What? He was so much better it's not even close.
2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress
- Thread starter Raoul
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What? He was so much better it's not even close.
No need to pretend when you did just say it.
Sure Sanders wouldn't have been the perfect candidate but he would have given people more of reason to go out and vote than just to stop Trump.
Based on what?
He couldn't even convince enough people in the democratic party.
Even now, his social media presence - where he gained most momentum - only picks up if he says something against Trump. When he discusses his actual policies, and things he wants to implement, there's a clear difference in how it's received even with his fan base.
Oh God not this again.
Hes literally the most popular politician in the country while she is to day less popular than trump.
He probably would've won the nomination if not for the super delegates system (which has since been done away with).
FFS can we stop with the Sanders/Clinton thing please. It's been done to death.
Net favorability
Trump -12
Clinton -13
Sanders +18
Trump -12
Clinton -13
Sanders +18
Most popular based on what?
Polling statistics? The same ones that said Hilary was going to be a clear winner, and said Trump would fail at every stage of the election?
Those are clearly flawed and unreliable.
People who vote for Trump are more likely to do so in quiet.
Anyway yes, I'm not interested in a bernie v hilary debate.
The whole idea is that the more options there are to vote alternatively to Trump, will likely result in an easier victory for Trump.
His fanbase are staunch and unlikely to consider other options.
The whole idea is that the more options there are to vote alternatively to Trump, will likely result in an easier victory for Trump.
His fanbase are staunch and unlikely to consider other options.
They're pretty loud to be honest.
Yep....his base has been propagandized into submission by Fox and other right wing media, so its fair to expect about 35% to vote for him regardless of who else is running. That however leaves a sizable chunk of independents that are up for grabs, which is why its important for the Dems to sell their platform to both the base and the center.
Fwiw, he has declined to +12, she has gone to ... -25.
The independents who were willing to vote for someone days after hearing them say they grab women by the pussy aren't winnable voters. The only way to win elections is to energise your natural voters more than the other side theirs.
That's not how it works unfortunately. If you want to be President you have to win a significant number of independents, otherwise they will vote for the opposition and you will lose.
Nah those are the bigots, it's easy to focus on them but he got a lot of the right-wing vote, latino vote, and white women vote - who are otherwise, regular folk.
Which is exactly why it's important for there to be one clear stand out candidate.
I just fail to see how that can be Bernie, he's got less followers on twitter than Melania ffs, he's not going to convince ~40-50m to vote for him, imo.
2016 is a direct refutation of this theory.
the internet isnt real life. posting isnt activism.
The clear stand out candidate may still emerge. We didn't know much about Obama winning the nomination back in 2006, nor did we know much about Trump being the leader of the back in early 2015. These things usually take a bit of time to unfurl and a lot depends on how each candidate markets themselves. For all we know (and based on past precedent) the person who wins the Dem nomination may well be somone who isn't even being mentioned as a frontrunner at this point.
Trump won the Presidency because he gained enough independents to win, particularly in the rust belt. Had Hillary done enough to beat him to the punch in those areas then she would've won.
Trump got 44% of the independent votes to Clintons 42% in 2016, Romney 50% to Obamas 45% in 2012 and McCain 44% to Obamas 52% in 2008. Independent voters more or less divide in elections, what decides the result is who gets their natural voters to the booth. Chasing a group of people in the middle who will divide no matter what is bad electoral maths.
Romney won independent voters by a bigger margin than Trump did.
She lost because she couldn't hold together the Obama coalition because she was the opposite of charismatic and because she offered people nothing.
And Kerry also outperformed Bush on independents. You have to therefore get both independents and base to push you over the top. If its lopsided in favor of one side over the other then you are likely to lose.
Implicit in those things was an inability to appeal to sufficient number of independent and base voters (despite winning the popular vote by 3m votes)
There are examples of people winning elections where they lose independents and examples of people winning elections when they win independents. Because they don't decide elections. Independents will split no matter what. Trump explicitly tailored his campaign to the extremes of the republican party and it made no difference to these voters.
Polls weren't too far off in the final voting percentages - they just underestimated how well Trump would do in a lot of key swing states.
Quiet, shy right-wingers is more a UK Tory phenomenon than in the US. Trump supporters over there were a lot more vocal and active. Republicans in general are more politically-minded than people who vote Tory over here.
The point is you need both independents and base voters to win Presidential elections. The dynamics are very different for Congress.
The idea Sanders would have beaten Trump easily falls when he didn't even win his own primary.
In anycase, hope whoever wins the nomination is as progressive as he is.
In anycase, hope whoever wins the nomination is as progressive as he is.
Clinton lost because she didnt win excite the base or win over enough members of Jimmy Buffett cover bands. It's impossible to say which was decisive. To win you need both
Bernie at least partly struggled in the primary though because Hilary was already in the inner circle of the Dem party who were all backing her. Had Bernie won that then he'd have had the full weight of the Dem party behind him going into the main election itself.
A lot of the polling showed he was more than capable of beating Trump. Events during an election campaign could've swayed that and it's naive to say he'd have walked it, but he wouldn't have been such an easy target for Trump in some regards when it came to allegations of corruption etc.
He would've done pretty well (just my opinion). When you consider that Dems start off with CA, IL, NY already in the bag - Bernie would've performed fairly well in the rust belt and in the process denied Trump the only path to victory that he had.
The polling only goes back to 1976 but Carter, Bush 2 and Obama have all won presidential elections while losing independents. And as Trump proved in 2016, they're very happy to vote for candidates who aren't centrist. Chasing them as electoral strategy is a waste of resources. All you need is the base because independents will always split in a way that makes their votes effectively meaningless.
They might impact where you win a close victory or a landslide, but that hardly matters as long as you actually win.
They might impact where you win a close victory or a landslide, but that hardly matters as long as you actually win.
There aren't enough voters in the country to win on base alone, as there aren't enough voters to win a general election like that. 35-40% of voters identify as political independents, so you will need both base and independents to win. If you ignore independents they will simply vote with the opposition which would be completely counterproductive to a winning strategy.
You called him the most popular politician yet social media is the biggest popularity contest on the planet, and he's nowhere close.
His momentum was propped up by millennials - who use social media more than anyone else - yet he can't sustain their attention, unless he says something about trump, which is far too easy to do.
You can't just dismiss it just because it's the internet - Trump uses twitter to rally his base daily and it benefits him so well, unfortunately. It is real. Any candidate who struggles to connect with social media, will struggle to win.
They always split. It doesn't matter who is running or what policies they have. About 1/3 always vote dem, about 1/3 always vote rep and the other third either split between dem and rep or go 3rd party.
That's what i'm hoping for. The Dem's need a fresh face in order to challenge Trump, imo.
They've got to move with the times.
I agree that it's more of a UK Phenomenon, but Trump was also propped up by a lot of people who weren't overtly shouting MAGA too, and that shouldn't be dismissed.
Yes they do obviously always split, so then why if you are attempting win an election, would you want to gift the opposition a higher percentage of the split. The name of the game is to get as many votes as possible irrespective of where they come from.
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