Bernie Sanders Faces Tougher Terrain After a Big Week

Revolution
a. The problem is not that we have a corrupt government that votes in lockstep. Democrats and Republicans usually vote against each other. Americans have a means for altering the balance of Democrats and Republicans in Washington and elsewhere. In a democracy, change doesn't happen overnight.
b. The election of President Obama was a revolution of sorts. Then what happened? Too few progressives (specifically, young voters) showed up to vote in midterm elections, denying him the support in Congress to advance his progressive agenda. Further, Republicans elected to federal, state, and local positions across the country in 2010 were able to redistrict in their favor.

General Election
a. "My way or the highway" leftwingers may not show up if Hillary is the Dem nominee. I suspect that many of these were not politically active before Feeling the Bern became cool with their Facebook Friends.
b. Which Dem candidate is more likely to appeal to the critical swing voters? They're already familiar with the assortment of Hillary "scandals". What they would be hearing more about in the general election, if Bernie is the nominee:
His socialism
His praise of Fidel Castro and vice versa
His support for other communist countries (in some cases, against the US)
His honeymoon in the Soviet Union
His life and work in an Israeli kibbutz with Stalinist ties
HIs out-of-wedlock child
His Jewish faith
His tax-and-spend-on-steroids policies
His government expansion policies

"Mrs. Clinton has fared much worse in caucuses and open contests — those that allow voters who aren’t registered as Democrats — than she has in primaries or closed contests."

There's a reason for that: Republicans voting for Sanders, hoping he'll be the Dem candidate. There's a reason for that.

Yes, Hillary Clinton faces some serious challenges in the coming weeks, as Bernie's momentum continues to surprise the mainstream media like the New York Times and Washington Post, where articles like this and headlines like this tend to try to dampen the enthusiasm, shifting attention to the hardship rather than the constant upward movement of Bernie in the polls and popular vote. Hillary has remained flat or has lost ground. The NYT bias is showing guys - must you be so transparent in your allegiance to the Democratic establishment? We know you endorsed Hillary early on, but it doesn't justify THIS much spin.

The DNC has to have serious concerns about the demographic split between Clinton and Sanders supporters. If either group is disgruntled enough to stay home for the general election, they are in trouble. I suspect that Clinton is in bigger trouble than Sanders in this regard, as Clinton supporters tend to be Party supporters who will vote for any Democrat, whereas many Sanders supporters will stay home or vote for him anyway. This seems parallel to the situation in 2008 where many folks came out to vote for Obama, and it had nothing to do with his party affiliation.

Though, of course, I see not mention of it in the NYT, other news outlets are reporting that Hillary is refusing to debate Bernie unless he changes his "tone". As I recall she agreed to additional debates a couple of months ago. This woman is a liar and a coward. She was fine about additional debates when the numbers were definitely in her favor. The wind has changed direction so now she has become dictatorial about how Bernie addresses the issues. What the heck is she going to do if she becomes the nominee along with Donald Trump? Now that's the debate she must refuse if she is concerned about her opponent's "tone".

"This doesn't give me the news I want so it's wrong. Or the NYTimes is being paid by the Clinton campaign. Or I don't understand why reporters and statisticians don't pay more attention to the comment section because that proves 99% of Times readers are Sanders supporters. Or Hillary is corrupt/a liar/a shill/[insert your own adjective first used by right-wingers here]."

There, I just saved you some time. No need to read the predictable comments repeated ad nauseum. At least we've moved on from claiming that Senator Sanders was the right-hand man of Martin Luther King.

Hillary's got this. Everything else is noise.

Here's another possible explanation of conservative southern "democrats" voting for Sanders. In North Carolina, democrats still lead in registration only because legions of older, white, rural voters chose never to change their registration from "democrat" to "republican", even though they have not voted for a democrat for any race higher than county commissioner in years. Jesse Helms explicitly calld on these folks to maintain their democratic registration so that they could influence who Jesse's opponent would be. Obviously, the intent was to vote for who the Republicans thought was the more beatable candidate.

I don't know that this is happening here, or that Sanders is, in fact, the more beatable candidate. However, there is a long history of this kind of mischief in North Carolina. In open primary states, it would make sense to me that the same type of mischief could occur as well. Just a thought.....

Has anyone seen the "Bernie made me white" tweets circulating? Hawaii is majority minority. How did it happen that he beat Hillary at 70% there? Has Nate mentioned the problem Hillary has with men? If Bernie has a "Problem" with minorities, she has one with men. Not to mention her other weaknesses.

So Sanders has won a total of zero closed primaries limited to actual registered Democrats. But he does great in caucus states where your local Occupy-type armchair revolutionaries gather for three hours. Surprised?

How can you criticize polls and coverage then whip out the polls and coverage to bolster you argument ?

