All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[PaulBullion]

He lost that one by a slim margin and won the other 2. At this point who has better momentum than Bernie?

Possibly a meteor hurtling towards Earth. Effects will be similar.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

He won every one of these with a plurality of the vote. Before Nevada, he was averaging 26%, hardly a strong position. Yes, he is gaining traction, but all it would take for Sanders' to be in second place in upcoming Primaries is for a couple of moderates to drop out of the race and have their supporters to switch to another moderate candidate.

Sanders wins head to heads with every candidate. Your methodology is the same flawed reasoning that people used with Trump 4 years ago.

Believe it or not, if a moderate like Biden or Pete drops out, some of their support goes to Sanders. Some stays home and becomes a non factor. It doesn’t work like “oh the moderates are split”. There’s black Biden and Bloomberg voters who are never going to go to a Pete Buttigieg. There’s supporters of everyone who find Bloomberg disqualifying. Etc.

It’s never a uniform thing. The fact that he leads in head to heads indicates that he’ll inch closer to a majority as people drop out. Biden’s really the only one who I think polls indicate would be close to him if everyone dropped out, but he’s fading and Nevada was a key state for him

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Reminder: Sanders lost Iowa to Buttigieg. He did NOT win all three, his supporters are using a meter that is not part of the caucus rules to pretend he won Iowa.

More people in Iowa voted for him. Please never again being up that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote it that Trump lost it to feel better (which you have) if you don’t think the metric matters.

Yes of course getting the most votes matters

[Billy Batson]

Reminder: Sanders lost Iowa to Buttigieg. He did NOT win all three, his supporters are using a meter that is not part of the caucus rules to pretend he won Iowa.

He won the popular vote there and after the the recount he'll get the delegates too.

[4saken1]

Except none of them are dropping out yet. The problem is there is a lane with 2 people in it and lane with everyone else. That is how Trump won his primary, everyone else stayed in too long and he came up the middle.

I agree. Sanders will likely win the nomination the same way Trump did. Problem is, a new poll comes out practically every day now, often times multiple ones in the same day. If one of the candidates sees that they are doing better than they were a couple of days ago, they thing that they are surging and that there is still a chance for them to win. I don't see any of the candidates who have delegates so far dropping out any time soon, and the ones who don't probably won't give enough of a boost to the remaining moderates to give them a significant enough lead now that Sanders is starting to gain momentum (like Trump did in 2016). If any are going to drop out for any chance to stop Sanders, it will need to be before California's Primary.

With many "moderate" voters Bernie is often the second or third choice.

I can see some of them going his way, especially now that he has some traction. Do we have any numbers to support this? Did they publish the second and third choice rankings from Iowa?

[PwrdOn]

He won every one of these with a plurality of the vote. Before Nevada, he was averaging 26%, hardly a strong position. Yes, he is gaining traction, but all it would take for Sanders' to be in second place in upcoming Primaries is for a couple of moderates to drop out of the race and have their supporters to switch to another moderate candidate.

Unfortunately for moderates, there's little chance of that actually happening because their candidates are little more than opportunists who will hardly let party unity get in the way of their career ambitions. Ironically, for how much they twist their principles into knots to compromise and build coalitions, centrists are pretty terrible at actually holding those coalitions together, because voters care much less about promoting unity than they do about their own interests, and trying to balance the competing interest of a diverse base is a difficult balancing act if you don't have any kind of foundation in principle to keep you steady. Joe Biden's black supporters aren't going to just go over to Buttigieg or Bloomberg if he drops out, in fact there's a much better chance that Bernie picks them up.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

With many "moderate" voters Bernie is often the second or third choice.

This. People don’t understand how elections generally function. It’s not all ideology. All the perception of being able to win is huge. Bernie’s winning so people are starting to think he’s the right horse to bet on. Biden based his whole campaign on an ability to win and after he lost a few states his support crumbled. He was winning Nevada a few weeks ago. He was not supposed to be at a point where he only had a 3 point lead in SC and it was a state he desperately needs to win because his best showing so far has been a distant second in Nevada which he was supposed to win.

Beyond that, it becomes a game of likely demographics. Like I said in another post, Pete and a Klobuchar suck with minorities, they aren’t going to magically get them because someone else dropped out and they are perceived as moderates. Etc

[Billy Batson]

I can see some of them going his way, especially now that he has some traction. Do we have any numbers to support this? Did they publish the second and third choice rankings from Iowa?

From Nevada:

[SquirrelMan]

He lost that one by a slim margin and won the other 2. At this point who has better momentum than Bernie?

Funny that you should ask. From today's news:

Mike Hughes,a flat-Earth conspiracy theorist launched himself in a homemade rocket, in an attempt to show the Earth is a disk, which it isn't. He crashed and died.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/scien...e-hughes-dead/

[The Overlord]

Possibly a meteor hurtling towards Earth. Effects will be similar.

