Bernie Sanders won the democratic primary

[thirdchill]

Would this have made any difference to the outcome of the presidential election? Would Trump have won just the same, or with an even bigger margin? Or would sanders have appealed to some of those areas which have had terrible unemployment that voted for Trump?

Sanders may well have been able to run a campaign which responded to these concerns, and though a Senator Bernie Sanders would have clearly had outsider appeal from those who rail against the establishment as well.

Would it have been enough to win though?

[The Bishop]

Sanders had significant negatives too, and he would have struggled to win yesterday even against Trump.

The argument can certainly be made, though, that the Dem establishment failed to fully realise the significance of his "insurgency".

[Merseymike]

I think he could well have won. It would have only taken a few states to swing things round and I think he could have won places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Although he is a senator he has always been seen as an outsider and he is a longstanding critic of globalisation.

Obviously he has drawbacks but so did Trump! And clearly they were nowhere near the level of Hillary's.

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2016 12:26:55 GMT thirdchill said:

Would this have made any difference to the outcome of the presidential election? Would Trump have won just the same, or with an even bigger margin? Or would sanders have appealed to some of those areas which have had terrible unemployment that voted for Trump?

Sanders may well have been able to run a campaign which responded to these concerns, and though a Senator Bernie Sanders would have clearly had outsider appeal from those who rail against the establishment as well.

Would it have been enough to win though?

Most likely.
 
Sanders had appeal to rural/small town whites and millennials, and would not have lost the Rust Belt (or Maine2), which would have been enough. He would have done worse in the South and SW, (and among minorities in general), but that would not have mattered in the end.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan would have been save D with Sanders and its hard to see any state Clinton won, that Sanders loses. Ironically Trump might well have won the popular vote against Sanders.

[johnloony]

Sanders would have come under greater scrutiny over his policies, and the result of that scrutiny would have been an unknown factor.

[Lord Twaddleford]

Nov 9, 2016 21:29:41 GMT johnloony said:

Sanders would have come under greater scrutiny over his policies, and the result of that scrutiny would have been an unknown factor.

Considering that Republicans managed to paint Obama's not-even-close-to-left-of-centre policies as "socialist" and "undue government interference", they'd have probably ripper Sanders' policies apart; though, considering that in the past he's frequently and openly described himself as "socialist", that particular word may not have had as great an impact as a slur as it otherwise would've. Also, as has been mentioned, Sanders lacked many of the hangups that Hillary possesed, so that's one avenue of attack that would've been unavailable, but how much those aspects would've balanced each other out I wouldn't like to say.

Still, I wouldn't have put it past the Republican party to devise some new and previously unused smear to deploy against Sanders...

[mrpastelito]

Nov 9, 2016 18:44:43 GMT @odo said:

Nov 9, 2016 12:26:55 GMT thirdchill said:

Would this have made any difference to the outcome of the presidential election? Would Trump have won just the same, or with an even bigger margin? Or would sanders have appealed to some of those areas which have had terrible unemployment that voted for Trump?

Sanders may well have been able to run a campaign which responded to these concerns, and though a Senator Bernie Sanders would have clearly had outsider appeal from those who rail against the establishment as well.

Would it have been enough to win though?

Most likely.
 
Sanders had appeal to rural/small town whites and millennials, and would not have lost the Rust Belt (or Maine2), which would have been enough. He would have done worse in the South and SW, (and among minorities in general), but that would not have mattered in the end.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan would have been save D with Sanders and its hard to see any state Clinton won, that Sanders loses. Ironically Trump might well have won the popular vote against Sanders.

On the whole I agree - PA, WI and MI would've gone Sanders - but he might have lost Colorado and Nevada. We'll never find out though - he would've come under greater scrutiny for sure.

[curiousliberal]

Michael Bloomberg would probably have made good on his pledge to stand as president, and potentially taken a large chunk of the Democratic vote (and to a far lesser extent, the Republican vote) with him.

