2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders Breaks 20% in a National Poll for the First Time; Gaining Support Across Demographics [View all]cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... that many of them will like because he represents a return to the values they left the Democratic Party for. If they see they can make a difference by getting him nominated over Hillary, many of them will tactically register as Democrats. Now depending on what happens in the election and how many corporate Democrats win out over newer progressive Democrats in primaries, they might go back to being independent voters later, but they will in effect be "Democrats" in their votes in the primaries. We won't have had any good historical context to measure this by in terms of an independent running as a Democrat. Now some can argue that many Tea Party Republicans were in effect doing the same thing and trying to draw back in ex-Republicans in to the Republican Party to nominate someone that more closely identifies with their values too, but I don't think we've seen this with Democrats until now on a national scale.