From the Bloomberg Poll:
There is a certain ambivalence among Democrats about a Biden candidacy:
While we can stipulate that Sanders will continue to repel black and Latino voters, the gender dynamics are interesting:
A closer look at the sample of the Democrat and Democrat-leaning poll respondents shows that nationally, Clinton is better liked by women than men—74 percent to 64 percent—while Biden’s favorability is closer to gender-neutral, with 81 percent for women and 79 percent for men. The survey also found those who are married or have children under the age of 18 were more likely to give Biden favorable ratings than Clinton.
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Sorry, but no we can NOT “stipulate that Sanders will continue to repel black and Latino voters”.
A relatively unknown senator from Vermont is TODAY — still very early in the campaign — supported by TWENTY FOUR PERCENT of the respondents? That’s both shocking and bad news for both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Biden. The two current front-runners each have long public histories.
The nearly illegible fine print at the bottom of the graphic in the thread-starter reads “Margin of error: +/- 5.1 pct pts”.
That tells me that this race is a toss-up between the three front-runners. Again, shocking and surprising news for the front-runner.
More from the link itself:
That says to me that these numbers are far more volatile than a casual read might suggest.
Further, I note that the bottom pie chart is a response of ALL voters, regardless of party affiliation or leaning. That’s a very different sample from the top graphic.
In short, I disagree with the summary you offer in the thread-starter. I think this poll is very good news for Bernie Sanders, devastating for Hillary Clinton, and is unlikely to sway Joe Biden very much one way or the other.
Matt Bruenig posted yesterday debunking this “Bernie Sanders has a problem with black people” meme.
http://mattbruenig.com/2015/09/23/nobody-is-on-twitter/
He and his wife are wonderful writers and very generous with responding to emails, I’ve become a pen pal of both. They also arrived a perfect time with the revival of Catholic socialism/Catholic worker politics under Pope Francis.
That said, I do think they share a hopeful optimism about the silent socialist majority, or the faith and family left as a voting bloc. I definitely want it to be harnessed and hope it can be a successful force in politics, and I also think Matt makes a great point here about Bernie having a lack of exposure with black voters. Repel is certainly a strong term that doesn’t seem justified by the data.
The question is, will he be attractive to a substantial number of black voters in a reasonable enough time before the first primary states? Thanks to Debbie Wasserman Shultz, probably not, two debates won’t cut it. Hopefully free media, more sitdown interviews with black questioners like Larry Willmore (hilarious by the way!) , and hitting the airwaves with targeted messages for South Carolina and Super Tuesday should do the trick. Getting labor to back him could make him competitive in Nevada, and the kind of unions that won those caucuses for Barack are Latino and black majority unions that are more left than center. He may yet have an outsize shot, it’s not a lost cause nor is it anything other than an uphill battle. Mostly for recognition reasons.
Take a deep breath and look at the numbers.
To me (a Sanders supporter; he had me at “socialism”) the number say that my party will nominate Hillary R Clinton and that she will be the favorite, with many a slip twixt cup and lip, to be the next president of the U.S.
The question, and it seems t me to be the only question, is what kind of president will she be, how will she govern, and can progressives do anything now to bend that towards pro-people policies?
And I don’t mean getting her to take this or that position on the campaign trail either.
I get your interpretation of this poll, and agree that’s perfectly reasonable.
Whatever advantage this poll shows Ms. Clinton having, that advantage is within or very close to the margin of error. If the spread between the top three were a factor of two — 44% v 22% v 11% — then I would agree that she will be the nominee.
That’s not what the poll says, though, by a long shot.
The second graphic shows a significantly different sample, and that difference is literally buried in the fine print. The second sample is a poll of ALL voters of ALL political persuasions.
The thread-starter contains this incorrect statement:
The ambivalence is actually among ALL Americans, not among Democrats. Here is the expanded text from the cited link (emphasis mine):
I suspect that folks who lean Republican might have a different motivation for who should stay in or out than folks who lean Democrat. If somebody asked me whether or not Herman Cain should enter the GOP primary, I’d give a very enthusiastic “absolutely yes”. That does not mean I think Mr. Cain would make a good president.
I agree with the substance of your comment. Frankly, I think we need to do what you suggest whomever the nominee is.
To the degree that Clinton loses black support, in the short run the overwhelming majority of that support goes to Biden, with little benefit to Sanders. In the most recent CBS/YouGov tracking poll in South Carolina, the results from black respondents were as follows:
Clinton: 52%
Biden: 34%
Sanders: 4%
You operate under the premise that black folks consider white progressives to be allies. That isn’t supported by the facts.
There was an interesting article in The Democratic Strategist that explains these attitudes as they play out within Black Lives Matter:
What I find amusing about the analysis, is that (far from “stunning”) the latter attitude is widespread, and has been widespread for more than a century. The interplay and tensions between the two perspectives reflect black conventional political wisdom to this day, irrespective of class, perspective or ideology.
The black progressive political analysis Earl Ofari Hutchison (who personally supports Sanders) explains how a variation of this dynamic plays out at the grassroots:
I stand by my comment. And, as I’ve said earlier, however warm and fuzzy white progressives get when Cornel West supports Sanders, there is little or no resonance on the ground, insofar as the majority of black voters is concerned.
As I noted above, your introduction to the second graphic is incorrect. I invite you to reread the link you cited and adjust your text accordingly.
Given that the second graphic is a poll of ALL US voters, I invite you to decide whether it is even meaningful. How much credence should anybody put in my desire, as a passionate Democrat, for Herman Cain to emerge as the GOP nominee?
I hear you about the historic divide between the black community and white liberal/progressive/radical political factions. I don’t challenge your summary of that history. I, instead, challenge its relevance to this race. In particular, I challenge your choice of “repel”.
That choice implies that the Sanders campaign actively pushes blacks away. When we say “the brave defenders repelled the invading hordes”, we don’t mean that the Vandals were disgusted by the Romans.
“repel” isn’t applicable.
The Clintons have a lot of history with black voters and HRC thus will likely get a lot of that support. However, Sanders is a smart and compassionate guy. He has represented one of the whitest states all these years so hasn’t had exposure to some specific issues, but if he builds the momentum he might get more support. I don’t have any concerns about him getting the overwhelming support of African-Americans if he ends up as the nominee. I am not aware of any stances he has taken that are opposite those of most African-Americans and what he has proposed could easily benefit everyone. This is the long way of saying count me among those who are very reluctant to assume that Sanders cannot and will not get minority support.
What is this white liberal/black liberal divide narrative you are trying to push anyway? It is neither accurate nor helpful to building a winning electoral coalition. If you see disagreements between whites and blacks who call themselves liberal, please cite them specifically.
This post is front-paged. It contains a significant factual error.
The characterization of the second graphic says this (emphasis mine):
The descriptive text of the source of the graphic says this (emphasis mine):
The second graph shows ambivalence AMONG US ADULTS, not Democrats.
Factual errors like this on a front-paged post surely hurt our credibility as a source of “reality-based commentary”.