When the RNC steals the Republican nomination away from Trump he will run as an independent. If he gets the nomination the RNC will run a 3rd party candidate. Why are we not talking about Senator Sanders running as a independent? He would win handily in a 4 way race. We get the FDR we know this country needs and keep The Orange Facist at bay.

This is fascinating, Nate, but I sure wish you'd show us how well this model accounts for the states that have already voted. You could also be more clear about exactly how many variables are in the model, and whether the fit was done only at the state level or to more detailed results from the states that have already voted.

In the general election many of the potential Sanders voters (the young, college students, first-time voters) are being systematically and effectively prevented from voting in many states by the introduction of questionable voter ID laws. The same can be said of potential Clinton voters, the elderly and minorities.
Unless the Dems spend the time, money and energy REGISTERING voters and challenging these voting laws the GOP will simply steal another election by not letting citizens vote.

The last sentence has to be incorrect. Didn't Sanders just win Alaska, Washington and Hawaii by more than 16 points? Just another example of the Times' sorry coverage of the Sanders campaign.

NYT editor: The distinction here is primaries vs. caucuses. The sentence said primaries.

"This model uses the last three major third-party candidates as a proxy for anti-establishment sentiment: John Anderson in 1980, Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000. It has another variable for the “Nader Democrats” — the share of Nader voters in 2000 as a percentage of the total of Al Gore and Nader voters.'

Can this really be part of the model? I almost cannot imagine anything more ad-hoc.

Bernie's entire campaign has been against the odds. A virtual unknown running against the Party anointed candidate. He started in the low single digits and has continually grown in popularity, as the "experts" and "pundits" continue pontificating how the end of the road is just around the corner.

No one, including Mr. Cohn, predicted Bernie would come this close to Clinton.
But with every success comes the "reality" that the end is near.

Fortunately, the People, not the pundits, get to vote. And it would be nice for once to read a column by the likes of Cohn admitting he got this whole race entirely wrong. But if Clinton gets the nomination, all we will read is, "I told you so."

For now, I just can't stomach a race between Donald and Hillary. What a Country.

I think 'the model' underestimates his chances in the northeast corridor, esp. New York, but even more so on the west coast in California and esp. Oregon, where he'll probably get closer to 70% in the latter rather than 55%. The estimates for the upper mid-west states (ND, MT) also seem to lowball his strength, given that they don't match the huge numbers he put up in surrounding states Idaho, MN and Nebraska.

With another big victory coming up in Wisconsin, that could translate into momentum in NY. The only states that might predict a similar outcome in NY are MA and MI, both of which were basically ties. While the northeast will undoubtedly be tough, Sanders might eventually get a boost if and when people start to realize that he can actually win this thing.

Of course, if he outperforms the model in the northeast, which seems very likely, that should translate into greater support in California, where he could win 60-40.

The most significant hopeful sign for Sanders is that he has improved throughout the race, with some setbacks, and it seems likely he will continue to do so, outperforming the model here. Whether or not he outperform enough to win more pledged delegates seems to me an open question.

President Obama shared some interesting opinions on the primaries. One of which was a pretty strong criticism of the press; giving the school yard bullies on one side a relatively free pass, and insufficient questioning of Bernies campaign themes on the other. I recall Obama making some pretty tall promises on his campaign trail which he couldn't deliver, so he may be somewhat contrite on that score.

I, too, have some criticism of the press. The Times seems to be very supportive of Hillary, often presenting your political bias in place of news and analysis. And what about coverage of the electoral "irregularities" that can hijack the legitimate electoral process; Arizona, early calls of winners, voter suppression? Subversion of the democratic process should be front page every day. There would be room on that front page if you stopped the endless and daily coverage of the irrational shenanigans of the Republicans. Obama got that right, we are becoming the laughing stock of the world. That can damage our world position, authority, and respect.

I'm glad this analysis points out the conservative democratic vote for sanders in closed primaries. It neglects to mention the conservative counties he has won in open primaries and caucuses. It is as likely that these are an "I hate Hillary" vote or a spoiler vote as it is that these are real pro-sanders votes. You also neglect to mention that caucuses disenfranchise the elderly, poor, disabled, mothers, weekend workers, etc. and they are a fraction of the vote - 2% in Washington State. These are core Hillary voters that are disenfranchised in caucus states. Otherwise, thanks for the rational analysis.

Independent votes are almost one third of the electorate. Bernie wins them versus Clinton and wins them versus Trump. I would like to see southern blacks gain more political power, but they will not be able swing solidly Republican states.
Sanders does much better in head to head contests versus Republicans than Clinton, especially versus Trump. Her negatives are very high. A third of the electorate thinks she is scary. More than half have an unfavorable view of her.
A Trump/Clinton election would probably have record low turnout, since both are very unpopular.
Clinton's argument is that we can't do what almost every industrial nation does. I dare you to see Michael Moore's new film about what civilization really is, and then listen to Clinton say, universal single payer healthcare can "never ever happen" or that or opening negotiating position should be a $12/hr minimum wage.
Bernie actually generates excitement. Bernie is remaking the political landscape. Bernie is defining the conversation instead of letting the Republicans do it, as the Democratic Party has been doing for decades.
Clinton is the candidate of a failed past where you compromise everything away to get elected so you can compromise everything else away so you can get re-elected.. Sanders is the candidate of a successful future. Listen to the young. Vote for the future.

