WaPo/Ipsos poll of black voters: Biden 48%, Sanders 20%, Warren 9%, Booker & Bloomberg 4%,

[highplainsdem]

Yang 3%, Buttigieg & Steyer 2%

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-holds-wide-lead-among-black-voters-in-democratic-presidential-race-post-ipsos-poll-finds/2020/01/11/76ecff08-3325-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html

Former vice president Joe Biden is far and away the favored candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination among black Americans, boosted by his personal popularity, his service in the Obama administration and perceptions that he is best equipped to defeat President Trump, according to a national Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) occupies second place in the Democratic field among African American voters, easily outdistancing the remaining candidates in the race. Sanders is leading among black voters under age 35, replicating his success with younger white voters in other national polls. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) runs third.

The survey finds meager support for former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is among the leaders in polls in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire but stands at 2 percent among Democratic black voters nationally. A lack of familiarity with him and concerns about his experience and sexual orientation appear to be contributing to his current standing. Buttigieg has said that as African Americans get to know him, he will gain more support, but the poll undercuts that assertion. He receives only 3 percent support among black voters who are familiar with him.

The results, highlighting the views of a group that historically has played a significant role in determining the outcome of the Democratic nominating contest, help to explain the enduring strength of Biden’s candidacy. Despite questions about his age, his past positions on forced school busing and his relationships with Southern segregationist senators, the poll shows that 48 percent of black Democrats favor him for the nomination — a 28-point advantage over Sanders.

-snip-

The survey, conducted by The Post and the nonpartisan research firm Ipsos, is one of the most extensive studies to date of views on the 2020 campaign among black voters, who, like other minority groups, are often represented by only small samples in customary national polls. It was conducted among 1,088 non-Hispanic black adults, including 900 registered voters, drawn from a large online survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households.
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More than 8 in 10 African American adults say the outcome of the 2020 election is important to them, and 79 percent say it is important to them personally that Trump not win a second term, with 66 percent saying that is “extremely” important to them.

Trump performs poorly among black voters when matched against any potential Democratic nominee. He wins just 4 or 5 percent of black voters when tested against eight Democratic candidates individually. But there is a 25-point variation in the levels of support for individual Democrats in these hypothetical contests against the president, an early measure of which candidates could more easily consolidate black support and who might struggle to turn out black voters in November.

In the competition for the Democratic nomination, Sanders is at 20 percent among black Democrats, followed by Warren at 9 percent. Buttigieg’s 2 percent support ties him with wealthy businessman Tom Steyer but slightly behind Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg at 4 percent each and the entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 3 percent.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who is looking for a breakthrough in Iowa, receives less than 1 percent support among black voters, as does former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, the other African American candidate tested along with Booker.

When second choices are combined with first choices, Biden stands at 64 percent, Sanders at 42 percent, Warren at 28 percent and Booker at 12 percent. No other candidate rises to double digits in the combined first- and second-choice rankings of African American voters.

-snip-

Age is the sharpest dividing line among black Democratic voters. Though Biden leads his rivals by more than 2 to 1 overall, he trails Sanders by 42 percent to 30 percent among black Democrats ages 18 to 34.

Sanders’s support falls to 16 percent among black Democrats ages 35 to 49, far lower than Biden’s 41 percent support in this group. Biden’s support strengthens among older Democrats, rising to 68 percent among those 65 and older.

-snip-

[David__77]

1. I'm pleased to see Sanders' lead in this poll among the younger voters.

Regardless of how things go this time.

[Hortensis]

2. Sanders is a huge example of the effect of big money in politics.

Sanders is outspending all other Democrats on TV and radio ads, $11 million so far. In comparison, the frontrunner, Joe Biden, has spent $2.8 million.

Ad spending is in addition to Sanders' biggest effort of messaging people on line and by mail using data he's collected on them.

A way of saying, David, that maybe you should not be so pleased with the effects that throwing vast sums of advertising money is having on young people. It's the same effect Big Money always has on elections.

[David__77]

3. He's outspending Bloomberg?

I would be surprised if so.

[highplainsdem]

4. He's outspending the non-billionaire candidates by a wide margin.

And yes, young voters are more likely to be swayed by ads.

And by promises of free college, and forgiveness of student loan debts no matter how big, no matter whether the student could repay them.

[Hortensis]

6. He's risen far above the small minority the real Sanders appeals

to by extremely misleading advertising.

Sanders can't give away collectivism, socialism, universalism, democratic or any other kind, to 90% of the nation, but he can try to scrape off his lifelong label to market himself as a "Better-Than-Democrat" product to people who identify Democrat and assume if they're told he's better he must be.

