that creates for Sanders is twofold.
1 - He has no path to 270 electoral votes, and
2 - He has way too many states that are completely out of reach. Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida are states he couldnt even have competed in. Trump wins those states against Bernie with zero effort. That means that he could reallocate time of his campaign staff, expenses and his own personal appearances to those states that are contested.
So at most, against Trump, Sanders outperforms Hillary in Michigan and Wisconsin, but their 26 electoral votes is not enough electoral votes by itself to have made a difference. Plus, Sanders would have lost Virginias 13 electoral votes, so his maximum outperform is now 13 Electoral Votes. Sanders still loses vs Trump under the best circumstances.
But I think it's pretty obvious that with five major fewer states in play and easily won by Trump that were either won or tightly contested by Hillary, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, Trump reallocates all the money, time and resources from those states to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. He wins Pennsylvania easily because Hillary Crushed Sanders in Pennsylvania and narrowly lost it to Trump so Bernie has no chance there, Trump's additional resources allocated to the state almost certainly wins Michigan where it was close to a tie between Bernie and Hillary. That leaves Wisconsin. Bernie probably pulls out Wisconsin. But since he loses Virginia which has more electoral votes than Wisconsin, he ends up winning fewer electoral votes than Hillary. Even worse than that, because of all the additional non-competitive states, Trump also wins the popular vote against Bernie.
This is very easy to see. It doesn't require any divining.