Polls Say Bernie Is More Electable Than Hillary. Don’t Believe Them.

[Dem2]

What they really show is a candidate who hasn’t been attacked.

Trailing in the Democratic presidential race, Bernie Sanders has one last gambit. He wants to persuade the party’s superdelegates—officeholders, luminaries, and party officials who can vote at the convention—that he’s the Democrats’ best hope to win the general election. Never mind that Hillary Clinton has won more votes and elected delegates. “There are a lot of delegates out there who are looking at the general matchup,” Sanders argued Sunday on CNN. “And what they’re seeing in polls is that Bernie Sanders is running a lot stronger against Donald Trump than is Hillary Clinton.”

It’s true that Sanders does better than Clinton in hypothetical matchups against the Republicans. Currently, Sanders outperforms Clinton by more than seven percentage points against Trump, and by nearly nine points against Ted Cruz. But that’s not because Sanders is the stronger nominee. It’s because Republicans haven’t yet trashed him the way they’ve trashed Clinton. Once they do, his advantage over her would disappear.

In recent days, several writers—Sahil Kapur in Bloomberg Politics, David Corn in Mother Jones, Greg Sargent in the Washington Post, Ed Kilgore in New York, and others—have sketched this argument. But is it true? Polls suggest it is. A concerted attack on Sanders’ weaknesses would hurt him badly in a general election. Here’s how it would look.

The problem with current polls that test Sanders against Trump or Cruz is that they don’t capture the effects of the fall campaign. As Harry Enten points out in FiveThirtyEight, early general-election polls in previous cycles were predictively worthless. Early in the 2000 election, for instance, George W. Bush led Al Gore by 12 percentage points. “Bush, then the Texas governor, burst onto the national scene with relatively little negative media scrutiny,” Enten observes. Between December 1999 and November 2000, as the scrutiny intensified, Bush’s net favorability fell 27 percentage points. He ended up losing the popular vote.

...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/polls_say_bernie_is_more_electable_than_hillary_don_t_believe_them.html

[Betty Karlson]

1. Is this some kind of Clinton fan-fiction?

Don't believe the polls - it's all part of a right-wing sexist racist campaign by hell-bound sluts and duped millennials who are complacent and and and it's her turn!

Bernie not vetted? After all the trouble Clinton has gone through to impede his wins, do you really think that she would refuse to use any attack on Sanders? She had Chelsea LYING about Sanders. She had David Brock trying to drive some kind of racial wedge between Sanders and core constituencies of the Democratic Party (while of course dissmissing millennials herself with utmost vengeance). But lies and twisted nonsense are not an attack?

Puh-lease...

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Have you seen all of the right wing attacks on Bernie?

No? Well, neither have I.

If Bernie is the nominee, they will have a field day with him. Socialism? Communism? Same thing (according to Republicans). What, Bernie's been to Russia? Cuba? He praised Castro?!? Bernie has not been vetted by the right wing and if he is, it won't be pretty. Anything Hillary has said about Bernie during the primaries will pale in comparison.

[Betty Karlson]

8. "socialism" is no longer a scary word. The 20th century is over. eom

[lagomorph777]

14. Bernie is a loud and proud Socialist. What else ya got?

Because the "S" word is a major draw to those who realize we've been coddling the billionaires for far too long.

Criticism from the right is exactly what Bernie wants! The more they paint him as a liberal, the more he embraces it and the more disaffected former Dems he can pick up.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. Maybe not to you, but there are millions of rw voters that can be convinced it's communism.

The most reliable voting bloc are those 65 and older, in other words, those who grew up with the cold war and hiding under their desks at school in drills in case Russia dropped the bomb on us.

[merrily]

41. Yeah and even most of them have wised up. Also, they may be the most reliable voting bloc, but they

do not outnumber all the other voting blocs combined.

Sorry, red baiting is not the magic wand it used to be. '

A healthy percentage of younger voters even favor socialism over capitalism.

[tonyt53]

52. Bingo!

I remember those bomb drills well. And you are spot on about those over 65. Voting for them isn't a fad, it is a responsibility.

