According to Glenn Greenwald.
With Donald Trump Looming, Should Dems Take a Huge Electability Gamble by Nominating Hillary Clinton?
In virtually every poll, her rival, Bernie Sanders, does better, often much better, in head-to-head match-ups against every possible GOP candidate.
. . .
Although they both end up ahead in most polls, Sanders’ margin over Trump is generally very comfortable, while Clinton’s is smaller. Clinton’s average lead over Trump is just 2.8%, while Sanders’ lead is a full 6 points
. . .
Then there’s the data about how each candidate is perceived. Put simply, Hillary Clinton is an extremely unpopular political figure. By contrast, even after enduring months of attacks from the Clinton camp and its large number of media surrogates, Sanders remains a popular figure.
. . .
In fact, the more the public gets to see of both candidates, the more popular Sanders becomes, and the more unpopular Clinton becomes.
There are lots of supporting graphs and links in his essay. It raises serious doubts about Clinton’s electability.
…but when it finally comes time for the head to head I have no doubt HRC can mop the floor with whomever the GOP puts up. To be clear I am not arguing that Sanders is himself not electable, but she definitely is.
If you have some response to the evidence Greenwald lays out in the essay you didn’t bother to read, maybe you could share it with us, instead of just giving us your feelings again.
He lays out absolutely nothing I have not seen before.
Nate Silver and 538, have been saying forever that these nationwide polls aren’t particularly enlightening about anything. They are crummy in the nomination races, and have nearly zero value in those hypothetical gen election questions, particularly this far away. Their problem is that they assume the entire campaign is different than it is: one in which there are successive primaries, each of which exerts some influence on the next.
Silver was dead wrong on Trump and is stubbornly insisting he won’t win the nomination while our own David has been prescient about his enduring appeal. I know Silver, I’ve interacted with him in person, he really tries to be sincerely unbiased and and anti-pundit; but boy does he have a blind spot on Trump and his “analysis” to justify his predictions ends up sounding like beltway boilerplate.
For some time, I’ve had friendly arguments with both political science types and pollsters of my acquaintance over this stuff, in particular people who think that Party elites can control nominations.
The blind spot is not limited to Trump: In a climate of unfocused populism, when national parties are pretty much nonexistent on the ground, a candidate with a gift for demagoguery can be a classic leader.
By getting in front of a mob and yelling “Charge!”
In fairness to Silver, his analysis is just conventional wisdom. It just happens to be wrong.
…I’m pretty sure he has been right about who will win specific primaries and contests, and gives Trump the odds on most of the ones he’s willing to call going forward.
As is the article linked above. It doesn’t really change the fact that these who would you vote for in 11 months as between these hypothetical democrats and those hypothetical republicans” is a junk poll that just doesn’t prove what they want it to prove.
I would talk those polls with a huge dose of salt.
Still it is interesting to see that Bernie is definitely being taken seriously.
What do we know about the number of new people Donald Trump is turning up for his vote?
If the number of all these previously unengaged supporters is larger than the number of GoP centrists who will just not vote for Trump, then this could be a very difficult general election.
From The Hill (January 9, 2016):
With a Trump nomination almost in the bag, this will be a long hard slog.
Scary stuff. More Dems willing to vote for Trump than Repubs for Hillary.
I remember similar polls around this time in 2008 cited by the PUMA crowd about McCain drawing a similar percentage of Democrats. Then two things happened. On the Democratic side: Obama officially won the nomination, Clinton strongly endorsed him putting party before personality, and he picked Biden. On the Republican side: McCain picked Palin. Those two events drove most of the independents and conservative Democrats back into the fold.
I suspect once Trump is actually vetted by the media and maybe even his moronic primary rivals, once his numerous flip flops and bad statements are scrutinized, once he picks a Vice President, and once the Democrats unite behind a nominee that most folks will fall back into their camps.
I agree Hillary won’t win over too many Republicans, neither did Obama and neither will Sanders. Though I know a decent number of Republicans who will stay home if it’s Trump v Clinton.
I suspect that even fewer Republicans will cross over to vote for Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump.
I think most likely scenario is that a Trump nomination will cause a significant portion of the GOP base to stay home. I think that’s good for whomever is the Democratic nominee, and — even more importantly — good for the down-ballot races.
Good point about the downballot, Tom.
