Enthusiasm Crisis? Quarter of Sanders Supporters Unwilling to Back Clinton in General

[eridani]

In my experience, these are mainly alienated voters. The other 75% tend to be Democrats.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/06/enthusiasm-crisis-quarter-sanders-supporters-unwilling-back-clinton-general

A new poll that shows presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders inching ahead of rival Hillary Clinton nationally also indicates that fully one in four supporters of the Vermont senator say they would not back Clinton should she nab the Democratic nomination.

"Right now, the Sanders voters are more reluctant to support a Clinton candidacy," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, which conducted the McClatchy-Marist national poll.

According to McClatchy, 25 percent of Sanders supporters said they would not vote for Clinton in a general election, while just 69 percent said they would back her.

"By comparison," McClatchy reports, "Clinton supporters are considerably more open to supporting Sanders should he overtake her large lead in delegates and win the nomination. Just 14 percent of Clinton supporters would shun him in the general election, while 79 percent would support him, the poll found."

Nationally, the poll find Sanders beating Clinton 49 to 47 percent. The survey of 1,297 adults was conducted March 29-31 with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.

It comes on the heels of Sanders' double-digit win in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

The results reflect ambivalence on the part of a controversial subset of Sanders supporters, whose concerns about Clinton—her ties to Wall Street and the fossil fuels industry, her establishment politics, her flip-flopping stances on trade deals—run deep.

[NNadir]

1. Basically, this is evidence that these people couldn't care less about their world. n/t

[eridani]

2. They care--they just don't think that political participation helps n/t

[NNadir]

3. No, they don't care. They think they're at a Rock concert. The star is more important than...

...the music.

This kind of data is evidence that there is no serious thinking going on in politics.

I'm an old man, and this is the most absurd election season I've ever seen in my life time. I am terrified for my country; and terrified for the world.

[eridani]

4. They accurately perceive what is going on

The Government Listens To Lobbyists And The Wealthy, Not You And Me

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/12/3426152/wealthy-lobbyists-policy/

When organized interest groups or economic elites want a particular policy passed, there’s a strongly likelihood their wishes will come true. But when average citizens support something, they have next to no influence.

That’s according to a forthcoming article in Perspectives on Politics by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern University. The two looked at a data set of 1,779 policy issues between 1981 and 2002 and matched them up against surveys of public opinion broken down by income as well as support from interest groups.

They estimate that the impact of what an average citizen prefers put up against what the elites and interest groups want is next to nothing, or “a non-significant, near-zero level.” They note that their findings show “ordinary citizens…have little or no independent influence on policy at all.” The affluent, on the other hand, have “a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy,” they find, “more so than any other set of actors” that they studied. Organized interest groups similarly fare well, with “a large, positive, highly significant impact on public policy.”

When they hold constant the preferences of interest groups and the rich, “it makes very little difference what the general public thinks,” they note. The probability that policy change occurs is basically the same whether a small group or a large majority of average citizens are in favor. On the other hand, all else being the same, opposition from the wealthy means that a particular policy is only adopted about 18 percent of the time, but when they support it it gets adopted 45 percent of the time. Similar patterns are true for interest groups. The impact could also be even higher than their findings, as there may be policy differences among those they count as wealthy, which means that the imprecision in their measure “is likely to produce underestimates of the impact of economic elites on policy making,” they write.

[NNadir]

6. You would have to have shit for brains to think that a Trump or Cruz presidency...

...will have no effect on the world.

Apparently, people do have shit for brains.

These people are being fed a lie, accepting the lie blindly without thought.

If they think that Bernie Sanders, and only Bernie Sanders can save the world, they're lazy, useless, and worthless.

Even if Sanders were competent - something I personally doubt - he would be dependent on people who think, who work hard, who are not spoon fed, who are involved. It's not like he's going to walk into the White House, and suddenly people will stop burning dangerous natural gas from fracked fields. (Actually, Sanders announced energy policy would represent the best thing that ever happened to the natural gas industry.)

Clearly the people who have been rabble roused into hating Clinton are not those kind of people. They are people who accept pablum because they don't think much. They live in a "cut and paste" reality in which other people think for them, because they can't be bothered to think for themselves.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

[eridani]

7. Sanders has said hundreds of times that he can't get anything done unless people stay involved

We've lost a lot of voters to alienation over the years, precisely because public policy never takes the general public into account.

[NNadir]

10. I know what he SAYS. He SAYS lots of things. My remarks are not about what he SAYS...

...but about the people who believe that unless he is doing the SAYING, they will do nothing.

Refusing to vote for Ms. Clinton - should she prevail in the nomination process - because Bernie Sanders SAYS, she's unqualified is doing nothing.

Personally, if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, even though his energy and environmental policies are absurd and very, very, very dangerous, I will be forced against my better judgement to vote for him, not because he's so good, but because he's less bad. This is all I can do politically.

In spite of his very dangerous energy policies, should the environmental disaster of electing Sanders President occur, I will continue to work to the best of my fading ability, to educate people on why we cannot endorse the garbage environmental policies that Sanders now states as being his.

I know...I know...I know...

I'm about to hear all about how Ms. Clinton is in the pockets of the dangerous fossil fuel industry. I need only note that while Sanders was elected to the Senate, his state in the only State in the Union that did not depend on dangerous natural gas to generate electricity, that is no longer true. Sanders no longer does so.