[Betty Karlson]

56. I'm sorry, but this seems to be a false bingo. Based on outdated worldviews. eom

[Betty Karlson]

55. If we are going to govern the country by the concerns of ONLY voters over 65, we might as well give

the GOP a permanent lease on the White House. But like the GOP and FOX base, voters over 65 are

a) aging fast and dying off (especially the Third Way- & GOP-voting ones)
b) being replenished by "old hippies" who seem to like Bernie a lot. And trust me: they don't have issues with "socialism" because they have seen what social-Democracyy did to - for instance - Denmark. And they like it so much that they'd like to try the same over here. As in: "long overdue measures, now f*ck off you military-industrial complex builders".

[virtualobserver]

12. None of those things will stick to Bernie, because he won't cower and back away from them

This isn't the 1950's. I went to Russia 16 years ago. The first McDonalds opened there 26 years ago.

No one cares about Castro, or any of the other things that you mentioned.....

[Stallion]

15. Bernie Supporters Actually Think Clinton has Been MEAN to Sanders

she's barely laid a glove on him-there is all kinds of things in his past that she has refused to touch

[Gwhittey]

16. Yea I guess

People would vote for someone called a crock over a socialist because the GOP says so.

[Bobbie Jo]

17. Exactly...

They would chew him up and spit him out by lunchtime.

[rhett o rick]

23. Let's see if this passes the logic test. The Right isn't attacking Sanders so they will

if he gets the nomination. LOL. They would be attacking him now if they had the goods. Clinton has a ton of baggage. She has been on the wrong side forever. What would they say about her support for the Iraq War? Maybe, "So for the most important foreign policy decision in the last century you decided that we Republicons were correct and helped us sell the war."

[Arkansas Granny]

26. They aren't attacking him now because they want to see if he gets the nomination.

They don't want to tip their hand too soon.

[merrily]

48. Clinton would be attacking him TRUTHFULLY if she had the goods. She attacked Obama over

Wright, Rezko and whatever else she found and insinuated and made up the rest.

Then again, Rhett, why do we bother trying to introduce facts and logic into a DU thread? That ship sailed as shortly after Senator Warren started becoming really popular.

[Gothmog]

72. The Clinton Campaign have not been attacking Sanders -See post 58

According to this article, Sanders has been treated with kid gloves by the Clinton campaign to date. However the GOP will not be as kind to Sanders. This article from VOX has some good predictions as to how nasty the GOP and the Kochs will be http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders

I'm not sure I have the requisite killer instinct to fully imagine how the GOP will play a Sanders campaign. But consider just this low-hanging fruit:

Sanders would be the oldest president ever to take office — older than John McCain, who faced serious questions about this in 2008.

Sanders is a socialist. "No, no," you explain, "it's democratic socialist, like in Denmark." I'm sure GOP attack ads will take that distinction into careful consideration.

Sanders explicitly wants to raise taxes, and not only on the rich.

That's just the obvious stuff. And he has barely been hit on any of it so far.

I have no real way of knowing whether Sanders and his advisers appreciate what's coming if he wins the nomination, or whether they have a serious plan to deal with it, something beyond hoping a political revolution will drown it out.

But at least based on my experience, the Bernie legions are not prepared. They seem convinced that the white working class would rally to the flag of democratic socialism. And they are in a state of perpetual umbrage that Sanders isn't receiving the respect he's due, that he's facing even mild attacks from Clinton's camp.

If they are aware that it's been patty-cakes so far, that much, much worse and more vicious attacks are inevitable, and that no one knows how Sanders might perform with a giant political machine working to define him as an unhinged leftist, they hide it well.

In the name of diverting some small percentage of the social media bile surely headed my way, let's be clear about a few things: This is not an argument against supporting Sanders. There's nothing dumber than making political decisions based on how the other side might react. (For one thing, that would have foreclosed supporting Obama, a black urbanite with a funny name, in 2008.)

But it is an argument that Sanders has gaping vulnerabilities that have not yet been exploited at all, so his followers should not yet feel sanguine about his ability to endure conservative attacks. Also they should get a thicker skin, quick.

The GOP will have a great deal of material to work with and the Kochs will be spending $887 million, the RNC candidate may spend another billion dollars and Bloomberg (who will only run if Sanders is the nominee) will spend another billion dollars. These groups will have a great deal to work with

The concept that the Sanders supporters think that the attacks by the Clinton campaign are scorched earth tactics is really amusing

[Gothmog]

70. Sanders is a very weak general election candidate who would be destroyed by Rove and Kochs

That is why Karl Rove has been running ads against Clinton. The GOP really wants to run against a weaker candidate http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-karl-rove-attack

The Hillary Clinton campaign on Tuesday said that recent attacks from conservatives show that Republicans are hoping Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will win the Democratic nomination because they believe he would be easier to beat in the general election.