I’ve seen this game before, and the fact is that, irrespective of the eventual nominee Democrats have to develop a competent field operation for the November election – which neither candidate has now. In general elections, never underestimate Democratic candidates’ abilities to blow a lead.
Case in point, from the July 26, 1988 New York Times:
November horse race polls (in addition to not meaning squat this early in the cycle) ignore effective on-the-ground organization as a determinant in the final results.
Plus there is currently an enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans in general, and Trump in particular. Per NBC News:
My worry is that the primary cycle is now an intra-Democratic holy war, and that hard-core supporters of whomever does not emerge from the convention will let their hatred of the winner outweigh the common good of the country.
Both Sanders and Clinton people let this get out of hand, and I, for one, worry about the consequences.
I’ve heard it hypthosized that Dem turnout is lower because of fewer candidates, but that our relatively tame race should not be seen as a harbinger for November. I don’t see anything getting out of hand on our side. In fact I think our sober attitude is something to be proud of.
…wherein Sanders and Clinton people accuse their respective opponents of everything short of human sacrifice under the full moon.
Sober attitude? What alternative universe are you living in? Consider some of the (relatively mild) comments posted on this BMG thread. Believe me, the rhetoric is much harsher out there in the real world.
And, insofar as your hypothesis re: turnout. The Democratic caucus/primary turnout is lower because of the limited effectiveness of both candidate’s field operations.
I think it’s been a good debate and a good primary, but I hope we have a nominee after March 1st, or at least after March 15th, and that everyone pledges to support that nominee. And yes, I’ll be backing the Democrat even if I will be enrolling in my new party once I get situated.
Clinton and Sanders alike have very strong favorability ratings among Democrats. If this was truly an “intra-Democratic holy war”, then you’d see much more mixed ratings of both given that this is a pretty tight contest. “Sober attitude” better captures things on the Dem side, outside a few over-enthusiastic comments on blog threads.
Nothing in the Sanders/Clinton debate breaks new ground in regards to Clinton’s record, or her likability. Her problems are of her own making, not anyone else’s.
Unthinking he GOP race is weird because they have all these candidates, a lot of people like trump and a lot of people don’t, but all of the don’t likes just can’t get their shit together. The result is an exciting train wreck that is happening there.
Also, on the Dem side, I think that most people who pay attention know that Sanders is great and all but just doesn’t have the numbers to get the nomination. After next week it will be worse
Polling does show a lot of Democrats happy with both candidates. That could cut into the urgency to show up to vote or caucus.
of Greenwald. I don’t like the balance between his ideology and the facts. In this instance, I’m suspicious again of the balance. He’s too smart not to know that one of the bigger arguments for Hillary is her electability. Now, he’s reversing the argument for rhetorical reasons.
Is Bernie more or less electable? That’s not something polls can determine. Democrats are turning out in low numbers for the primary, and Bernie is not exactly running away with the nomination. Are polls targeting people who aren’t even going to vote in the primary?
Bernie’s being treated (relatively speaking) with kid gloves in a very easy primary in which both candidates have focused extraordinarily on issues and details. Bernie has never faced the right-wing noise machine. We don’t know how he’ll fair in that situation.
The other thing is, Hillary has pretty much bottomed out in terms of negatives. She’s been around long enough for those numbers to be stable. We don’t know what will happen with Bernie if he gets into the grinder that is the right-wing or the bully that is Donald Trump. He could do just fine, but at best, it’s a guess.
CMD is right. 538 and I would add Sam Wang and the Princeton Election Consortium are the go-to sites for reality-based polling analysis.
Greenwald is probably one of the most biased sources you could cite here, he thinks Clinton is a war criminal and is a Paul/Gary Johnson voter since his only issue is the survelliance state. Bias aside, believing his analysis requires buying early polls at this stage similar to the polls that showed Kerry with a 7 point lead over Bush right when he had won IA and NH. America knew him as the war hero more moderate than screamin’ Howard and he then crucified l by the draft dodging Bush as some hippie effete French guy who was a coward in Vietnam.
Bernie is an actual draft dodger, I’ve seen that meme circulating on the Internet and know at least one veteran leaning towards him who won’t support him now. Not to mention honeymooning in the USSR, the fact that he won’t release the name of the kibbutz he was on which could be this year’s Kenyan birth certificate, endorsing Ortega and Fidel, etc.
This is all shit I personally don’t care about, and I won’t fault anyone for refusing to fight in Vietnam, but my point is this is the stuff that Hillary can’t hit Bernie with since it would backfire badly, but Republicans will have a field day with.