"I am not, nor have I ever been, a liberal Democrat." ~ Bernie Sanders, but don't look for THIS message in his advertising.

You won't find honesty about the socialism that "has defined five decades of his political life" either. America really likes the New Deal version of capitalism-based democracy that worked so well, though. So Sanders has pasted a new label on his socialism: *New Deal*.

Imagine! The U.S. has been the planet's only successful socialist state for 80 years.

Who knew?! No one because it's a major whopper. Not one single historian. Not one single Democrat who helped create the New Deal or any whose lives benefited enormously from it.

President Roosevelt was our nation's top warrior against the grave threats of socialism and fascism that other nations fell to. FDR was loathed by socialists of his day, who called him a traitor to America. Sanders rebrands him as a socialist.

Sanders' revisionist history also claims mainstream Democrats like most of us (whom he calls the conservative wing) opposed the New Deal. NOT true: We created the New Deal, and it's time for us to repair and advance a new New Deal. But it certainly won't be the socialist, collectivist revolution Sanders cannot tell the truth about and manage to poll over 8%, tops.

WaPo: And Mr. Sanders, 77, declared that his version of socialism was a political winner, having lifted Mr. Roosevelt to victory four times (!!!!) and powered his own career in government.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/politics/bernie-sanders-socialism.html

[David__77]

7. I don't see a policy critique there.

There is a critique of “collectivist” and “socialist” and I’m not sure what Sanders has proposed that falls under those categories. Sanders isn’t even, to my knowledge, suggesting that power companies be under public ownership- a very reasonable position to hold, I think.

[Hortensis]

13. No, he can't sell that. If you don't support Sanders'

lifelong passion, which he has never abandoned and never will, what on earth are you doing?

If what you want is a Democratic New Dealer, you vote for one. Not a democratic socialist doing a really bad job of trying to hide it and deceiving over and over and over again about what it is.

Here's a NYT article on democratic socialism, btw. No mention of New Deal capitalism. It's also very different, more extreme, from what some European nations have, and they only partially.

What Is Democratic Socialism? Whose Version Are We Talking About?

... Leftist political theory encompasses a wide range of ideologies, which can be divided roughly into three categories.

Communism ... a fully centralized economy achieved through revolution.

Social democracy ... (note, this is NOT Sanders' democratic socialism) which is common in Europe. It preserves capitalism, but with stricter regulations and government programs to distribute resources more evenly. ...the economy continues to operate “on terms that are set by the capitalist class,”

Democratic socialism ... falls in between. ... democratic socialists don’t support capitalism: They want workers to control the means of production. Maria Svart, national director of the Democratic Socialists of America: “Our ultimate goal really is for working people to run our society and run our workplaces and our economies.”

Unlike communists, however, democratic socialists believe socialism should be achieved, well, democratically. This requires a long-term outlook, because they know theirs is a minority position. ...

Ultimately, Sweden isn’t what democratic socialists ... are looking for. “We come from the same tradition,” he said of democratic socialists and social democrats. But generally, he added, social democrats see a role for private capital in their ideal system, and democratic socialists do not.

In countries that have multiple leftist parties, these distinctions are commonly understood. In the United States, they aren’t.

Because a binary view of “liberals” and “conservatives” dominates American politics, ideologies to the left of mainstream Democrats tend to get lumped together — which often means the left conflates democratic socialism and social democracy, and the right casts all of it as socialism or communism. ...

Mr. Sanders identifies as a democratic socialist, but when asked on Tuesday how he defined that, he described something closer to social democracy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/politics/democratic-socialism-facts-history.html

No kidding. He does that all the time. And this right here is far more truth about democratic socialism in one place that you'll hear from Sanders through the convention and beyond.

[Turin_C3PO]

12. Hortensis,

does Sanders really advocate for collectivism and public ownership of companies? Maybe he does or did but I’ve never heard him say it. From what I’ve heard, his views are more a Scandinavian than true socialist. I’m not for Sanders, for many reasons, but I think it’s important to be accurate and not misrepresent his views.

PS: Maybe you’re right and he is a true socialist. I’m open to being educated.

[Hortensis]

16. He did for decades before he caught the congressional golden ring

in late middle age. He wrote about it, handed out tracts on street corners, got some things published and recordings made.

Since needing to get reelected to high office, though, he's been soft-pedaling like an old-fashioned traveling medicine salesman describing his alcohol-based concoctions as herbal teas. Sanders describes as socialism public schools and paved roads, the New Deal, Medicare, free college, everything nice. None of them are socialism; they exist under capitalist systems, theocracies, monarchies, authoritarian dictatorships, and yes socialist states, such as they are, like Russia and Venezuela. Wherever government exists, government-run systems will also exist. But Medicare is not even a slightly socialized system. The VA is, though.

