Bernie Sanders is focusing on electability in 2020 race

[Uncle Joe]

As he revs up his second presidential campaign, the Vermont senator and his supporters are putting his case for winning the general election at the center of the argument. The emphasis is meant to aggressively confront the perception that Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is too liberal to win over the coalition needed to win the White House. That question dogged Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic nomination four years ago. This time he is trying to shake it early.

On the trail, Sanders is quick to note that some of his policy ideas have moved from the fringe to the mainstream of the Democratic Party. His strategists argue he’s best positioned to win over voters in the three Rust Belt states that Democrat Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016. Trump, the campaign argues, won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the keys to his Electoral College victory, by offering a version of Sanders’ populist economic message.

What Trump was offering “was faux-Bernie Sanders in order to beat Hillary Clinton,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said, adding that Sanders plans to focus on the three states even as he fights off a crowded field of Democrats vying for the nomination in states with early primary contests. “We will invest, we will go to these states and demonstrate through real action, and hopefully data and numbers, that we can beat Donald Trump.”

(snip)

Karine Jean-Pierre, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser at MoveOn, argued against the notion that a more centrist candidate is inherently more electable. “Often you’ll hear arguments from centrist, or more corporate-aligned, Democrats that a candidate needs to run as a centrist to win — but those comments say more about the commenters’ interests and ideology. They don’t actually tell you much useful about political outcomes,” she said.

(snip)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernie-sanders-is-focusing-on-electability-in-2020-race-2019-03-19

[Amimnoch]

1. "best positioned to win over voters in the three Rust Belt states..

That Deomcrat Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016."

The only Rust Belt state that Bernie won in 2016 was Michigan. That would only be a 10 point shift.

So, he lost in the primary to the one who lost in the general, but he's the one to win them?

[Trenzalore]

24. The magical idea that former union guys who love Trump will jump back to the democratic party

Better turnout of minority voters in Michigan, PA, or Wisconsin would have easily flipped those states.

Hillary didn't give people of color something to be excited about and Trump had yet sufficiently scared them.

[SFnomad]

2. BS will lose more in the middle than he will gain on the fringe. Of all the candidates, I believe

BS has the greatest chance of giving tRump 4 more years.

[Gothmog]

4. sanders is simply not electable

[we can do it]

5. Agree with both of you. BS finger-wagger too divisive.

[Demsrule86]

25. That is what I think too.

Sure I would vote for him in a general but we we will lose.

[Kahuna7]

6. He has never been vetted. And there are videos all over youtube and

articles of him eschewing capitalism in favor of socialism. Now he thinks he's going to explain it anew?

This is just a brief excerpt of what's to come at 6:35

?t=395

[NurseJackie]

12. Trump would most EASILY defeat BS.

[Demsrule86]

26. Yes he would..

[Gothmog]

3. Opinion: The myth of ideology, and why Democrats' energy isn't all on the left

Link to tweet

The vast majority of Democratic primary voters then and now do not identify as democratic socialists. Perhaps Sanders capitalized on unaffiliated anti-establishment types and Democrats who preferred him despite his ideology and not because of it. Move forward to the 2020 contests. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is providing the most substantive, interesting agenda that committed progressives could hope to see. Yet she is lagging in the polls. If this was all about progressive ideology and policy plans, she’d be running rings around the rest of the field.

As for Sanders, he benefits this time around from 100 percent name identification. However, the flip side of 100 percent name ID is that he’s no longer new, no longer saying things no one else will. He’s just as much of a democratic socialist as he was in 2016, but in the space of a few days we’ve seen that the “energy” isn’t all on the left; it’s drifting toward a centrist, young, optimistic candidate. Voters follow the energy and the ethos. They don’t carry around a thermometer gauging where on the scale of ideological purity each candidate rates.....

All you need to be is progressive enough to win a Democratic primary. Seeming more moderate than the Sanders clan is an advantage in the general election.

Why are pundits, the media and party insiders so convinced that ideological extremism equals energy/success? Part of it may be wishful thinking for progressives. However, part of the difficulty is linguistic. "Moderate” sounds to many ears to mean mild-mannered, prone to compromise and wishy-washy in beliefs. Nonsense. If ever there was a radical moderate, a fervent centrist Democrat, it’s O’Rourke. And gosh, he’s showing that can be exciting.

sanders will not be the nominee

[OKNancy]

7. He won't win the Democratic nomination, so he can think he is electable

but it won't matter.

[OKNancy]

8. I find that too many people label pragmatic Progressives as Centrists

You can wish and dream for every liberal idea there is, but those of us who know how politics works know one has to be pragmatic.
You can't always get what you want.....

[Awsi Dooger]

11. Correct

I always score as very liberal on the online tests. But I've lived in Nevada and Florida, where only fools would try to nominate from the far left.

Not fun among neighbors or results but it definitely helps perspective to live in a balanced state or even a red state. There is no nonsensical belief that we can nominate from the extreme and voters will fall in love.

[stonecutter357]

9. lol !

[WeekiWater]

10. So he is making the case for Biden, Beto or Harris?

[Gothmog]

13. Washington Post-Sanders and Warren are talking a lot about civil rights. Not many blacks are listeni

Link to tweet

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — The crowd packed into the gym of a century-old black church here cheered every time Sen. Bernie Sanders attacked inequities that hit disadvantaged African Americans especially hard, applauding his ideas to address “the disparity within the disparity.”

But the problem Sanders faces in appealing to black voters was staring at him as he spoke for an hour recently at the gym of the Royal Missionary Baptist Church: Of the more than 1,600 people who came to see the candidate, fewer than 40 were black.....

Black voters played a critical role in picking the last two Democratic nominees, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and it’s hard to see a path to the Democratic nomination without significant black support.

