Bernie Sanders Would Have Lost the Election in a Landslide

[Lithos]

182. I've several issues with this...

First, you are comparing apples/oranges. Sanders never got beyond the primary while you are comparing him with candidates who were the nominee. This for instance does not represent the post-nomination pivots which traditionally occur.

Second, you have to consider the Republican candidate here - otherwise, you can claim correlation, not causation.

Third, I think that you could draw up a similar chart of Republican candidates who are "conservative" and find that those who were too conservative have never done well either with Trump being farther extreme than Wallace, Goldwater and the Dixiecrat candidates for instance.

Fourth, the Republican and Democratic primaries actually were very similar in the dynamics. Trump and Sanders ran from opposite spectrum as outsiders. Hillary obviously pivoted and adopted to some extent a fair number of the positions which were igniting the Sanders campaign. Some, not all which is an important point.

The general field who Trump beat did *not* pivot and adopt to any of the points which Trump was hitting against until way late in the game. Had any of them adopted and pivoted earlier, then they likely would have beaten Trump.

The point here is that this election cycle saw a new type of politics where people were reaching beyond the old-business as usual. To be honest, it was not an election defined by Conservative/Liberal metrics, but by your status as an insider/outsider and how you identified with and were liked by the common person. This makes the graph less relevant.

Fifth, the election involved two different demographics - the urban/coast states vs the fly-over states. Hillary won the first, but failed in the second. Unfortunately while the urban/coasts have the majority of voters and the economy, the fly-over states still carry the electoral college. She failed to pivot in any capacity or attempt any out-reach to the fly-over states and it cost her.

I think Sanders and Hillary would have won the urban/coast states in the general - so I'm not going to talk about those states. Yes, I think Hillary energized these states slightly better than Sanders as these states do respond better to identity politics. However, these states were not in question.

So, any comparison between Sanders and Hillary would involve their differences in the fly-over states and those states which are transitionary states (Virginia, Florida, N. Carolina, N. Hampshire, Maine, Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan and possibly Colorado.)

Unless he got the benefit of a strong DNC/Hillary endorsed turnout he would have had a better results than Hillary against Trump in these states

N. Hampshire -
Michigan -
Wisconsin -
Colorado -
Nevada -
Maine -

and he possibly have lost:

Virginia -
Florida -
N. Carolina -
Ohio -
Pennsylvania -

This represents a change in electoral votes of:

+13 votes for Sanders (26 - 13) (Sanders: 245 vs Trump: 293) which is not good for Sanders, though still bucks the trend lines of the graph.

I think Virginia was still doable (258 vs 280), but I'm not sure of the dynamics there. Same for Florida and N. Carolina. Florida and Pennsylvania were fueled by a lot of anti-Hillary turnout, so may have gone Sanders in the end. Fuel for armchair political animals. I'm thinking maybe and would love to hear thoughts on these states as it will be helpful to understand 2020.

Ohio was a lost cause I think. I've several friends of intelligence who have left Ohio because the stupid has taken hold of the state.

Sixth - I think that the big reason we lost was the disenfranchisement of voters specifically in N. Carolina and Florida, though true in other states as well I also think that Michigan would have still gone for Hillary had there not been fundamental issues with the voting machines. These would still have weighed against Sanders. To win Florida would mean fixing the the change in St. Petersburg from Blue in 2008/12 to Red in 2016; solving the dynamics to flip this would have flipped Florida blue.

Adding those back to Sanders - would have yielded (Sanders: 302 vs 236) (he would have won Michigan enough to mask this) and (Hillary: 292 vs 246). Victories for both with Sanders slightly ahead.

Summary - I think Sanders would have done better - possibly would have won, but there were fundamental issues with several states which would have prevented him from winning unless his campaign took a significantly different tact than Hillary's.

L-

(Caveat: Math done in my head - let me know if I messed up)