In a Tuesday evening statement, the Clinton campaign's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, mentioned an ad from the Rove-aligned super PAC American Crossroads, which accused Clinton of being in Wall Street's pocket. Palmieri said the ad suggests that Republicans want to face Sanders in the general election.

"While Senator Sanders tries to make a case on electability based on meaningless polls, Republicans and their super PACs have made clear the candidate they’re actually afraid to face. The Sanders argument falls apart when the GOP spokesman is trying to help him and the Republicans run ads trying to stop Hillary Clinton in the primary," she said in the statement.

Karl Rove is running an attack ad against Clinton and not Sanders. Sanders is a very weak general election candidate

[merrily]

32. It's not 1955 anymore. Besides, they've already called Obama and other Dems a socialist so often

it's meaningless.

[Gothmog]

44. Are Sanders general election polls fools gold?

These polls are worthless because Sanders has not been vetted by the media http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-three-weeks-go-three-margin-error-races-n493946

Not surprisingly, Sanders' campaign is touting those general-election numbers. "There was fresh evidence on Sunday that confirms Bernie Sanders would be the most electable Democratic Party nominee for president because he performs much better than Hillary Clinton," the campaign blasted out to reporters yesterday. But here is a legitimate question to ask: Outside of maybe New Hampshire (where Sanders enjoys a geographic advantage), are Sanders' general-election numbers fool's gold? When is the last time you've seen national Republicans issue even a press release on Sanders? Given the back-and-forth over Bill Clinton's past -- and given Sanders calling Bill Clinton's behavior "disgraceful" -- when is the last time anyone has brought up the candidate's 1972 essay about a woman fantasizing about "being raped by three men simultaneously"? Bottom line: It's always instructive to take general-election polling with a grain of salt, especially 300 days before the general election. And that's particularly true for a candidate who hasn't actually gone through the same wringer the other candidates have.

These match up polls are not meaningful at this stage

[merrily]

40. "some kind of Clinton fan fiction" Perfect!

[Gothmog]

43. The Slate article is correct-match up polls are worthless

Last edited Tue Apr 26, 2016, 02:32 PM - Edit history (1)

These match up polls are worthless but they are all that Sanders has to make the electablity argument. Here is a good thread talking about these polls http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511038010

The reliance on these polls by Sanders supporters amuse me. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/harrys-guide-to-2016-election-polls/

Ignore hypothetical matchups in primary season – they also measure nothing. General election polls before and during the primary season have a very wide margin of error. That’s especially the case for candidates who aren’t even in the race and therefore haven’t been treated to the onslaught of skeptical media coverage usually associated with being the candidate.

Sanders supporters have to rely on these worthless polls because it is clear that Sanders is not viable in a general election where the Kochs will be spending $887 million and the RNC candidate may spend an additional billion dollars.

No one should rely on hypo match up type polls in selecting a nominee at this stage of the race. Sanders would be a very weak general election candidate

[CentralCoaster]

2. 40 years in service, he's been vetted. Clinton, on the other hand, has more closets to open.

If she had been idle for 16 years we might be able to say she's been vetted.

But the truth is that she and Bill have been SO busy lately that there are volumes of questionable activities to be revealed.

[COLGATE4]

22. Yep. The Rethugs have nothing to say about his congressional

record. They supported his naming 2 post offices. Truly vetted.

[merrily]

35. LOL. That is much closer to Hillary's 8 year Senate record than to Sanders 25 years in

the House and Senate. In addition to founding the House Progressive Caucus almost as soon as he got to Congress and chairing it for its first 8 years in a row, he he wrote important amendments and bills as both a Representative and a Senator and got them passed. Hillary did not do anywhere near as well with legislation she sponsored. Remembering the American Revolution (if the parades, concerts and fireworks failed to jog your memory) remembering Harriet Tubman's birthday, re-naming a post office. Luckily for us, she even failed to get the two unconstitutional flag burning bills she wrote passed into law.