This could well have led to a Trump landslide.

[The Bishop]

Why would Bloomberg have taken "far more" of the Dem than GOP vote - especially if you assume Trump was still the latter's candidate?

He is a Republican himself, after all.....

[Pete Whitehead]

Nov 10, 2016 11:07:43 GMT The Bishop said:

Why would Bloomberg have taken "far more" of the Dem than GOP vote - especially if you assume Trump was still the latter's candidate?

He is a Republican himself, after all.....

He's not really though is he - certainly wouldn;t pass for one outside NYC

[Merseymike]

Nov 10, 2016 11:07:43 GMT The Bishop said:

Why would Bloomberg have taken "far more" of the Dem than GOP vote - especially if you assume Trump was still the latter's candidate?

He is a Republican himself, after all.....

And he would have certainly been supported by many of the establishment Republicans. I think he would have taken few Democratic votes.

[Deleted]

Third party candidates matter relatively little and Bloomberg would have had limited appeal in the swing states. He would likely have ended up with 3-4% nationally and not been much of a factor. The Democrats do not need Florida, which is the only swing state where he would have been a factor (and Sanders would lose Florida anyway because of low appeal to minorities). Though you can make a case for NH as well, but that would not have been decisive anyway, and I think Sanders would have won it fairly convincingly.

This election showed (or confirmed) that polarization runs very deep in the US today - even with someone as vile and sociopathic as Trump the GOP kept their coalition intact. Sanders would have held the Democratic coalition together and Trump the GOP (apart from a drop in suburban votes, which makes Pennsylvania impossible for Trump, but that is a state Sanders would have won anyway).

Sanders/Trump would have been a fascinating race in many ways, but would have been much closer to a standard early 21th century election than most seem to assume, with or without Bloomberg.

[Sibboleth]

Sanders would have averted the massive collapse of the white Democratic vote, I don't think there's any question about that. Those people were his primary base, those people are the people he knows how to talk to. He also has infinity less baggage than Clinton and would also not have been seen as an 'incumbent government' candidate. Does this mean he would have won the election? Not necessarily; Trump would have red-baited the hell out of him and so there's little doubt that he would have performed much worse than Clinton in affluent areas, and then there's the reality that he's not great at communicating with minorities and so turnout from that general direction would have been lower. But the defeat (if it were a defeat) would not have been so miserable looking.

[greenchristian]

Worth noting that, in order for Bernie to win the Primary, he would almost certainly had to appeal more to minority voters than he actually did. So it's possible that he wouldn't have performed that much worse with them than Clinton did.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that it's almost certain that a Sanders campaign would have done a lot better in the rust belt than Clinton did.

[Sibboleth]

Yeah but not just the Rust Belt; he would have held onto more of Midwestern rural vote etc.

[justlooking]

It seems it won't let us start a thread and I am surprised you haven't had what if Hillary won instead of Trump.....

But with what is occurring today with North Koreas leader making the symbolic gesture of going to South Korea. Would this have happened if Hillary had been elected President?

As most of this is posture politics anyway, has Donald Trumps antics actually given the North a way of finding a way to become friends again with the South, A route which may never occurred with Hillary as President. Also running a twitter poll if you care to have your vote.

[swanarcadian]

Poll added.

[tiberius]

the "white people don't know what it's like to be poor" line would be heavily highlighted in the general election. Bernie still loses I think, though he wins one or two of MI/PA/WI.

[justlooking]

Apr 27, 2018 7:14:14 GMT swanarcadian said:

Poll added.

Thanks

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Unless I have missed it though, I haven't seen a thread about the North/South Korea meeting today.

How would a different President of the United States of America effected the meeting today. Would a Bernie or Clinton made it less likely. Has Trumps style (If that is what it can be classed as) brought about or at least made it conducive for todays talks?

[Deleted]

Bernie polled better amongst independent voters than any other candidate and was the only candidate to poll net positive ratings. The campaign is an unknown but I think he would have won