The right-wing/GOP smear machine has NEVER had Bernie Sanders in its sights.
It will have a field day with Bernie Sanders, not because he’s done anything particularly “wrong” (he probably hasn’t), but because I suspect he will be knocked off balance, his organization will be distracted and will not know how to respond (see the SwiftBoating of John Kerry), and he has shown no evidence of the political skill and empathy needed to acknowledge and the moot the various attacks.
Bill Clinton was and is a master of handling an redirecting attacks like this (“These are just Republicans, this is what they do. Let me tell you what they want to distract you from.”). I don’t know about Ms. Clinton. I see no evidence that Mr. Sanders can do this at all.
Bill Clinton had a Roger Clemens fast ball. Hillary Clinton has a respectable fast ball and a Louis Tiant repertoire of everything else. I haven’t seen Bernie Sanders finish batting practice yet.
Really? Oy.
I did not realize he had quite that much Corbyn about him. Credit to Clinton for not going there, but holy moly September would be a nightmare.
No worries, the Clintons will not pass the opportunity to play that fiddle if the going gets tough.
Clinton will come out of Super Tuesday winning something like 55-60% of the delegates. It will stretch her elected delegate lead, allow her to hold on to her massive cache of unelected delegates, and continue the narrative that she’s a massive force with enough inertia to just keep rolling toward the win.
Clinton is running downhill. It’s not very steep, but it’s not a gentle slope either. She won’t need to play those fiddles because she can win while playing it cool.
like ‘FEEL THE BERN.’ 🙂
” She won’t need to play those fiddles because she can win while playing it cool.”
I like it, STOMV. Right on !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
the only point being: you can’t know, you can only pretend to know.
Naturally this sort of rank speculation about what will happen (‘they hate Hillary!”) spawns counterspeculation (‘they’ll swiftboat Bernie!”). All of it, speculation. What will happen may be better or worse, but it is bound to be different.
Who would have thought John Kerry would be vulnerable to attacks on his war record? Who would have thought up Sarah Palin? Or banking crisis of 2008? You can’t make that stuff up.
There are no facts about the future, but speculating about the future makes a dandy Rorschach blot for people to project their own feelings on.
I very much doubt that “electability” will sway more than a handful of primary voters. Instead they will chose their doomsday scenario to validate what they were going to do anyway.
I said this at the start of the process, but you vote for the candidate you think will make the better president and leave the horse race coverage to the media. At the end of the day, the candidate the beltway chattering class annoints as more electable might not be (see: Kerry, John; Bush, Jeb), and the more ideologically polarized candidate sometimes wins the presidency instead (see: Reagan, Ronald; Obama, Barack).
Now if we are using the metric “make the better president” then we get into a real debate about means and ends, experience and qualifications, and domestic as well as foreign policies. I have yet to see Sanders really get vetted by the primary process on those questions and it would behoove Clinton and the media to ask them and it would behoove Sanders to be ready with an answer. That’s what a primary ultimately should do: create a better nominee and a more prepared president.
Maybe, but it doesn’t matter.
Some people say it matters (and it becomes a campaign theme), but I don’t believe it actually influences their vote. It’s just something they say to bolster their case or make themselves feel good.
I try to think of voting as a political act not as self-expression or a means of anointing my true beliefs. If one cares about consequences and results, one cannot ignore estimates of how the general election will turn out.
Okay, let’s run a deeply flawed insider Democrat who campaigns poorly and pit her against a Republican who portrays himself as an businessman outsider looking to disrupt the status quo and see how that goes, AGAIN.
I get your point.
Still, Donald Trump is no Charlie Baker and Hillary Clinton is no Martha Coakley. Not to mention that America is not Massachusetts.
Donald is the businessman outsider who appeals to the independent voter who is tired of the rigged politics in Beacon Hill/Washington D.C. Hillary is the party insider who ran a disastrous campaign against a one term senator from Illinois. Massachusetts is no longer the Blue haven some think it is. One look at the Scott Brown campaign ought to wake anyone out of that dream.
…(and that is still where my money is), how long after convention can we expect to be treated to your snide remarks about having not nominated Sanders such as you made about Berwick long after the primary was won fair and square?
and I do not believe Trump is Baker OR Clinton is Coakley.