[COLGATE4]

42. Yep. He's known as King of Amendments. Which may be

why only one of his Senate colleagues supports him. He's right down there with Ted Cruz.

[merrily]

47. You know better than that. His colleagues in the Senate and Dean had nothing but

praise for him until he dared run against Hillary. Schumer, when head of the DSCC, and Dean, when head of the DNC, would not even support a Democrat running against him.

And you also know that Hillary's record in the Senate is not the reason the Party is backing her.

Let's not play brand new, ok?

[CentralCoaster]

53. Biden and Obama show far more admiration for Sanders than for Hillary.

All those senators who won't speak up, who support her, do so as cowards and/or sycophants.

Governors, too:

[COLGATE4]

65. I've never seen his colleagues in the Senate 'praise him'. They

essentially tolerate him, principally because he caucases with the Democrats but that's about it. Otherwise he's a Senator from a tiny state that neither harms nor hurts much as the Senate goes about its business.

[merrily]

67. They have praised him, and for publication. Sorry you missed it.

[merrily]

34. Not even if she'd been idle. She has never been attacked by the right as a Presidential candidate.

[Gothmog]

45. Sanders has not been vetted and so match up polls are really worthless

Dana Milbank has some good comments on general election match up polls https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-would-be-insane-to-nominate-bernie-sanders/2016/01/26/0590e624-c472-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?hpid=hp_opinions-for-wide-side_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Sanders and his supporters boast of polls showing him, on average, matching up slightly better against Trump than Clinton does. But those matchups are misleading: Opponents have been attacking and defining Clinton for a quarter- century, but nobody has really gone to work yet on demonizing Sanders.

Watching Sanders at Monday night’s Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump — or another Republican nominee — would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.

The first questioner from the audience asked Sanders to explain why he embraces the “socialist” label and requested that Sanders define it “so that it doesn’t concern the rest of us citizens.”

Sanders, explaining that much of what he proposes is happening in Scandinavia and Germany (a concept that itself alarms Americans who don’t want to be like socialized Europe), answered vaguely: “Creating a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of people on the top — that’s my definition of democratic socialism.”

But that’s not how Republicans will define socialism — and they’ll have the dictionary on their side. They’ll portray Sanders as one who wants the government to own and control major industries and the means of production and distribution of goods. They’ll say he wants to take away private property. That wouldn’t be fair, but it would be easy. Socialists don’t win national elections in the United States .

Sanders on Monday night also admitted he would seek massive tax increases — “one of the biggest tax hikes in history,” as moderator Chris Cuomo put it — to expand Medicare to all. Sanders, this time making a comparison with Britain and France, allowed that “hypothetically, you’re going to pay $5,000 more in taxes,” and declared, “W e will raise taxes, yes we will.” He said this would be offset by lower health-insurance premiums and protested that “it’s demagogic to say, oh, you’re paying more in taxes.”

Well, yes — and Trump is a demagogue.

Sanders also made clear he would be happy to identify Democrats as the party of big government and of wealth redistribution. When Cuomo said Sanders seemed to be saying he would grow government “bigger than ever,” Sanders didn’t quarrel, saying, “P eople want to criticize me, okay,” and “F ine, if that’s the criticism, I accept it.”

Sanders accepts it, but are Democrats ready to accept ownership of socialism, massive tax increases and a dramatic expansion of government? If so, they will lose.

Match up polls are worthless because these polls do not measure what would happen to Sanders in a general election where Sanders is very vulnerable to negative ads.

[CentralCoaster]

54. What planet are you on that he's not been vetted?

Are you going to tell me that the Clinton Machine didn't vet him?

Look, if there was anything to tell, Brock would have told them by now.

Vetted. Sanders. Nothing there.

[Gothmog]

58. The Clinton campaign has been treating Sanders with kid gloves

The concept that the Clinton campaign has been very negative on Sanders is simply false when you look at what Sanders would be subject to if he was the Democratic nominee. VOX had a good article on the potential lines of attack that Sanders would be exposed to if Sanders was the nominee. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders One of the more interesting observations in the VOX analysis is the fact that Sanders have been treated with kids gloves compared to what Sanders would face if he was the Democratic nominee. I strongly agree with the VOX's position that the so-called negative attacks against Sander have been mild. Form the article:

I have no interest in litigating any of these attacks here. Like any Democrat elected president in 2016, Sanders wouldn't be able to get much done, but he would block attempts to roll back Obama's accomplishments and have a chance to fill a few Supreme Court vacancies.