I don't believe Sanders has changed, specifically because of all this deceit about socialism. You know, Sanders could always have identified as a social democrat and not as a democratic socialist.
Most of us as New Deal admirers could support social democracy (and pretty much do). But he never has.

And he keeps saying mainstream Democrats, all who support people like Biden certainly, are conservatives; we all know that's not true. Why would any honest person say that? He's been doing it for decades and for the same reason Republicans insisted Democrats were all LW radicals, and still are. To redefine everyone so they could claim to be the real mainstream, the real voice of "the people," to hide the reality that they are not.

Now, Sanders has spoken more than once of how we can work toward a kinder, finer new nation where people give up some of their individualism for the good of the many. The words sound very good, no complaint with calling for living to a higher standard. But he hides the huge changes and the real sacrifices of personal freedoms that would be required, and that no nation has ever succeeded in achieving what he calls for.

Go looking for this peripheral hint, because it's about as close as he gets these days to admitting that his democratic socialism is exactly what it's always been understood to mean, and you'll find it. In contrast, Europeans give up more money in taxes for more benefits from more government programs, and that's about all.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. If Warren comes in less than a strong third place in Iowa, it's starting to look like a two man race

Unless Buttigieg runs away with it in Iowa and then wins NH and thereby totally rewrites the prevailing narrative, I think his weakness with Black voters dooms him. Klobuchar is faring even more poorly than Buttigieg among Blacks. I can't see either of them picking up significant Black votes at this point now, not as long as Biden and at least Sanders or Warren remain strongly in the running by the time it reaches South Carolina. And there is little reason to think that Sanders and/or Warren won't still be in the hunt then unless they both get blown out in New Hampshire, which seems exceedingly unlikely.

Warren can't afford to come in behind both Biden and Sanders in both Iowa and NH. Sanders has more money, and Sanders has more Black support than does Warren. She won't be able to turn it around after Iowa and NH if she falls short to Sanders in both of them.

Sanders, and to a slightly lesser extent Warren, still have a chance to garner a respectable share of the Black vote if Biden comes out of Iowa and NH looking vulnerable. A part (certainly not all) of Biden's current Black support flows to him as the supposedly most electable Democrat. If that comes into doubt he will start to lose some steam. Bloomberg, with his Billions, remains a wild card of course. He looms as a possible moderate alternative to Biden if Biden fails to deliver in the early states.

[crazytown]

8. IA: 1 Warren, 2. Buttigieg, 3. Sanders, 4. Biden

based on the strength of their ground games. My prediction for months. Haven't seen anything to change my mind yet.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. If you are right that would strongly strengthen her position (and particularly hurt Biden) n/t

[crazytown]

10. It is a result with the MoE of the DMR/Selzer poll,

consistent with anecdotal accounts of the ground games, but assumes Biden is significantly weaker in some caucuses than the 15% aggregate given by Selzer.

I suspect that Bernie may start with the most people in his corner on many occasions, but the supporters of unviable candidates won't break his way. The price for an aggressive social media campaign, is that those supporting him, will be in his corner front the beginning, with few friends.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. If Biden or Warren stumble and fall short of the threshold in some caucuses Sanders will do OK

in regards to picking up some of their supporters. Some here have been slow to pick up on the fact that there is a not insignificant percentage of Democratic voters who are drawn to both Biden and Sanders, because they can speak directly to working class voters more easily than can some of our other candidates. The converse is that too many assume that Sanders and Warren appeal to the same subset of voters, which is often not the case. However among those drawn to Warren for her progressive politics, some would move to Sanders if she fell short.

Aside from making that point, I don't disagree with your observation about secondary support.

[crazytown]

15. Point taken.

I would add , I have consistently underestimated Biden and Sands throughout this cycle. However, given the emphasis Biden's campaign has placed on electability, I believe he is peculiarly venerable in a caucus situation, where participants can see how many more people are standing in other corners.

[Cha]

14. Good for Joe Biden leading by such a huge margin

with Black Voters!

Thank you, highplainsdem

[Tarheel_Dem]

17. K&R

[crazytown]

18. Biden is weaker with African Americans than HRC 2016

Hillary got 80+% in the 2016 exit polls.

[highplainsdem]

20. Sigh. Biden has a lot more rivals than Clinton had.

[Scurrilous]

19. Hence today's unfounded attacks.

[Gothmog]

21. I like this poll

Link to tweet