5 things Bernie Sanders must do to win in South Carolina

[TexasTowelie]

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC -- A glance across the crowd that came to see Bernie Sanders’ first official presidential campaign stop in South Carolina revealed one of his biggest challenges.

The 1,600 people who turned out for his rally in North Charleston on Thursday were as passionate as the crowds that flocked to Sanders during his 2016 run, when the little-known democratic socialist from Vermont finished as a surprisingly strong second — nationally, at least — to Hillary Clinton.

But in a state whose Democratic voters are heavily African-American, the crowd was mostly white. That contrast could dash Sanders’ 2020 hopes, as it did in 2016, when a lack of African-American support was a big part of his lopsided loss in the 2016 South Carolina primary.

Sanders lost the state’s 2016 Democratic primary to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a 3-to-1 margin. Exit polls showed African-American voters made up 61 percent of S.C. primary voters that year, and 86 percent of them opted for Clinton.

Read more: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article227696109.html

[Mr Tibbs]

1. 2016 is irrelevant

Sanders came into that race with 3% name recognition against arguably the most famous woman on earth, and he got 40% of the primary vote. And that was with a media blackout.

Now he probably has 90% name recognition. An entirely different animal than 2016.

[NurseJackie]

2. I believe it's going to work against him.

Now he probably has 90% name recognition. An entirely different animal than 2016.

I believe it's going to work against him.

And that was with a media blackout.

Oh brother! That again?

[Mr Tibbs]

4. Sanders is only the catalyst

Of a movement that will transcend him

[Gothmog]

3. Without support of African American voters, sanders will not be the nominee

There are a large number of real democrats with long memories who will not forget or forgive. sanders has no chance of being the nominee

[Mr Tibbs]

7. Sanders had almost zero name recognition amongst blacks in that primary

Not the same thing

[TwilightZone]

10. False.

Keep moving the goalposts. Maybe you'll make at least one assertion that has a basis in reality.

[Mr Tibbs]

12. It's all easily proven

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/politics/bernie-sanders-lags-hillary-clinton-in-introducing-himself-to-black-voters.html

[TwilightZone]

13. That was eight months before South Carolina.

Keep digging.

[Mr Tibbs]

14. Apparently you don't even know what I'm talking about

You are fixated on South Carolina, which I am not talking about. I smell an agenda.

[TexasTowelie]

18. Golly gee,

I wonder why TwilightZone would be fixated on South Carolina? Oops, the title of this thread is "5 things Bernie Sanders must do to win in South Carolina."

[Mr Tibbs]

11. Blacks didn't know him them. They do now.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/12/17/how-come-so-many-bernie-bros-are-women-and-people-color

[Gothmog]

20. Booing Congressman John Lewis is a great way to win the support of these voters

sanders will get less support this cycle from that group of voters

[Blue_true]

33. No democratic primary opponent would use that video against him and they should not.

I just don't see Bernie taking the African American vote from Harris and/or Biden. Bernie CAN win South Carolina if Harris and Biden split the vote and Bernie get a solid turnout from his supporters, Biden may be considering a scenario like that as he decides whether he should run.

[Gothmog]

37. There will be ads using this incident in some Southern primaries

There are a large number of Democrats feel strongly about this.

[Gothmog]

32. Washington Post-Sanders and Warren are talking a lot about civil rights. Not many blacks are listeni

Link to tweet

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — The crowd packed into the gym of a century-old black church here cheered every time Sen. Bernie Sanders attacked inequities that hit disadvantaged African Americans especially hard, applauding his ideas to address “the disparity within the disparity.”

But the problem Sanders faces in appealing to black voters was staring at him as he spoke for an hour recently at the gym of the Royal Missionary Baptist Church: Of the more than 1,600 people who came to see the candidate, fewer than 40 were black.....

Black voters played a critical role in picking the last two Democratic nominees, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and it’s hard to see a path to the Democratic nomination without significant black support.

About 25 percent of Democratic primary voters in 2016 were African American, and in key states, including South Carolina, the figure was much higher.

[TwilightZone]

5. "3% name recognition" - nonsense. And he got 26% in SC.

You're going to claim that after NH and IA already happened, and four weeks after Iowa, Sanders had 3% name recognition?

Not in this reality.

He got 26% in South Carolina, not 40%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Carolina_Democratic_primary

You're probably right about the 90%. The rest of your assertions are ridiculous and laughably false.

[Mr Tibbs]

6. Not rocket science

Again, he came into the 2016 primaries with 3% name recognition and a media blackout, and ultimately got 40% of the primary vote.

https://probonostats.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/sanderss-name-recognition/

[TwilightZone]

9. False.

Stop posting information that you clearly know is false.