When Sanders supporters discuss these attacks, though, they do so in tones of barely contained outrage, as though it is simply disgusting what they have to put up with. Questioning the practical achievability of single-payer health care. Impugning the broad electoral appeal of socialism. Is nothing sacred?

But c'mon. This stuff is patty-cakes compared with the brutalization he would face at the hands of the right in a general election.

His supporters would need to recalibrate their umbrage-o-meters in a serious way.

The attacks that would be levied against Sanders by the Kochs, the RNC candidate and others in a general election contest would make the so-called attacks against Sanders look like patty-cakes. The GOP and Kochs are not known for being nice or honest and as the article notes there are a ton of good topics available for attack. Raising taxes is never a good campaign platform (Just ask President Mondale). The GOP would also raise the socialism and age issues if Sanders was the nominee.

Again, I agree with the VOX position that so far, Sanders has not been subject to negative attacks close to what the GOP would use against Sanders and the attacks against Sanders if he was the nominee would be brutal. I urge Sanders supporters to read the VOX article to start to get a feel for what real negative attacks would look like.

[CentralCoaster]

61. Most of what the Vox article describes has either been tried, or it's not going to work.

IE:

Hillary and Chelsea already tried this one:

They're going to ask struggling middle-class workers how they feel about a trillion dollars in new taxes to fund a grand socialist scheme to take away everyone's health care insurance and hand them over to government doctors.

In contrast to Hillary's baggage, much of which has only begun to be exposed and exploited.

And nobody cares about "communism" anymore.


In contrast, Hillary still has scandals emerging, the foundation, server, conflicts of interest, endless crap.

[Gothmog]

63. The attack adds on Socialism write themselves

The attack ads from this appearance on Meet the Press write themselves https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/12/why-bernie-sanders-isnt-going-to-be-president-in-5-words/

Meet the Press ✔ @meetthepress
CHUCK TODD: Are you a capitalist?@BernieSanders: No. I'm a Democratic Socialist.
8:33 AM - 11 Oct 2015

And, in those five words, Sanders showed why — no matter how much energy there is for him on the liberal left — he isn't getting elected president.

Why? Because Democrat or Republican (or independent), capitalism remains a pretty popular concept — especially when compared to socialism. A 2011 Pew Research Center survey showed that 50 percent of people had a favorable view of capitalism, while 40 percent had an unfavorable one. Of socialism, just three in 10 had a positive opinion, while 61 percent saw it in a negative light.

Wrote Pew in a memo analyzing the results:

Of these terms, socialism is the more politically polarizing — the reaction is almost universally negative among conservatives, while generally positive among liberals. While there are substantial differences in how liberals and conservatives think of capitalism, the gaps are far narrower.

...The simple political fact is that if Sanders did ever manage to win the Democratic presidential nomination — a long shot but far from a no shot at this point — Republicans would simply clip Sanders's answer to Todd above and put it in a 30-second TV ad. That would, almost certainly, be the end of Sanders's viability in a general election.

Americans might be increasingly aware of the economic inequality in the country and increasingly suspicious of so-called vulture capitalism — all of which has helped fuel Sanders's rise. But we are not electing someone who is an avowed socialist to the nation's top political job. Just ain't happening.

You can try to argue that the two terms are not the same but that will not stop the Kochs from running $200 milion to $300 million using that term in negative ads that would be very effective.

[CentralCoaster]

64. And each one becomes an opportunity to educate, we live in a socialist world with schools, police...

Ju jitsu.

[Rass]

3. Corporate Media

The corporate media usually ignores Bernie and gives him little or no coverage. The fact that he has gained so much popularity without their blessing is quite an achievement. As more time passes, more people will hear his message. Hillary will lose more independents, progressives and minorities as a result. There is a reason why her and some of her supporters have resorted to dirty Rovian tactics with a sense of urgency. Time is their enemy.

[MoonRiver]

60. B.S., Bernie is on MSM practically as much as Trump. Have you been watching?

But, of course, no pundit ever mentions his honeymoon in Moscow, for starters. Can you imagine what Trump would do with that one? Personally, I think its cool, but our center left electorate, not so much.

