In the first place I have to apologize if I as a European am not familiar with all the intricacies of U.S. politics, but that is the reason why I am posting this question here where apparently quite a lot of readers are U.S. citizens.
My impression already in the last election was that if Bernie Sanders hadn’t deviated scores of more left-leaning Democrats, Hillary Clinton would have won. Even after the primaries when Clinton was elected, the Clinton-Sanders polarization carried on strongly and turned Democrats into non-voters instead of the Dems trying to stand together.
Now it seems to me as if the same scheme is emerging, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are each compiling a large enough followership that effectively no single Democratic candidate will have sufficient support in the Party with the danger of this being again carried through the primaries into the election. This opposed to Republicans who are apparently willing to support their candidate come hell or high water (and no, this is not a Trump discussing thread, even though I’d love to) and therefore will most likely have a unified party line.
No – both candidates are exciting and inspiring lots of voters who otherwise might not vote at all. It’s possible that there could be a sequence of events in which Warren’s or Sanders’ actions might damage the eventual nominee, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to conclude this at present (and not even close). Both have strongly insisted they will support the eventual nominee.
I think they are, particularly Sanders. The Berniebots defeated Hillary more than Donald did. If he had withdrawn gracefully and lent his support well before the convention, things may have turned out differently. With Warren, her saying that nobody is going to give up their current insurance is a death sentence for her hopes. Nominate someone who is more centrist and we win. Nominate a radical and we lose.
I don’t have it handy, but I’m pretty sure 538 showed that the number of Bernie voters who didn’t vote for Hillary (either by staying home or voting for another candidate) would’ve had no impact if they all voted for Hillary.
This is silly. Hillary was a poor and uncharismatic candidate. If she had added Bernie to the ticket and had him campaigned hard in the mid-west she would have won. Instead she added a VP that added nothing to the campaign.
She ran a terrible campaign against a horrible person and lost mostly on her own lack of merit.
As **enalzi **points out the smallish number of Bernie voters who sadly stayed home, wouldn’t have changed the electoral vote.
The berniebro thing is silly and should be dropped.
Clinton’s loss is attributable to a multitude of things, so it’s impossible to say any one thing cost her the election.
That said, I’m confident that a regression analysis would show that a major factor was that large numbers of black voters who turned out for Obama stayed home for Clinton. An equal turnout in those rust belt states she lost would have turned them to her.
Sanders did worse among black voters than Clinton. His candidacy was not the cause. The result would have been the same no matter when he left the race.
That lesson should be in every candidate’s head for 2020. Pete Buttigieg polled at 0% among black voters in South Carolina. 0%. Please, Pete, get out now. And the rest of you need to do better.
Joe Biden, you’ve got the black vote. Now do better in every other way.
Whether the Democratic Party actually comes together next year is more based on whether the defeated primary candidates will energize their supporters to defeat Trump, or whether they will be sore losers; rather than having multiple candidates at this point in the race.
Doubtful. In Pennsylvania, 2.6 million registered voters stayed home on Election Day. It seems safe to say that 100,000s of these were voters who preferred Sanders over either Clinton or Trump. Clinton lost PA by 46,000 votes.
But this is NOT to blame the loss on Berniebros. The election was so close, that any of a wide variety of minor changes would have swung it the other way. And X supporters might not have voted for Y for almost any (X,Y) pairing.
And as Exapno Mapcase implies, Trump would have had an even easier time defeating Sanders.
… I’ve come full-circle to agree with Mr. Mapcase: At this point Joe Biden is, by far, our best chance. Stay healthy, Joe!
Sanders wouldn’t take it. And it is a rare thing to add a veep that campaigned strongly against you (one that runs for a month and drops out, yes, that happens).
538 disagrees and yes, the small number who voted for indy or stayed home could have won Hillary the election, it was that close. (The big loser for Clinton was the Comey memo it seems)
The issue with the berniebros is that they did pass on fake news and attacks generated by the kremlin. That is a fact. The huge decline in Clintons favorability rating can be partially attributed to that hate & lie campaign. And, they didnt stop even after Bernie conceded.
