Nate Silver: The Bernie Sanders Surge is About Bernie, not Hillary (But she will be hard to beat)

[Godhumor]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-bernie-sanders-surge-is-about-bernie-not-hillary/

The Bernie Sanders surge, in other words, has a lot more to do with Bernie Sanders than with Hillary Clinton. More specifically, it has to do with his left-populist politics. We’re going to break some news here: It turns out that some Democrats are really liberal, and they like a really liberal candidate like Sanders. Right now, Sanders is winning about half the support of white liberal Democrats, but little support from other groups within the party. That works out to around 25 or 30 percent of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire but more like 15 percent among Democrats nationally.

It’s possible that Sanders’s standing will continue to improve. If he goes from winning half of the white liberal vote to most of it, he could win Iowa and New Hampshire, though not very many other states.

But he could also encounter some headwinds. Sanders’s name recognition is now 70 to 80 percent in Iowa and New Hampshire, so he doesn’t have that much more room to grow on the basis of improved name recognition alone. And while he’s an appealing choice to some very liberal Democrats, Democrats who describe themselves as “somewhat liberal” may instead prefer Clinton. The policy differences between the Democrats aren’t all that profound; Clinton is pretty liberal herself, and she and Sanders voted together 93 percent of the time in the two years they spent in the Senate together.

...

What about the Clinton campaign itself? So long as Clinton retains 80 percent favorable ratings among Democrats, she has little reason to deflate the Bernie bubble. Sanders may satiate the media’s desire for a “competitive” Democratic primary without really making her vulnerable. Clinton has plenty of ammunition, however, including her money and the endorsements she’s received from her fellow Democrats (including many Democrats who are almost as liberal as Sanders). That’s likely enough to secure her the nomination without her going negative. If needed, she could also press concerns about the electability of Sanders, a 73-year-old self-described socialist who hasn’t run a national campaign before.

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Rest of the article goes on to say that Sanders has gained support because he is appealing to a subset of democratic voters not because there is an "Anybody but Clinton" movement. For that reason a sudden Biden campaign wouldn't make numbers move that much, as Clinton's interparty favorability is so high that she would still gain the massive majority of Democratic support. Finally, the Bernie campaign could help activists pull Clinton further to the left before the general election begins.

Good article and analysis. Really lays out how Bernie has resonated with liberal activists without eroding Clinton's standing with primary voters.

[frylock]

1. The Senate Votes That Divided Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a liberal Democrat on domestic matters, and Bernie Sanders is a socialist. They voted the same way 93 percent of the time in the two years they shared in the Senate.

In fact, from January 2007 to January 2009, Mrs. Clinton, representing New York, voted with Mr. Sanders about as often as she did with the like-minded Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.

In many of the cases in which she differed with Mr. Sanders, who represents Vermont and is also running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton went with the crowd. She voted with an overwhelming majority of her colleagues, including Republicans. Her positions on the votes that differed from Mr. Sanders represented policy differences, but they may have also reflected political calculations by Mrs. Clinton, who was preparing for a presidential run in 2008.

The 31 times that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders disagreed happened to be on some the biggest issues of the day, including measures on continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an immigration reform bill and bank bailouts during the depths of the Great Recession. Mr. Sanders, who formally kicked off his campaign Tuesday evening in Burlington, Vt., was opposed to all these actions.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that-divided-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

[djean111]

2. Thank you for pointing that out. Those 31 votes were the telling ones. NOT LIBERAL.

Ah, the 73 year old "self-described Socialist" - like he doesn't call himself a Democratic Socialist.
Yeah, stress the age - has he had any blood clots within his skull? Has he fainted? Those are more important than a whopping four year age difference. Guess we will get to see what the bottom of the barrel looks like, as far as dismissive bullshit about Bernie. Who do they think will switch support over this stuff? No one will.

[Godhumor]

3. That is Nate's point, people aren't, and probably won't, switch support on a large scale

Sanders' support isn't diminishing Clinton's support and vice versa.

[djean111]

4. I am talking about what will happen if Hillary wins the nomination.

She cannot count on those who never would have bothered with politics in the first place, if not for Bernie. They just see another Wall Streeter. It is the difference between "let them refinance the student loans" and "let's get rid of student loans". Only a damned fool would think Hillary would upset her Wall Street contributors by endangering the student loan money pot. And electing a hawk? It is not the old guard Dems that would have to go and die in the Middle East, it is the millennials. They are not going to vote for that.

[Godhumor]

5. Except polls have shown she has the backing of the majority of millennials, as well

Again, Silver's point is there is no significant "Anyone but Hillary" movement based on the numbers. If she wins the nomination, which is overwhelmingly likely, she has the vast majority of the democratic base as her base and would keep all the voters who would prefer to see a Democrat in office over a Republican.

[djean111]

6. Well, then, perhaps we can do without the daily "you better vote for Hillary" stuff we get

from some. It is like she has already won and we all need to be assimilated by the Borg Right Now.
If she is a shoo-in, then a lot of pointless expenditure, and it just sorta irritates.

[Godhumor]

8. Agreed, actually

And the article makes the point that Clinton has no need to stop the surge to win the nomination. The prediction is this primary will have very little negative campaigning from either of the breakout candidates.

[Gothmog]

7. Nate is good with the numbers

[Godhumor]

9. Morning bump n/t

[Godhumor]

10. Afternoon and final bump n/t

[DCBob]

11. Here's the key point..

"Sanders is winning about half the support of white liberal Democrats, but little support from other groups within the party. That works out to around 25 or 30 percent of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire but more like 15 percent among Democrats nationally."

That his ceiling because he doesn't connect with minorities. It's a decent number but not likely to go any higher than that.

[Godhumor]

12. Yup, the primary base he can draw from as a first choice is 15% of the Democratic world

But to his credit, I didn't think Bernie would be competitive in any states versus Clinton, and I posted as much here. Now, if he increases his base just a bit more he might end up winning two early states.

Honestly, that is a pretty amazing feat considering the popularity and power of the front runner.