*"3/4of Bernie Sanders's 2016 voters wouldn't vote for him again if the election were held today"*

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Link to tweet

"Three-quarters of Bernie Sanders's 2016 voters wouldn't vote for him again if the election were held today" is a heck of a headline

Link to tweet

…

[Peacetrain]

1. I have been saying this since before VP Biden got into the race... that Sen Warren

was besting Sen Sanders in the farther left of the electorate in Iowa.. and I saw a big switch over locally.. not a bit surprised by this..

[LakeArenal]

2. I'm one who fell for Bernie before I realized

that liking a message is way different than liking a candidate. Bernie not even a consideration now.

[onetexan]

14. i would be fine with Warren who is a BONAFIDE Dem. Not fine with Sanders, who claims he isn't.

[LakeArenal]

17. Can't be fine with Warren...

For me, the Franken railroad eliminates her, as well as Harris, Booker, Sanders, Gilli, and the rest....

To many fine candidates to settle for those who were part of that...

[Me.]

3. Not Surprised

[TwilightZone]

4. No Hillary to vote against this time.

I think a lot of his support in 2016 was as much anti-Hillary (if not more so) than pro-Bernie. With many more options this time (and no Hillary to rail against), it's an entirely different situation.

[lapucelle]

5. That would explain the Sanders to Trump voters in 2016.

Link to tweet

?lang=en

[thesquanderer]

26. Those numbers indicate Sanders beats Trump in those states...

...which makes him one of the safer bets for 2020.

[lapucelle]

31. All the data shows is that a number of BS primary voters chose Trump in the general.

Who they would have voted for if BS had made it to the general is sheer speculation. Among the most glaring assumptions is that BS would have continued to get the kid glove treatment from Republican operatives.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

https://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

In addition, WI and MI had open primaries, so determining exactly who voted BS is problematic.

As for PA, I spent weekends for almost two months before the general election traveling to PA to help voters who had been purged from the polls to re-register and to devise voting plans with marginalized voters and the working poor to try to ensure that they were able to get to the polls on election day.

The 2016 general was the first presidential election after the Roberts Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. I saw first hand, sitting at their kitchen tables that for people in some communities, exercising the franchise is a genuinely difficult task.

[thesquanderer]

32. re: "Who they would have voted for if BS had made it to the general is sheer speculation. "

I agree we can't assume that 100% of the Sanders primary voters would have voted for him in the general. But look at those numbers. If only fewer than half stuck with Sanders in those states, he'd have flipped those states. Actually quite a bit fewer than half (even fewer than a quarter in Michigan).

And I do see your point about the complication of open primaries in MI and WI but remember that Trump did not have the nomination wrapped up at that point. To the extent that non-Dems chose to vote for Sanders in the Dem primary, these were very unlikely to be Trump fans, since at that point in time, Trump still needed his supporters to vote for him in the Republican primary (in fact, he lost Wisconsin). The fact that they chose to vote for Sanders rather than any of the viable options available to them in the Republican primary means that they probably actually liked Sanders better than any of the available Republican options and would have been inclined to vote for him in the general. (And again, he only needed fewer than half to stick with him to have flipped the states.)

[lapucelle]

34. I wouldn't assume anything. I would simply look at the data.

And the data shows that if BS primary voters in those three states had voted for the Democratic nominee in the general election, Trump wold not be in the White House and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would not be on the Supreme Court.

That is a fact, not an assumption built on other assumptions, and history will take note of it.

[thesquanderer]

35. True that if every BS voted had voted for HRC, she'd have won. BUT...

...Bernie was bringing new voters into the primaries (as well as, as you alluded to, party-crossers in open primaries). These voters did not necessarily have any prior allegiance to the Dem party (or, obviously, any attachment to HRC). Some of these were never going to vote for HRC. But they had a high likelihood of voting for Sanders in November if he had been the nominee. So unless HRC supporters defected to Trump in similar number, that would give Sanders the win. (And HRC supporters would have been unlikely to defect, since Sanders would still have been better than Trump to virtually all HRC or traditional Dem voters.)

The point is, these weren't "Dem voters who abandoned the party in November" -- these were people who had not traditionally been Dem voters, who came in to vote for Sanders. They're not turncoats, because they weren't already Dems to begin with. We kept some of them. We would have kept more of them with Sanders as the nominee. I think that much is self-evident. The variable is really how many HRC supporters would have NOT voted for Sanders had he been the nominee.

And the fact is, there's always some loss of supporters of primary opponents. A similar percentage of Hillary voters defected away from Obama in 2008. I don't thinks she brought in as many new voters dedicated to her as Bernie did in 2016, but she lost a similar amount anyway, probably because McCain was a more appealing Republican candidate than Trump, and possibly because of some racism, and possibly because HRC was pretty hard on Obama in the primaries. In fact, I'd say the Hillary attacks on Obama were more aggressive than the Bernie attacks on Hillary.

[lapucelle]

38. I was very active in 2008, and I don't agree with you at all.

By April 2016, BS surrogates were making fools of themselves shrieking things like "corporate Democrat whores" at large public gatherings with the press in tow. (It is admirable that the episode was condemned by BS the following day, but the fact that it happened at all is emblematic of what elements of the campaign culture had devolved into.)

Many BS delegates poisoned the atmosphere at our convention and in many respects ruined what should have been a very proud moment for our party as we nominated the first woman candidate from a major party for the presidency. Can you imagine the outcry if disaffected Hillary supporters / delegates had done that when our party nominated the first African American candidate back in 2008?

And in November 2016 with the fate of the country at stake, former BS surrogates (who are now working for his present campaign) were gleefully touting their own third party votes and encouraging others to do the same.

