2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You
Assistant Professor of English at University of New Hampshire
Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and Ill Prove It to You
03/23/2016 09:33 am ET
Nobody cares how well a politician does at the ballot box when he or she is running for an office unopposed. What matters is how a politician performs in contested primaries and general elections, as when it really matters like it will, for instance, this November you can be certain of a contested election.
With that said, lets make an important observation: Bernie Sanders has tied or beaten Hillary Clinton in a majority of the actively contested votes this election season.
You doubt it? Okay, let me explain.
Bernie Sanders has terrible name recognition in states where he hasnt advertised or campaigned yet; meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has universal name recognition everywhere. Realizing this, the Clinton camp pushed hard to rack up the early vote in every state where early voting was an option. They did this not primarily for the reason weve been told because Clinton performs well among older voters, and older voters are more likely to vote early than other age demographics but rather because they knew that early votes are almost always cast before the election season actually begins in a given state.
Thats right in each state, most of the early primary voting occurs before the candidates have aired any commercials or held any campaign events. For Bernie Sanders, this means that early voting happens, pretty much everywhere, before anyone knows who he is. Certainly, early voting occurs in each state before voters have developed a sufficient level of familiarity and comfort with Sanders to vote for him.
But on Election Day among voters whove been present and attentive for each candidates commercials, local news coverage, and live events Sanders tends to tie or beat Clinton.
In fact, thats the real reason Sanders does well in caucuses.
Its not because caucuses require a real time investment, as the media likes to euphemistically say, but because caucuses require that you vote on Election Day rather than well before it.
Consider: in North Carolina, Hillary Clinton only won Election Day voting 52% to 48%. Given the shenanigans in evidence during the live voting there thousands of college students were turned away from the polls due to insufficient identification under a new voter-suppression statute in the state it wouldnt be unfair to call that 4-point race more like a 2-point one (51% to 49% for Clinton).
Consider: on Super Tuesday 3, because early voting is always reported first, Clintons margins of victory were originally believed to be 25 points in Missouri, 30 points in Illinois, and 30 points in Ohio. Missouri, which doesnt have conventional early voting, ended up a tie. Illinois ended up with a 1.8% margin for Clinton (after being a 42-point race in Clintons favor just a week earlier) and Ohio a 13.8% margin.
Any one of us could do the math there. And yet the media never did.
Consider: in Arizona yesterday, the election was called almost immediately by the media, with Clinton appearing to win the state by a margin of 61.5% to 36.1%. Of course, this was all early voting. CNN even wrongly reported that these early votes constituted the live vote in 41% of all Arizona precincts........
Read the rest, there is MUCH more covered to prove the point~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/sanders-currently-winning-democratic-primary-race-ill-prove-to-you_b_9528076.html
********
.......editing to add an important point~
The fact that early voting statutes and media reporting of elections in America favors the maintenance of the illusion that Hillary remains popular when voters become familiar with other credible options does not excuse ignorance of the reality; certainly, it wont help Democrats in November............
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Which you won't find in the corporate, propagandized mainstream media, wherein lies the true fiction with relevant information conveniently O'Mitted..
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)It is straight up voter suppression.
metroins
(2,550 posts)Skink
(10,122 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)DanTex
(20,709 posts)stonecutter357
(12,697 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)RiverLover
(7,830 posts)farleftlib
(2,125 posts)Ostrich Army Rapid Response Unit...
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)bolster the Purity Party's dictates!!
New Earth
(9,745 posts)Cuz I can't see them
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)My Ignore list will soon be literally ten times the size it was a little over a month ago when I un-Trashed GD: P. Worst decision I've ever made here...
New Earth
(9,745 posts)But the last two weeks or so, they are popping up....I guess some who were in hiding?
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Ear to theground, as it were...
Okay, and also to fuck with 'em.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)I edited the quote for space, but it's a doozy.
Here it is, in all of it's glory:
"Hillary does not, outside the deep-red Deep South, do particularly well among voters when theyre given any other reasonable alternative."
OUCH - that has to BERN!
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)doesn't account for Clinton beating Sanders there by half a million votes.
IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)Lifelong Dems showing up as registered Republicans, New Democrats showing up "blank" and people waiting in line for hours to vote while they were told it was already done by the media, among other issues and irregularities.
To minimize it as "a few" is disingenuous at best, and setting up for a repeat in the general, with the Republican as the purported winner.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)It takes a massive amount of self-deception to pretend otherwise.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Lost Massachusetts, and Iowa, and Nevada, and Illinois, and Virginia, and Missouri.
artyteacher
(598 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)People have confused "needs to win" with "has a good shot at winning"
If OH was Clinton +13 and PA has a closed primary, I am puzzled by people who think he'll do well there.
vdogg
(1,384 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)The Corporate Owned Media.