But please proceed. I’m all ears.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Sophistry is a false argument. It’s a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible but generally fallacious method of reasoning.
Are you a sophist ?
Just asking, cause I’m a Democrat.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Ms Clinton was narrowly defeated for the nomination.
For example she got a much larger percentage than a certain gubernatorial candidate.
In a presidential year against a stronger candidate Brown was cooked, he won due to exceptionally low turnout and an exceptionally flawed candidate.
surely you jest.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
But yes, like Mittens, a two time loser of a winnable race.
lost to the ‘ LIONESS OF THE SENATE ‘ , Senator Elizabeth Warren , because she had the courage to call him out for the fraud that he is in a way that today’s Republicans — including Charlie Baker — haven’t got the guts to do to Trump.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
You praise a Democrat for ‘calling out’ a Republican.
You scorn Republicans for not ‘calling out’ a Republican.
When do you scorn Democrats for not ‘calling out’ a Democrat?
(dunno!)
as a Democrat my job is to ”CALL OUT’ the sins and hypocrisy of the opposition Republicans.
I’ll leave it to you to scorn Democrats.
Still confused ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I always read everything you say with the presumption that it’s a partisan half-truth, an opinion which you pitch as a fact, or some pithy remark (or worse, quote) that adds little to the discussion.
just because your side is losing.
” If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.”
PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN
Fred Rich LaRiccia
nt
You might want to recalibrate how you estimate electoral outcomes.
how did that work out again ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
How’s that whole control of Congress thing working out?
By a margin of millions.
Like all of our other national problems.
I would be totally in favor of nonpartisan redistricting. Maybe we should embrace that here in MA.
the bigger problem is the non proportional representation in the Senate. Unlikely that’s changing soon either.
In an ironic twist, the filibuster makes the non proportional representation in the Senate less of a problem. The set of actions a party takes with 45 senators isn’t that much different then the set of actions a party takes with 55 senators.
Sure, I’d rather have 55 than 45, but having 218 in the House is far stronger than having 59 in the Senate.
and the disproportional power of smaller states in influencing things like agricultural policy or defense spending.
I think the disproportional power angle is pretty overstated. I’m not saying it’s not tangible, but in the context of the entire budget, the difference between what the Senate would produce and what the House would produce start looking pretty small. Seems to me that political party is a much bigger influence. I mean, how many House districts have some agriculture? Well more than half, including more than half in NY, CA, TX, etc.
I’m more concerned with the disproportional power of smaller states in influencing the outcome of the Presidential Election, truth be told. Although interestingly, of the 51 (inc. DC) states, 27 supported Obama. If you remove two EVs from each state so that each states EVs is proportional to population, Obama’s win is 278-158 (+120) rather than 332-206 (+126). It seems to me that POTUS candidates might take positions on smaller issues to go after swingy states regardless of EVs though, so again, I don’t think that size is that important.
That written, there’s no question that corn benefits from Iowa’s position on the primary/caucus calendar.
and Sec Babbitt tried to reform some Federal rules and fees around land use in the West, and quickly ran into a Congressional buzzsaw
Excerpt from link:
http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=93-P13-00015&segmentID=1
but your example appears to be from ~1992. That’s a pretty long time ago. There was at least one Democratic senator in Montana, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kentucky. In fact, 21 states had both a D and an R). Since then there’s been quite a bit of congressional reorganization — the South and Flyover are RED; the Northeast and West are BLUE, the Rust Belt leaning blue and likely to get bluer in Nov 2016. Perhaps that reorganization makes rural less impactful because, by and large, the GOP has gobbled up that constituency.
and CA has almost 39 million people and the same representation. The party doesn’t matter. I gave you a concrete example and linked to it. A Democratic president couldn’t do something for the good of the country because a handful of Democratic Senators from some low population states opposed it.
But I give up. I’m tired of these endless go rounds. You’re 100% right. It doesn’t effect the governance of the US at all, and you are clearly a much brighter person than me. Do you want me to throw any other kudos your way or is that enough?
I just don’t think the issue is particularly big relative to other items. No reason to be petulant about it.
when we have a national popular vote for POTUS. Until then, they’re rough guides but no more helpful than that.
Tell me what the folks in Michigan think. In North Carolina. In FL, OH, CO, MO, VA, PA, WI, AZ, NH, NJ, NM, IA. Most Americans don’t live in those states, and their preferences influence the national poll but have no influence on electoral arithmetic.