No, 2008 was nothing like 2016.

[LakeArenal]

18. I agree. The entrenced and cultivated hatred was/is real..

[JI7]

24. 2016 was all about hatred against one woman .

[thesquanderer]

25. Right. If he were currently running 1-on-1 against Hillary, prob near 100% would...

...vote for him again.

It's silly to read a lot into "3/4 won't vote for him again" when he has over 20 other competitors (and a half dozen or so "serious" ones) instead of one.

[TwilightZone]

30. "It's silly to read a lot into..."

Not sure I'd agree. The argument of some has been that Sanders supporters are uniquely loyal to him and wouldn't be amenable to other candidates.

Assuming this poll is indicative of reality, it pretty much disproves that myth, though in my opinion, it was always a bit questionable. In 2016, for example, a lot of Sanders supporters noted a preference for Warren, but she didn't end up running.

[LibFarmer]

6. Can't wait to see BS in single digits nt

[Thekaspervote]

8. Soon...IMHO

[Me.]

9. ...

[Gothmog]

12. My dream is that sanders does not get 300 delegates

I was a delegate to the Philadelphia convention and saw how the process works. One key item is that under the rules, a candidate cannot be put into nomination without 300 delegates. https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2020-Call-for-Convention-WITH-Attachments-2.26.19.pdf

Nomination of the Democratic Candidate for President: The Permanent Chair shall receive nominations from the floor for the Democratic candidate for the Office of President of the United
States in the following manner:

a. Requests to nominate a presidential candidate shall be in writing and shall have affixed thereto the written approval of the proposed nominee and the name of the individuals who shall be recognized to make the nominating and seconding speeches on behalf of a presidential candidate and shall be delivered to the Convention Secretary at a location as specified by the Secretary no later than 6:00 p.m. of the day preceding the day designated for the commencement of presidential nominations.

b. Each such request must be accompanied by a petition indicating support for the proposed nominee signed by delegates representing not less than 300 or more than 600 delegate votes, not more than 50 of which may come from one (1) delegation. A delegate may not sign more than one (1) nominating petition for president and for vice president. Pledged and automatic delegates may sign the petition.

I signed the petition for Clinton in 2016 to put her into nomination but we have over 170 Clinton supporters in the Texas delegation.

If sanders is frozen out of enough states due to the 15% rule and remaining non-Biden delegates are split among several candidates, there is a chance that sanders may not reach 300 threshold

[KitSileya]

23. I hope so too. David Sirota et al have been making noise about the convention

Intimating that they're aiming for a brokered convention to snatch the nomination even if Senator Sanders doesn't get a majority or plurality of the delegates. While I really doubt the convention would end up nominating him, it signals that he and his campaign might be open to refusing to put their support behind the presumptive nominee when such a nominee crystalizes. Getting a clear and full-throated support behind our nominee as soon as the results are undisputable (thank goodness California moved up its primary) will be essential in 2020.

[Tarheel_Dem]

16. +10000

[lanlady]

39. same here

He's been out-classed by Warren, Harris, and other outstanding candidates.

[tishaLA]

7. I think a lot of people, including the junior senator from VT, forgot

that many of the people who ended up voting for him actually wanted Sen Warren to run last time.

[comradebillyboy]

10. I'm surprised Bernie would get any Clinton voters

much less 5%.

[Gothmog]

11. I am not surprised by this polling

[Cha]

13. Well well well.. what went

wrong?

[Progressive83]

15. I'm in that camp

I voted for him in the Michigan primary and I'm glad did. His success in 2016 completely changed the calculus this season. Now nearly every Dem is backing MFA in some form. That said, I don't think he's the best choice to carry out a progressive agenda. No matter who we nominate will they labeled a socialist, but someone who proudly claims they are one just isn't electable.

[mcar]

19. And yet there are still people here and elsewhere

who insist that Sen Sanders would have beaten Dotard.

[thesquanderer]

28. The figures in post #5 indicate that it is likely Sanders would have won.

Post #5 shows that more voters switched from Sanders to Trump in these states than the number Trump won by. If Sanders had been the nominee, those voters would not have had to switch. Change where even half of those votes go (actually even less), and Dems win those three states, and the electoral college. Then the only way Trump still wins is if enough Hillary voters in other states defect to Trump... which is not likely.

[qazplm135]

36. you assume nothing else changes

all the folks voting D vote D, no one sits out or votes R, no other voters scared of Sanders come in and vote R.

So no, it doesn't indicate much of anything, it's a complete different race and set of factors.

[ecstatic]

20. A friend who likes Bernie was very

disappointed in his debate performance. He literally gave the same vague non-answers (not to mention all the shouting). That approach doesn't work very well when you have people like Kamala and Pete on the same stage.

[Skid Rogue]

21. It won't really make that big...

of a difference one way or the other in 2020. Sanders without caucuses is hobbled coming out of the gate.

[Blue_true]

22. So in ranked choice primary voting, it comes down to Joe and Liz. nt

[Paladin]

27. Good. (nt)

[CentralMass]

29. Well the number of small donors giving to his campaign is still very high.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-fundraising.html

"Mr. Sanders received nearly one million contributions in the second quarter, his campaign said. The average donation was $18, and 99.3 percent of contributions were $100 or less, his team said."

Time will tell. He is still a strong candidate and the dynamics of the race will undoubtedly change in the months ahead.

[SidDithers]

33. Number of small donations, not number of small donors...

One donor who makes twenty-seven $1 donations is still just one donor.

Sid

[Jose Garcia]

37. Many Bernie voters were just voting against Clinton

[oasis]

40. Wow and kick