I originally considered “can” instead of “will” in the title but I don’t want to cloud this thread with “If such and such happens”, then he “can” win. I want to know if you think that he will beat Trump. So look into your crystal ball and vote.
Obviously this assumes that Bernie wins the nomination. Please don’t fight the hypothetical.
I’d like to see some cites that bernie has ever not been beating trinp in polls.
Yes.
Bernie is not even winning a majority of his own party at the moment. I think he’s the easiest candidate for Trump to beat. Recent elections in my state showed the GOP successfully brand a Dem candidate who aired commercials showing the candidate carrying his own pistol and sighting in a deer rifle as an “extreme liberal” akin to Pelosi, AOC, and Sanders. This particular candidate would be considered moderate/conservative in most parts of the country. If they can do that to him, they’re going to destroy Bernie with the same sort of attacks.
That’s one interpretation. The other interpretation is that the reality of a candidate’s actual views is immaterial to Republican attacks, and that Republicans would launch the same stupid attacks against Bloomberg and Biden that they’d launch against Warren or Sanders.
The question isn’t how will they attack the candidate. The question is how the candidate will respond.
True, and when pressed with the question “Are you a socialist” some candidates will respond “No, I’m not” while Bernie will respond “Yes I am, but…”
I would give him around a 1/3 chance of beating Trump.
I think he has a good chance of winning so I went with yes. It seems that attacks against Democratic candidates for POTUS fall into two different categories. There’s the type launched against Obama calling him a secret Muslim atheist who was born in Kenya but was also hiding his “long form” birth certificate from Hawaii. Then there’s Clinton and her e-mails and Biden with the whole Ukraine / Burisma stuff. I think that the attacks against Bernie are more likely to end up being the former type than the latter, and will thus be less effective. If Bernie ends up the nominee he can win as long as moderates fall in line and show up to vote. All it would take to convince them is if Obama, Biden, Clinton, and so on turn out to campaign for Bernie. If they do, Bernie wins. If they instead give tepid endorsements and don’t hit the trail, then Bernie will lose.
I think Sanders would be a good president for the USA; however, I don’t think he can win. Of course, I don’t think any of the nominees can win. I believe Trump will win re-election. The fact is there are too many Americans who simply do not care that Trump is a criminal and a conman. Once Trump’s campaign starts with the lies the swing voters will vote for him because ultimately the country has not burnt down, so Trump’s not that bad, right? Ignoring, of course, his assault on everything that makes the USA, the USA. I’m sure the Democrats will do their best to try to point it out, but really if somebody hasn’t clued it yet, I don’t think anything will make them get it.
Not a chance in Hell. Bernie hasn’t even won the nomination and he’s spouting off stupid shit about Castro on national TV as if he was a professor at the liberal arts college his wife managed to bankrupt.
Republicans will call Bernie “socialist”, but it won’t actually hurt his candidacy. Trump has damaged the conservative label so much that socialist is a reasonable alternative now.
Except no evidence of Obama being a Muslim or Kenyan was ever produced. There is recorded evidence of Bernie calling himself a socialist and complimenting Castro. So I think attacks on Bernie will definitely fall into the latter category, rather than the former. Thereby being much more effective.
It’s a tougher road for Bernie than for Biden but I think he can. I start with the states we can pencil in blue or red right now:
That leaves 10 states and 2 congressional districts in ME and NE that could in theory go either way. I rate them from likeliest to least likely to turn blue:
1 Minnesota 10
2 Maine CD 1
3 Virginia 13
4 Michigan 16
5 Wisconsin 10
6 Iowa 6
7 Pennsylvania 20
8 North Carolina 15
9 Arizona 11
10 Ohio 18
11 Florida 29
12 Nebraska CD 1
I see the tipping point as Pennsylvania- I can easily see him winning the first 5 on my list, after that it’s a little tougher. If it was Biden, PA becomes a given D pickup and the path is much easier.
Only among those who are educated as to the subtleties of what socialist means. For others its just another version or radicalism. Back in 2018-2019, I was thinking that a Democrat could win the white house with the simple slogan “return to sanity”. Unfortunately Sanders can’t use that slogan. Americans are fed up with the drama uncertainty and acrimony that the political system has become and is exemplified by Trump, and Sanders just offers more drama, uncertainty and acrimony, just focused in a different (albeit much better) direction.
I think just stating Bernie’s actual views with some ominous music will be enough to lose the election. Vast expansion of the government, raising taxes and being a socialist. I’m not sure how well he will be able to respond to himself.
Someone may want to tell Bernie to stop telling Western Pennsylvania they are going to have to find new jobs if he gets elected.
The Republicans would have a much more difficult time painting Bloomberg or Biden as a socialist than they would have with Sanders.
And that’s not Sanders’ only baggage. He’s Jewish, which will fire up the Christian Right. He may not be racist, but it’s going to be really easy to make him look like a racist. Given the fact that Trump’s only five years younger, they’ll probably go light on the age issue but the Republicans will whisper about his heart attack.
That’s an issue. DJT told the coal miners that their jobs were going to come back and King Coal was going to reign again. Of course it didn’t happen but that’s what they want to hear. But I thnk there are more votes to be had in one Philadelphia ward than could be reached among the coal miners.
Not so much coal but oil and gas. Fracking supports upwards of 300,000 jobs in Pennsylvania. Bernie can pretend that will be made up for by green jobs but those jobs will go to different people in different locations.
Maybe Bernie can energize (no pun intended) the urban vote to offset that. Maybe not. He’s no Obama.
Worse than being Jewish in a nationwide election is being atheist. He has been all over the map with his comments on his own personal religion. He tries to steer it toward spirituality but other quotes make it seem like he’s a non-believer. I certainly have no problem with that. Some of my favorite people that I see in the mirror are non-religious. But it’s a big liability in elections. A recent poll I posted in another thread looked at the biggest liabilities in elections in ethnicity, beliefs and creeds over the years. It had to do with the percentage of people who would never vote for someone who is black or Jewish etc. The two biggest liabilities? Socialist and atheist.