The "Bernie versus everyone else" vote totalling is not just silly, it's also contrary to the data. [View all]

[DanTex]

One gratifying moment on MSNBC was when they interviewed a voter who told them that she moved to Bernie because she kept seeing anti-Bernie people on MSNBC going after him with obviously disingenuous arguments like "he's not doing as well as 2016." As she, and everyone else, knows, it's a whole different situation when there are five or six candidates in the mix.

It's also silly when people add up all the votes of the other candidates and compare it to Bernie, as if supporters of all other candidates are die-hard anti-Bernies. That may be the case with the pundit class, but not with the voters.

If you look at polls, (e.g. Morning Consult), the second choices supporters of non-Bernie candidates distribute in a way pretty similar to the first choices. Both Biden and Warren supporters have Bernie as the most popular second choice. Even Bloomberg, the most conservative candidate in the field, his supporters break down as 30 Biden, 17 Bernie, 17 Pete, 12 Warren for second choice, hardly the anti-Bernie firewall that people pretend it is. And Mayor Pete, the other "anti-Bernie" has second choices that go 20 Bloomberg, 19 Biden, 17 Bernie, 17 Warren.