It’s a lot more complex than just “pick a moderate candidate and you win”. There’s a million ways to analyze it.
For example, let’s say hypothetically I think Warren is the best possible Dem candidate. Screw the polls, I think when it comes down to a choice next November, Warren is the Dems’ best chance to excite the base and get the most people to the ballot box to defeat Trump. So I look at the field of Dem candidates and think, “hey if Bernie dropped out most of his support would go to Warren and she’d win in a walk”. So from that perspective, Bernie is in effect helping Trump by giving a non-Warren candidate the nomination, but Warren is not.
Just let the process play out, let the Dems collectively choose who they want the nominee to be. Then vote blue.
I don’t know if you can necessarily blame Bernie and Warren for the Balkanization of the electorate, but I think that this Balkanization (if I may use the term) is a growing concern. A growing concern of mine is that if Bernie or Warren wins the nomination somehow, it is increasingly likely that there will be a third party challenger that will either be a billionaire or a proxy that is funded by a billionaire’s club.
It’s not just the increase in taxes that both Sanders and Warren are promising to deliver; both candidates are aiming at regulations as well, which is not something I’m opposed to. But Warren has even talked about the break up of big tech firms, and that’s just asking to get taken down by Silicon Valley big shots.
In fact, in just the past few weeks, Bill Gates has said quite openly that he might not rule out voting for Trump he fears a billionaire’s tax. Mark Zuckerberg has dined privately with Donald Trump and Peter Thiel (FB board member). And of course, Michael Bloomberg, another billionaire, just announced his candidacy.
The billionaires may seem outwardly philanthropic, and some of them genuinely are, but they’re going to insist maintaining their position at the top of the food chain and if they see peasants assembling with pitchforks, they’re not going to just sit idly by.
I’m tired of this, but can you actually somehow cite that Bernie wouldn’t take the nom for VP? Everything I’ve read says that you are mistaken except the stuff from random posters trying to blame Bernie for Hillary losing.
Also, Facebook had far more to do with the disseminating the Kremlin Lies than all the Bernie supporters put together, so try laying the blame their and other media sites where it belongs.
Hillary’s favorability rating was low before the election cycle ever started. Can you show a chart of the damage caused by Bernie supporters? I suspect the real cause was Trump, the Kremlin, the FBI thanks to Comey & Hillary’s campaigning.
Hillary won the 2016 vote by 3 million but lost the game because the US electoral system installs losers. Tramp won by 78k votes in 3 counties and so took the White House. I suspect many qualified US voters were disenfranchised - do we have a count? And how many vote counts occur in secret, with non-transparent proprietary systems?
The US is nowhere near having “free and fair elections”. The GOP couldn’t survive such. Expect filth in 2020.
I have some anecdotal evidence* to support this- I just returned from the county courthouse where I filled out a change-of-address form for my voter registration. I moved across town recently to a new zip code and district(s). They told me they are being flooded with voter registrations. I consider this good news because I don’t believe Trump is going to gain any voters compared to 2016, especially after the impeachment inquiry- wherever it may lead. He has his core group of followers and that is it. In my opinion, of course.
I think it’s far too early to make any predictions about who the Dems will nominate, but I believe they will come together to back that candidate.
The OPs question assumes that Biden, or less likely Buttigieg, is all but assured of the nomination. That being said, and since others have shared anecdotes, here is one in support of the OPs hypothesis. I have some close family members, far left types, who have told me they see no difference between Biden, Buttigieg, and Trump. These people cite the old saying of “they’re all the same.” Whether or not there are enough people of this mindset in the upper midwest (I’m in Texas where they won’t make a difference) is a difficult question to answer.
On the other hand, Biden does have significant weaknesses, and unlike Warren his weaknesses seem to be more difficult to address. First there is his Trump nickname of Sleepy Uncle Joe. He really does seem to lack the physical stamina for a long hard fought campaign. That’s going to be difficult if not impossible to fix. Then there is the whole Ukraine thing which Lindsey Graham is currently working on turning into Hillary’s emails part II. Biden is going to have to come up with a way to address both of these issues in a way to reassure those upper midwest voters. I haven’t seen his answer yet.