[apcalc]

4. The R's have ignored him mostly

They would call him Socialist, Commie, free free free stuff, nobody has to work, ..once they got done with him , he'd be crushed in a landslide, imo.

[rhett o rick]

24. Spoken by another of the many new Hillary posters here with under 500 posts.

Your observations don't make sense and don't match poll results.

[apcalc]

29. Those poll results mean nothing unless he's the nominee.

And....don't bother attacking my number of posts. I've been here since 2008.

As a rule, attacking a poster means the attacker's argument is weak.

[rhett o rick]

31. Of course you've been here since 2008. Just waited all these years until

now to post. Well bring it on.

[apcalc]

62. Been busy!

Did read, didn't reply, retired now...

Here's something for you....

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/polls_say_bernie_is_more_electable_than_hillary_don_t_believe_them.html

[Gothmog]

46. Here is more on the lack of vetting of Sanders by the media

The premise of Sanders' lame claim that he should stay in is that he is a better candidate in the general election. That claim is simply false. Sanders has not been vetted which means that Sanders is very vulnerable to attack ads. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/04/19/some-republicans-see-socialist-bernie-sanders-as-the-weaker-opponent/

But allow me to highlight what I think is an under-appreciated aspect of this whole “electability” argument.

This current situation is in many ways unprecedented, and makes it harder than ever to gauge which candidate is more electable this fall. We have one Democratic candidate who has been a major national figure for 25 years, and has been subjected to unrelenting national attacks for just as long, and one Democratic candidate who legitimately is significantly more liberal than many in the party.

And so, it’s at least possible that two decades of attacks on Clinton are baked into her polling against the GOP candidates. Nor can the possibility be dismissed that some of Sanders’s positions (middle class tax hikes as part of a transition to single payer, which he defends on the grounds that Americans would benefit overall) could be made into liabilities, if Republicans prosecuted attacks on them effectively. There is a danger in being too risk averse, of course, but that doesn’t mean there is no chance that Republicans could successfully use these positions to paint Sanders as an ideological outlier, as those GOP strategists suggest above.

Of course, the fact that Sanders is a relative unknown nationally, at least compared to Clinton, could conceivably play in his favor — if he could successfully rebut GOP attacks on his proposals and background, he might arguably end up having less baggage in a general election than does Clinton, given her dismal personal ratings. And the rise of negative partisanship — in which voters are motivated more than ever by dislike of the other side — could also help mitigate any negatives about Sanders.

The point is that gaming out the electability argument — either way — is made harder than ever by the fact that the juxtaposition of these two particular figures has created such a strange and unique situation.

Match up polling is meaningless unless both candidates are fully vetted. Sanders is not vetted and is very vulnerable

[merrily]

51. 385 posts since February 2008.

Constant lurker, no doubt.

[forjusticethunders]

6. Interestingly, I think the same effect applies to Kasich who appears to be beating both.

He's gotten maybe 1% of the attention Trump and Cruz have, and what attention he HAS gotten has painted him as some kind of moderate (lol) compared to the extremism of Trump/Cruz.

[Dem2]

9. Yep, just one little spotlight piece Rachel did showing Kasich's misogyny was eye opening

Rachel Maddow reviews a cringe-worthy series of video clips of Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor, John Kasich being sexist, condescending or simply tone deaf in his dealings with women.

[forjusticethunders]

21. With that said I personally think Bernie or Hillary crushes the GOP field regardless of comers.

Bernie may be losing the Obama coalition in the primaries, but I would presume the coalition would support him in the general. For all the mistakes and missteps POC and LGBT largely don't *dislike* Bernie, (one factor in Hillary's favorables issue is that Bernie's voters are flat out rejecting Hillary, while Hillary's voters tend to like both of them) they just like Hillary better. Trump/Cruz/Kasich would need NEVER BEFORE seen numbers with white voters to win, and both of them have a level of crossover appeal (Bernie takes away part of the angry white working class vote, Hillary pulls Republican women who may not show up in polling but will quietly crossover in November because they despise Trump)

[YouDig]

7. The polls don't mean much this early. Bernie's socialism would hurt him greatly if he ever

went up against the GOP. It's a whole different electorate than the primary, and he hasn't even been able to win the primary.

