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In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche

Politics

Poll Proves Bernie Would have beaten Trump

daniel , , , ,

A recent poll proves the thesis that U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) would have beaten Donald J. Trump (R) in the presidential race.

Around 12%; or one in 10, of those who voted for Sanders in the Democratic primary supported Trump in the general election, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study discovered. Study data tweeted by University of Massachusetts-Amherst Professor Brian F. Schaffner on 23 August shows that Sanders voters made the difference for Trump in some swing states, National Public Radio reported.

Around 47,915 Sanders voters supported Trump in Michigan, a state the Donald carried by just 10,704, Schaffner estimated. Things were even worse in Pennsylvania; where 117,100 Sanders voters backed Trump, who carried the Keystone State by 44,292 votes.

The biggest Democratic catastrophe was in Wisconsin where 51,317 Sanders backers voted Trump. Wisconsin was one of the pivotal states in the election and Trump won it by just 22,748 votes.

If this data is accurate it proves that Bernie would be in the White House if he had won the nomination. Schaffner’s figures also cast serious doubt on the popularity of Donald J. Trump and the existence of a “Trump movement.”

Recent Election Numbers are Bad News for GOP and Trump

Republicans should be scared of Scahffner’s numbers because of the results of four special elections for the U.S. House of Representatives this year. In three of those races Democrats’ support increased by nearly 10% – when the names Trump and Clinton were not on the ballot. Here are the results:

  • In the Third District of Georgia on June 20, 2017, Democrat Jon Ossoff picked up 48.1% of the vote. Back on November 8, 2016, in the same district, another Democrat Rodney Strooksbury received 38.3% of the vote. The Democratic margin in that District increased by 9.9% without Hillary on the ballot.

 

  • On the same day in the Fifth District of South Carolina Democrat Archie Parnell received 47.9% of the vote. Democrat Fran Peterson received 38.7% of the vote in the same district on November 8, 2016. The Democratic margin increased by 9.2% with no Hillary.

  • Things were even worse in the Fourth District of Kansas where Bernie surrogate James Thompson received 45.7% of the vote on in April 11, 2017, special election. On November 8, 2016, Democrat Daniel Giroux received just 29.6% of the vote in the same district. By my calculation the Democratic margin in the Fourth District increased by 16.6% without Hilary on the ballot.

 

  • Democrats also did better in Montana’s First Congressional District where Democrat Rob Quits received 44% of the vote in a special election on May 24, 201, The New York Times reported. On November 8, 2016, Democrat Denise Juneau captured 40.5% of the vote in the same district.

 

  • A more telling race was Montana’s governor’s contest on 8 November 2016. Which Democrat Steve Bullock won by a margin of 50.2% even though Trump captured 55.6% of the state’s vote, according to the Times.

Was the Election really about Hillary?

These numbers raise a very disturbing possibility that neither Democrats nor Republicans want to face.

Was the Presidential Election really about Hillary Rodham Clinton and not Donald J. Trump? Were voters really voting for Trump or simply against Clinton? Did Trump win, merely because the names Clinton and Hillary appeared on the ballot? If that’s true it’ll be real bad news for Republicans next year, or 2020 – when Hillary will probably not be on the ballot.

 

Another possibility; that Hillary fans in the media want to ignore, is these results indicate a lot of the Trump support may have consisted of left-wing protest voters. Those people were socking it to Hillary and the Democratic establishment rather than backing Donald.

A fascinating and entertaining probability is that some of the people who are now spending their days off marching around with “Impeach Trump signs” – actually voted for the Donald. Many of those people totally agree with the characterization of Trump as a corrupt racist clown and voted for him anyway just to screw Hillary.

Democrats have a Hillary Problem not a Trump Problem

This means that Democrats have a Hillary problem; and possibly a centrist problem that might doom them in future elections. If left-leaning voters see a candidate as a “Hillary surrogate” they will vote Republican just to hurt Democrats.

Hopefully Democratic leaders will pay attention to this and nominate leftists like U.S. Senator Liz Warren (D-Massachusetts) instead of brain-dead centrists like Hillary Clinton and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California). If they don’t pay attention to Schaffner’s data, Democrats will set themselves up for humiliating defeats in 2018 and 2020.