He, and his supporters can throw around bullshit about how they care about dangerous fossil fuels and dangerous fossil fuel waste, but they're just shouting slogans. They clearly don't know a damned thing about energy.

The fact that they readily announce that they're ABC, Anybody but Clinton, shows that they are indifferent and rather poorly educated.

Have a nice day.

[hereforthevoting]

15. He doesn't even say it, people are finding their own agency

And he could plead with us all to vote for her if he wanted to, and I would reckon will still concede and ask this if she wins the primary, but once a person gets a taste of autonomy it's hard to be told your vote NEVER mattered anyway. If it doesn't matter once it shouldn't matter later. It's too bad she can't pass the vetting process clearly enough to know that she would win the GE. It's too bad she needs to go for the jugular so hard that she wants to further fracture this party. Until two weeks ago I had no doubts about voting for her in the GE.

[eridani]

19. I see. You think our energy needs are best met by polluting out water supply

Plenty of voters don't agree.

[redruddyred]

12. it depends what you care about

if you're a white male, you might be better off voting for trump

i think he's likely misogynist but this punishing women nonsense is just pandering to the republican base

(i wouldn't bet on it with my vote tho)

[liberal_at_heart]

21. You do realize you are in a group right now don't you? You want to insult people, go to a forum.

You are going on my ignore list.

[LiberalElite]

11. Yes we do care but think what you want - I'm over 60 nt

[cantbeserious]

14. This Citizen Is Through Voting For The Lessor Of Two Evils

eom

[PATRICK]

5. Let's be honest about the Clinton voters

A very sizeable chunk would have prefered someone else, like Biden. This is not a "far left" problem, it is a weak candidate problem. When she got many of those soft votes back in the fold for the early states the problem did not disappear. New, enthusiastic voters beyond her tepid but numerous "center" have had a chance to vote for a very different candidate right from the beginning. Why would they carry over their heart or join the schlumping realists settling for the lesser of something or other, the first something or other to tick off on the national bucket list? The dynamic is all wrong to start blaming the enthusiastic wing of the party for not converting into something completely unreal. The so-called center block seems littered with hopelessness and apathy. That will coincide nicely with barely opposed GOP voter suppression structures.

[EdwardBernays]

8. I'd suggest

Last edited Thu Apr 7, 2016, 05:31 AM - Edit history (1)

that the number is actually FAR higher than 25%, because if Clinton is the nominee America will most likely have two candidates running nothing, but fear-mongering negative campaigns, and of course Hillary will shift away from the left, as she always does, further reenforcing her perceived dishonesty and further alienating progressive Sander's supporters...

I'd say a full third of Sanders supporters would either vote third party, vote for Trump, or stay home. If the candidate isn't Trump those Sanders supporters will probably just sit at home.

And I am including independents that would vote for Sanders in this guess of mine, because obviously indies are the largest segment of voters and Hillary doesn't appeal to them. For very obvious reasons.

[beltanefauve]

9. Good analysis

I agree with you : the number is probably much higher than 25%.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

13. These are folks who never intended to simply vote to 'vote a Democrat'.

Alienated voters, as you put it, that Bernie can bring to the polls who otherwise wouldn't bother, or Republicans who are willing to crossover for Bernie, and only Bernie, and can't stand any of the RW clowns running.

The other 75% are folks who pretty much always pull a 'D' lever, and always will. They prefer Bernie, but will pull the 'D' lever no matter what.

[bkkyosemite]

16. From what I have viewed I think it's more than a quarter. Just her comment on twitter

about Bernie and Sandy Hook lost many of her supporters to Bernie...and FB is loaded all over the place with those who will not vote for her.

[SmittynMo]

17. Only 1/4?

If she continues with all the bullshit she's spewing this week, that number is bound to go higher.

She's already on the verge of losing it. Running a hate campaign will certainly make it worse.

I'm just saying.........

[Donkees]

18. "a separate Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll indicated that one-third of Sanders' supporters...

From the same article:


"Indeed, a separate Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last month indicated that one-third of Sanders' supporters couldn't see themselves voting for Clinton in November.

Furthermore, USA Today wrote on Wednesday, "Wisconsin exit polls underscore Clinton's longer term challenges in exciting Democrats to back her. Just six in ten say she's honest and trustworthy. Sanders also ran even with Clinton among female voters, who've carried her in other races. He won both higher and lower-income voters, including union households, and broke even with her with moderates."

All this speaks to the critical question of electability, which has become a theme of the 2016 campaign season.

As Sanders himself told a crowd of 2,000 in Wyoming on Tuesday night: "Momentum is that when you look at national polls or statewide polls, we are defeating Donald Trump by very significant numbers, and in almost every instance our margin over Trump is wider than Secretary Clinton's."

[hopemountain]

20. how about billary supporters????

how many of them will support bernie when he wins the nomination?

they are demanding this from bernie supporters but perish the real possibility that bernie makes it to the convention with a majority of votes and delegates before the superdelegates cast their votes.

seems to me billary super pacs and supporters are being overlooked for "loyalty" pledges. yes?

crickets.

we don't have to answer any of those questions now. ask us after the convention.