[rhett o rick]

25. So are you another of the many low post Clinton supporters showing up now? nm

[YouDig]

27. Yes, I am a low post Clinton supporter. What of it?

[rhett o rick]

30. Just odd how many have just signed up recently on DU to help the Clinton camp.

But it's cool with me, bring it on.

[kstewart33]

50. YouDig, charges of conspiracy abound on this forum.

Whenever you don't support Bernie. And you and other new members of DU are the latest target.

Ignore it and him. Welcome to DU.

[Skink]

10. Bernie is winning open primaries due in large to

Independents. Trump is too which doesn't bode well for Hillary.

[AllyCat]

28. Bernie pulls well with independents. Hillary does not.

So all the closed primaries for "Democrats only" just solidifies the feeling that she will win in a landslide...with Democrats. The largest group of voters are independents. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. If you want to win elections, you need the independents. That is why he is more electable and the closed primaries only offer a certain view of the electorate and who the people want.

[kentuck]

11. Of course, we cannot pick and choose which poll we discard?

For example, there is a poll that shows Hillary will wipe Trump out in the general? Do we believe that poll?

[Amimnoch]

13. As much as I agree the Republican smear machine would do a number on him,

I just can't subscribe to or buy in that being a reason for not voting for him. If he was my candidate of choice in this race, this kind of argument wouldn't only dissuade me, it would make me dig my heels in deeper.

President Obama was a relatively unknown, and they did drudge up some pretty horrendous stuff in '08, not to mention the whole birther thing that took years to shut them up on.

Personally, I do believe either of our candidates are electable this cycle, and either of our candidates can be handily defeated this cycle. We do have an unusual edge in that after 8 years of a Democratic Party POTUS in office, his popularity is likely the only reason we have a good shot at maintaining the POTUS office.

[Orsino]

18. Silly propaganda, but I have always viewed such polls suspiciously.

Rank-and-file Dems are probably going to break for Dems in the general, and I don't think polls about hypothetical races with unnamed running mates can tell us much.

Bernie has an edge in these polls, but "electability" has never really been defined to my satisfaction.

[lagomorph777]

20. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!

Voters want a choice between the far-right (Hillary) and the extreme batshit-crazy far right (Trump/Cruz/Kasich)!

The polls are merely highlighting what we already know. People are sick and tired of losing the class war. Trump and Sanders are the only candidates who claim to fight on our side. Trump's claim is obviously laughable, as he is a billionaire. Sanders has been fighting the same fight for generations now; he has proven his beliefs and his courage. That is what the populace knows and what the polls reveal.

[Dem2]

38. the far-right (Hillary)

[lagomorph777]

49. That's how I felt about Hillary (and Obama) long before this campaign.

I grew up in an era when the Dems were Dems (except they did love their wars). The Clintons and Obama have governed mostly to the right of the Repubs of my day.

[samson212]

33. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills

This article is 6 months old. It says that head to head polling is not accurate a year out. Head to head polls in April are predictive!

[Dem2]

36. This article was published today, maybe you should have read it

There are many links in the article, some from just this past week...

[Binkie The Clown]

37. Confirmation bias: Only believe the polls that support what you already believe. n/t

[Dem2]

39. You didn't read the article

that's not what this article is about.

[Gothmog]

68. Read the article

Confirmation bias has not nothing to do with this premise of this article. Sanders supporters keep whining about not being covered by the main stream press and one of the consequences of this lack of coverage is that Sanders has not been vetted and therefore match up polls are totally worthless.

[Binkie The Clown]

73. Confirmation bias has to do with POSTING THE ARTICLE HERE.

I read it. It confirms what Hillary supporters want to believe, so they believe it. And post it here because it confirms their own beliefs.

So the confirmation bias is not in the article, it's in this DU post. This also supports the notion that those who suffer from confirmation bias are blind to their own bias.

[NorthCarolina]

57. I believe them

because in this instance they are accurate.

[Persondem]

59. Truth. K & R nt

[qdouble]

66. It doesn't matter

Bernie's campaign will be over long before November.

[Gothmog]

69. From Nate Silver's 538 website-Do not trust match up polls

[Cobalt Violet]

71. I do believe them rather than someone the internet telling me not to believe them.

So there is that.