"In 1982, when I completed research for my book, The Media Monopoly, 50 corporations controlled half or more of the media business. By December 1986, when I finished a revision for a second edition, the 50 had shrunk to 29. When the latest edition was published in 1993, the number was down to 20. A number of serious Wall Street media analysts are predicting that by the 1990s, a half-dozen giant firms will control most of our media.
"In the process, the usual democratic expectation for the media -- diversity of ownership and ideas -- has disappeared as the goal of official policy and, worse, as a daily experience of a generation of American readers and viewers."
-- Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly, 1993
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Control the message.
Control the message.
When even Rachel has turned, you know its working like a charm!
mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)I mentioned her friendship with Henry Kissinger. Wish I had this picture.. she sure does. She and Trump shared many a chuckle as well. At some point, the company we keep has to matter.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)The pic above is Hillary with News Corp(Fox, WSJ, etc see above) Rupert Murdoch.
Here's a pic with Kissinger (they really do look alike!)~
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Sanders losing by 14% in Ohio is a fucking loss, not a moral victory.
Early voters count just as much as election day voters.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)bravenak
(34,648 posts)artyteacher
(598 posts)Favored to win 95% in Predict wise...
mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)at the top of the ticket or down the line. The DNC is weak, with a weak leader and the proof is in the loss of the House and Senate and many state offices to the GOP. Hillary's negatives are high, sorry, fact of life.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)No matter who they vote for on the presidential ticket.
Although, most down ticket is establishment Dem too since progressives who run against incumbents don't have DNC support.
We just need a new party. We need a Do Over.
mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)the Republicans are so much worse. Pretty low bar there.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Ugh.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)vintx
(1,748 posts)The fans don't care. This is like American Idol to them.
Their side is winning. That's all that matters. Just read their posts, it's not like they're making any effort to hide their team sport mentality.
RandySF
(58,835 posts)This reminds me of the time someone on DU said Bernie is black.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)So, even though every attempt has been made to congratulate Hillary before ALL of the votes are counted, be sure and vote this November.
The Democratic party in Idaho didn't even send out postcards to registered Democrats to inform them where their caucus was going to be held last night.
Normally, I get a postcard 2 weeks in advance with the address and time to show up printed on it so I can change my schedule in order to attend.
However, just as bad as that, the Republican party in Idaho put up billboards across the state last month saying that the primary was going to be held on March 8th . . . yet, in fact, only the Republican's primary was going to be held on that day!
It took the Democratic party in Idaho 2 weeks to get the Republican Attorney General to change those billboards, making them more informative, by having a small banner pasted across the bottom of the billboard announcing that the Republicans will be holding their primary on March 8th, and announcing that the Democrats will hold their caucus on March 22nd.
I've never seen such a coordinated misinformation campaign in my entire life!!
Yet, we Democrats turned out last night and set a new record for the largest Democratic caucus in history!!
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Thank you!!!!!!!!
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)kstewart33
(6,551 posts)Yes, Bernie won 2 caucuses. Caucuses are more advantageous to competitors who aren't in the lead. Caucuses don't provide many delegates as was the case last night. Bernie will gain a few delegates at the most, but even that is yet to be determined.
Hillary is some 700 delegates ahead at this point. There is no way that the supers will switch to a guy who is a Democrat in category only. These are party officials. They know a con job when they see it.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Centrism is just republicanism in the Democratic Party.
Pro-outsourcing & off-shoring American Jobs
Pro-deregulating financial & fossil fuel & every industry
Pro-charter schools
Pro-unregulated fracking & fracking radioactive waste disposal
Pro-war for corp profit
Pro-monopolies of all industries
If you are for real, you are being conned.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
72DejaVu
(1,545 posts)I'd say that Bernie ought to check the expiration date on that can of whoop ass he's trying to open.
CalvinballPro
(1,019 posts)Again, this is just a variant on the "Well their votes don't count because I said so!" meme, which hasn't really been all that effective in any of its prior forms.
Southern Democrats' votes still count.
Black Democrats' votes still count.
Older Democrats' votes still count.
Your vote doesn't count twice if you participated in a caucus.
Your vote doesn't count twice if your state goes blue in a general election.
Your vote doesn't count twice if you're white.
Your vote doesn't count twice if you're young.
I'm starting to get the idea that to a Sanders Progressive, democracy is the enemy. And the comparisons of the Sanders movement to the Tea Party only grow more pronounced, as they both have been exposed as efforts by a minority of voters to impose their will on a majority who rejects them.
Uncle Joe
(58,362 posts)Thanks for the thread, RiverLover.