About 25 percent of Democratic primary voters in 2016 were African American, and in key states, including South Carolina, the figure was much higher.

[Cha]

14. 'Cause they are the Smartest Voters

we have. Our Democratic BASE.

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

21. I agree

African American voters are the key members of the base of the party

[Cha]

22. Yeah, BS is focused on "electability" by

by hiring 3rd party trolls. One who has committed a breach of "journalist integrity".

His divisive 3rd party hires aren't fooling anybody.

[Gothmog]

15. Polls show Bernie Sanders' popularity among all voters is plummeting

Link to tweet

One of the arguments Bernie Sanders' fans made during the 2016 Democratic primary was that he was more electable than Hillary Clinton. His favorable ratings with the general electorate were far higher than Hillary Clinton's. Indeed, Sanders maintained fairly high favorable ratings with all voters as late as 2018.

Sanders' popularity among all voters seems to be declining considerably in the last few months, however.

Our new CNN poll puts Sanders favorable rating at 46% compared to an unfavorable rating of 45% among registered voters. This is only the latest poll to have Sanders at basically even in his net favorability rating (favorable-unfavorable). A Quinnipiac University poll from late December gave the Vermont senator a net favorability of just +2 points. An average of all recent polls put Sanders' net favorability at about -1 points.

[Uncle Joe]

16. Corporate media conglomerate spin, Bernie's favorability ratings are about the same as last time

he ran.

(snip)

So, what's changed? I'd argue that Sanders was benefiting from not being in a competitive campaign. (Former Vice President Joe Biden, who has garnered the most support in general election polls among the Democrats, may be benefiting from a similar effect.) When you're not being thought of a viable threat to win a party's nomination, opponents tend to lay off. The last time Sanders was thought of as at least a minor threat to win the Democratic nomination was in March 2016. His net favorability rating back then among all voters was +3 points in a CNN poll.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/politics/bernie-sanders-favorable-unfavorable-rating/index.html

[Gothmog]

17. I like living in the real world

Will sanders even make it to Super Tuesday?

[Uncle Joe]

18. I will buy you a star if he doesn't n/t

[Gothmog]

19. Give the money to the party's nominee

I was a maxed out Clinton donor in 2016 and was closed to maxing out for a couple of candidates in 2018. We flipped my county and now Texas is a battleground state. The DCCC has targeted six Texas seats who I will be contributing to as well as to Colin and Lizzie who will be running for re-election.

[Gothmog]

20. No one took sanders seriously in 2016 and so sanders was not vetted

No one took sanders seriously and so he was not vetted. Vetting is important I amso glad that sanders is being vetted this cycle https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/28/why-bernie-sanders-has-an-uphill-climb-ahead/?utm_term=.1b4f90c2a717

Finally, what happens when the oppo dump on Sanders comes? We have no idea, because it never happened in 2016. Clinton was so terrified of alienating his supporters and seeing them vote for Jill Stein in the general election (or not vote at all) that she tiptoed around him for pretty much the entirety of the primary campaign. That doesn’t mean that he’ll be destroyed when stories about the more colorful aspects of his history start cropping up, but there’s just no way to know.

Which is what we could say about the Sanders candidacy as a whole: There’s no way to know how it’s going to go. But he’s got his work cut out for him.

See also https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-campaign-donald-trump/index.html?utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2019-02-20T14%3A52%3A07&utm_term=image&utm_medium=social%C2%A0

2. How will he withstand more scrutiny and more attacks?
One of the secrets to Sanders' success in 2016 was that no one -- most especially Clinton -- thought he had any chance of going anywhere in the race. Clinton largely ignored him for the better part of 2015, allowing some problematic parts of Sanders' record for Democrats -- most notably his voting record on guns -- to go unnoticed. (When the race began to tighten, Clinton gently prodded Sanders on guns and health care.) Sanders, too, largely flew under the radar of investigative reporters for major news outlets who were busy looking into Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and others seen as more viable candidates. (That reality clearly benefited Donald Trump in the early days of the campaign, as well.)

Sanders will get no pass -- from either the media or his fellow candidates -- this time around. He is among the frontrunners -- and will be treated as such. His wife's time as president of Burlington College could well come up. And his opponents will do a deep dive into his nearly 30 years of votes as a member of the House and Senate. This is all very normal stuff in a campaign. But not for Sanders.

The CNN polling reflects the fact that sanders is being vetted

[Demsrule86]

27. I don't think so.

[CentralMass]

28. He is second in the polls.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

[Gothmog]

23. Washington Post-'Electability' and 'Bernie' don't belong in the same sentence

Link to tweet

“A combined 58 percent of voters are either uncomfortable (37 percent) or have reservations about (21 percent) Bernie Sanders’ 2020 bid. For Elizabeth Warren, it’s a combined 53 percent. And for Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke, it’s 41 percent of voters expressing either reservations or discomfort.” Given that the overwhelming number of voters know who Sanders is, there is no excuse — as there is for other candidates — that they have insufficient information to decide whether to vote for him. Sanders is about as well known as former vice president Joe Biden, yet the poll shows that Biden’s comfortable/uncomfortable rating (48/48) clearly outpaces Sanders’s (37/58).....

Sanders’s age, the “socialist” moniker he embraces and his 2016 campaign problem with women are not going to change during the race. It’s unlikely his personality or his familiarity with foreign policy will improve, either. (The guy is 77, and if we have learned anything from Trump, it is that septuagenarians don’t change their personalities nor attend to habitual deficits in knowledge.) Oh, and on Sunday he again promised to release his tax returns, which he promised over a month ago would be “soon.”

[Gothmog]

29. If sanders is the nominee, trump wins

Link to tweet