You're not fooling anyone.

SC Secretary of State:

Hillary Clinton 272,379 73.44%
Bernie Sanders 96,498 26.02%
Willie Wilson 1,314 0.35%

26% is not 40%. And your "source" is laughable. The graph is approval rating, not name recognition.

The only 3% figure noted is the % of people who did NOT know who Obama was by January 2008.

[Mr Tibbs]

16. I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about

But you should educate yourself, and have a wonderful life

http://www.care2services.com/bernie-sanders-case-study

[dsc]

17. We should all have such a media black out as he had

Yes compared to Trump he had a media black out but so did everyone else. He actually got more coverage than Hillary did and vastly more positive coverage than she did.

[madville]

8. 2016 means nothing

Bernie could easily get 25% in SC, Biden pick up 25%, Harris get 25%, Booker get 15% and the rest split the remaining 10%.

Many more factors in play this time around.

[TexasTowelie]

19. Or Bernie could get less than 15%

in which case he will not be allocated any delegates.

[madville]

21. I don't see a state yet where he is polling under 20%

Across all the early states Biden will settle in around 30%, Bernie around 25%, and Harris will hover in the 10-15% range. Everyone else is in the single digits so they have a bunch of work to do. We could easily get through IA, NH, NV and SC with Biden, Bernie and Harris (in that order) the only ones awarded any delegates.

[TexasTowelie]

22. Some of that is because there haven' been many polls at the state level. I believe that omly about

a half dozen states have had polls and Bernie wasn't leading in most of those polls.

Furthermore, we will see Harris and Beto pick up a large chunk of delegates in California, Texas and most of the South on Super Tuesday. The Emerson Poll in Michigan showed Biden at 40% and Bernie at 23%. If only 20%-30% vote for Bernie in the primaries then he will not win om the first ballot at the convention. He will have to rely on convincing the superdelegates to vote for him and that isn't a likely scenario since he denounced the whole concept of superdelegates.

I have no doubt that those percentages will change as we enter the debates and the candidates refine their positions. Meanwhile, I see more voters disavowing Bernie than flocking to him. It will also become apparent that some of the other candidates will have a better chance of beating Trump than Bernie has.

[madville]

23. Wisconsin has Bernie 39, Biden 24, Warren 14 yesterday

I agree with you though. Even if Bernie has the most delegates coming into the convention and doesn't make it on the first ballot, he will never win the second ballot with the super delegates.

I see Biden, Bernie, and Harris evenly splitting California's delegates.

I think we will have a brokered convention because I can't imagine anyone coming in with a majority at this point, Biden would have the best chance at a first round majority but I don;t think it will happen. Biden would be the clear favorite in a second round vote with super delegates though.

[TexasTowelie]

24. Yes, I saw the Wisconsin poll.

Total sample size of 324 with over a 5% margin of error. Not much of surprise when the racial composition of Wisconsin is as follows:

The racial diversity among the population in Wisconsin is currently at 86.2% Caucasian, 6.3% African American, 2.6% Asian, 2.2% two or more races, 1.8% other races, and .9% Natives of North America.
(source: http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/wisconsin-population/ )

I also expect that Elizabeth Warren will cut into Bernie's totals in New England and Biden will do well in mid-Atlantic states. I don't see any other states where Bernie can expect major delegate hauls. Bernie was pretty much out of the mix after Super Tuesday and that point was reinforced with the races during March and New York in April. He may have the money to keep limping along until the final primaries in June, but in the end I expect similar results in the 2020 primaries as those in 2016.

[madville]

25. That's my point, no one is going to run away with it this time.

Biden, Harris and Bernie could be dead even after Tuesday.

I don't see anyone able to come into the convention over 50% with the field we have. Biden, Harris and Bernie are going to win a respectable amount of delegates throughout the primaries but it will be shocking if someone can achieve over 50% for the first round of voting. Then the real fun begins, we could see two candidates team up against Bernie, we could see all the super delegates put their thumb on the scale for Biden, who knows, it's going to be exciting and a mess probably.

[Blue_true]

34. Yep. But Iowa and New Hampshire could change that dynamic for SC.

If Bernie, Harris or Biden get knocked out in Iowa or New Hampshire or both and drop out. I can see Harris or Biden dropping out in such a scenario, but not Bernie. But is SC comes down to Bernie/Biden or Bernie/Harris, Biden or Harris likely wipe the floor with Bernie. I think the issue is a LOT of democrats, including African Americans are concerned about the socialist label, while young Whites that provide a large core of Bernie's support are not.