That's a good non answer.

And what if he wins the nomination? Are you going to support him or let your pride get in the way?

Seriously who is the front runner at the moment?

That is the problem Anti Bernie people, they only seem to be against things, not for things. They say Bernie is racist or sexist, but they shrug if you bring up Biden or Buttiege's record on racism.

Of course Bernie is the front runner, you never present an actual positive policy alternative to Trump, all you say is Not Trump and Not Sanders? What do you want besides Not Trump and Not Sanders? If you cannot articulate what you want besides that, then of course the Anti Bernie people are losing, because they only seem like they are against things, not for things.

Funny that you should ask. From today's news:



https://www.washingtonpost.com/scien...e-hughes-dead/

What does that have to do with Bernie?

[PaulBullion]

What does that have to do with Bernie?

A crash and Bern trajectory.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

From Nevada:

That’s damning for the idea that if moderates are out they will build a majority. That’s actually the opposite of Iowa. In that predominately white state, Bernie’s weakness WAS the final ballot after realignment. Many took that to mean some people were dead set against him. Here he crushed everyone once people needed to compromise

[4saken1]

Sanders wins head to heads with every candidate. Your methodology is the same flawed reasoning that people used with Trump 4 years ago.

Believe it or not, if a moderate like Biden or Pete drops out, some of their support goes to Sanders. Some stays home and becomes a non factor. It doesn’t work like “oh the moderates are split”. There’s black Biden and Bloomberg voters who are never going to go to a Pete Buttigieg. There’s supporters of everyone who find Bloomberg disqualifying. Etc.

It’s never a uniform thing. The fact that he leads in head to heads indicates that he’ll inch closer to a majority as people drop out. Biden’s really the only one who I think polls indicate would be close to him if everyone dropped out, but he’s fading and Nevada was a key state for him

My methodology is actually betting that out of all the candidates (except Bloomberg), more Democrats will stay home on Election Day if Sanders is the candidate than if any other one wins the nomination. If you look at who the most hated candidate is (again, except Bloomberg), it has to be Sanders. There's that sect of his followers that has **** on literally every candidate and yet gets supremely butthurt (like Trump supporters) whenever anything bad is said about Saint Bernie. These are the same people who continued to campaign against Hillary (and still do) right up until the Election, then either stayed home or voted for Trump. So many people have misplaced hatred of Sanders because of this and are still bitter. I AM! I will vote for Sanders if he is the candidate no matter what, but I think that there are many who will not despite saying that they are 'blue no matter who'. Your polls cannot factor in how many people say that they will vote for Bernie on Election Day, but when that day comes, they get a sick feeling in their stomach at the thought of voting for him and just say "Nah, one vote isn't really going to matter"!

I think it's interesting how on the one hand, however, we have all of these polls before the 2016 Election showing that Hillary was supposed to beat Trump (actually, aside from a few like 538, most of the polls were based on popular vote and not EC, so they were actually 'right') and Sanders use these to show how bad and inaccurate polls are. But when it comes to the polls that show that Sanders does better in a head to head against Trump by a larger margin than other candidates, they are the holy grail of accuracy. How are these polls conducted? Do they go state by state counting likely delegates, or are they assuming the popular vote will win the Election?

[The Overlord]

A crash and Bern trajectory.

It seems you are trying to counter facts with non sequiturs.

[Theleviathan]

However there’s also statistically more cross over with Republicans and independents who went for Trump last time.

I don't think we know which one is "more" and we probably won't until we have the final race starting. I know you cite more Hillary voters are willing to switch than Bernie and that statistic has some merit in this discussion, but it's not quite apples to apples. In fact, I'd argue, that's precisely the problem.

To win, Bernie is going to have to get those previous Obama voters who went for Trump and the 2018 converts to come to his side. Plus drive out previous non-voters. And he'll have to because there will be willing Democrats, many independents, Never Trumpers, and other assorted Republican groups (Mormons for example) who might be willing to vote for Biden or Bloomberg or Buttigieg or Klobuchar but will simply not vote for Bernie. I don't know how many they number, but here is a quick anecdote:

I live in Arizona. On their top news station (KTAR) they portray themselves as independents but are really conservative in nature. Nearly every day they spend mocking Bernie's socialism and how it will cost Mark Kelly a Senate spot. They go after Bernie nearly every day and lament the chance for Arizona to be a true swing state. Now, I'm not saying anything positive about those arguments, only pointing out they exist. Mormons here in AZ are dead set against Bernie as well. Now, I like Bernie's hispanic numbers and that could really do well for him so I'm not writing off Arizona. I'm just pointing out the opposition that exists. A week or so ago when you set your pants on fire when I was pointing out the need to see more turnout, more young voters, more hispanic, more first timers, etc......it's because that will be absolutely necessary to win. Nevada was a good step in that direction.