BTW, Bernie got big, excited crowds in South Carolina in 2016 and Hillary drew smaller crowds, but she still beat him badly there.

[madville]

36. I don't see any of those top three dropping out before Super Tuesday

As long as they still have plenty of cash. No one is gonna get blown out in the top three before that.

[Gothmog]

38. I think that sanders will get less than 15% in South Carolina

[LonePirate]

26. This story needs context. Sanders finished second in a two person contest in SC in 2016.

If Bernie can win a single county in SC in 2020, he will improve on his 2016 performance where Clinton won every county in the state.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Carolina_Democratic_primary

[TexasTowelie]

27. The county maps for other states throughout the South

are similar. There were a few counties that Sanders won, but most of the South voted overwhelmingly for Hillary.

[LonePirate]

28. Judging by the attendees of his recent rallies, I don't suspect the outcome will change in the South

[Hortensis]

29. I do. Note that 8% at the top of the screen.

It's an extremely small, extremely distorted indicator, but an indicator. And we're not even talking about his problems with POC. Just my opinion, but without promotion by very anti-progressive forces, I wouldn't expect him to last past Super Tuesday, and don't particularly expect him to do that anyway. We'll see, though, right?

[LonePirate]

30. I agree that he will not drop out. I just don't think he will improve upon 2nd place in the South.

[Hortensis]

31. Yes, agree he won't drop out while funding lasts.

That's NOT an expression of admiration.

Regarding 2nd place, with a lot more competition queering his 2016 game of claiming he was the only true progressive, I believe second place is unattainable.

2016 was basically cast as him or her and (by him augmented by Repubs and Russia) as reform progressivism or corrupt establishment. And misogyny and white male resentment over "just too much equality" were huge factors.

[Blue_true]

35. The issue that I have Hortensis, is that even if Bernie is beaten

he has shown a tendency not to openly acknowledge that while his rabid supporters go nuts and become accusatory. That is my big concern this time around.

[Hortensis]

39. Yes, another spoiler candidacy has to be worrying a lot of people.

Certainly he could have cut down that 23-24% of his voters who were furious at his loss and our supposed massive corruption after the primary and decamped to Trump or Stein or Johnson. We'll never know how many other votes were also lost because attacks from the left that echoed those from the right resonated with those who just didn't know what to think.

[Blue_true]

41. I am sure a part of the 43% or so that did not vote were Bernie writeins.

In many states a writein counts as a non vote.

[Hortensis]

42. Probably. Same result, and they must have been greatly

outnumbered by those nonvoters and fall-away third-party voters whose hopes for good people to vote for were sabotaged by Sanders' continuous claims of Democratic Party corruption and fealty to the wealthy.

[Gothmog]

40. No one took sanders seriously in 2016 and so sanders was not vetted

No one took sanders seriously and so he was not vetted. Vetting is important I amso glad that sanders is being vetted this cycle https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/28/why-bernie-sanders-has-an-uphill-climb-ahead/?utm_term=.1b4f90c2a717

Finally, what happens when the oppo dump on Sanders comes? We have no idea, because it never happened in 2016. Clinton was so terrified of alienating his supporters and seeing them vote for Jill Stein in the general election (or not vote at all) that she tiptoed around him for pretty much the entirety of the primary campaign. That doesn’t mean that he’ll be destroyed when stories about the more colorful aspects of his history start cropping up, but there’s just no way to know.

Which is what we could say about the Sanders candidacy as a whole: There’s no way to know how it’s going to go. But he’s got his work cut out for him.

See also https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-campaign-donald-trump/index.html?utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2019-02-20T14%3A52%3A07&utm_term=image&utm_medium=social%C2%A0

2. How will he withstand more scrutiny and more attacks?
One of the secrets to Sanders' success in 2016 was that no one -- most especially Clinton -- thought he had any chance of going anywhere in the race. Clinton largely ignored him for the better part of 2015, allowing some problematic parts of Sanders' record for Democrats -- most notably his voting record on guns -- to go unnoticed. (When the race began to tighten, Clinton gently prodded Sanders on guns and health care.) Sanders, too, largely flew under the radar of investigative reporters for major news outlets who were busy looking into Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and others seen as more viable candidates. (That reality clearly benefited Donald Trump in the early days of the campaign, as well.)

Sanders will get no pass -- from either the media or his fellow candidates -- this time around. He is among the frontrunners -- and will be treated as such. His wife's time as president of Burlington College could well come up. And his opponents will do a deep dive into his nearly 30 years of votes as a member of the House and Senate. This is all very normal stuff in a campaign. But not for Sanders.

The CNN polling reflects the fact that sanders is being vetted