I think there is some element of Sanders not having been vetted yet; Hillary has not taken the gloves off in an effort to stay above the fray. If Sanders becomes more competitive, get ready for a full-court press of hit pieces: his flattering statements toward corrupt "socialist" despots like Chavez, his blunt pro-gun stances, really specific examples of how much taxes will increase for relatively middle-income voters under his policies, highlighting the fact that single-payer systems tend to contain cost by rationing care, etc. If that happens, which is has not yet, you will "feel the bernout."

I'd like to see Five Thirty Eight extend its statistical analysis into the realm of detecting election fraud. Please examine significant discrepancies between unadjusted exit polls and actual results. Please compare outcomes between polling places that use electronic voting machines vs paper ballots. Please consider the effects compared with previous elections of new voter suppression tactics such as requiring picture IDs and having fewer polling places or running out of ballots.

Richard Charnin, a mathematician and author of two books on election fraud, has written that unadjusted exit polls indicate a 97% probability that Sanders won in Massachusetts and won in Michigan with a larger margin, a 80% probability in Missouri, a 74% probability in Illinois, and that exit polls have been adjusted to match the recorded vote. He estimates that Clinton’s lead in pledged delegates is roughly 200, not 300 for states that voted up to and including March 15.

Vote counting discrepancies have been found favoring Clinton in 16 of 17 Democratic primaries: Georgia: 11.9%…Virginia: 4.3%…Vermont: 1.1%…Massachusetts: 8.0%… Alabama: 13.9%…Tennessee: 8.3%…Oklahoma: -6.1%…Arkansas: 5.2%…Texas: 6.4%…Michigan: 4.9%…North Carolina: 1.7%…Florida: 3.4%…Illinois: 4.1%…Missouri: 3.9%…Ohio: 10.0%…NEP did not poll in Arizona

Charnin writes: “Once again, we have multiple confirmation indicating fraud: cumulative vote shares, preliminary exit poll, absentee vote anomalies, and other anecdotal information. The probability of the 10% OH exit poll discrepancy is…1 in 976. The probability that Sanders’ exit poll share would be greater than his recorded share in 15 of 16 polls is…1 in 3855.”

Charnin’s four articles on the Super Tuesday and March 15 states, Michigan, and Arizona: https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/

Frequently Asked Questions About Exit Polls: http://electiondefensealliance.org/frequently_asked_questions_about_exit...

"It’s important to note that this type of a model is not a prediction. "

Too silly! I think that an assumption about the future is pretty much a prediction!

In spite of the record of pundits and predictions in this current absurd political race, the need to fill column inches over-rides good sense.

Curiously, the corporate news media never point out how Sanders has trounced Clinton in the majority of states which vote Democratic in Presidential contests. Or how crucial is the contest for independent voters. Or how the Democratic Party rigged this contest by awarding about 500 “super delegate” votes to Hillary. Or how most polls show Sanders beating Trump by much wider margins than Clinton.

“The model estimates that Mrs. Clinton would fare 27 points better in a county where 100 percent of households made more than $100,000 a year than she would in a demographically similar county where no households were so well off. She also does better in places where the finance industry is strong.” That is another reason why Republicans should nominate her, so it would be a contest between Sanders and Clinton in November. (Hillary is still a Republican at heart, and a much better one than Trump.)

Once again, commenters assert that Sanders will not be able to govern. Are they implying that Hillary will? The Republican witch-hunt against Hillary is twenty years old and still going strong--are they suddenly going to play nice if she's elected President? Hardly; the face of misogyny will be just as destructive to governance as the face of racism has been.

Sanders will be able to get nothing done for two years, I agree. But the hope in my heart is that he would have the bully pulpit, and he would use it forcefully and effectively to counter the Fox-driven, status quo mindset that has come to dominate this country, and maybe, just maybe, the revolution comes in 2018 (Hillary will not inspire, or aspire to, this revolution) . Bernie has never said the revolution is about him alone. He needs us, and I'm willing to enlist, if they still take 60-year-olds.

Your analysis left out one key factor: finals. It remains to be seen whether Sanders can maintain his momentum when the enormous energy boost he is receiving from college campuses dissipates. An underrated factor in his surprising (to some) loss in Ohio was the fact that the vote took place during Spring Break. By the time the campaign calendar turns to late April and May, Sanders' greatest competition may not be Clinton, but rather the cap and gown. Once class resumes in the fall, it will be up to the nominee, whoever that may be, to marshall that campus-based energy and idealism once again.

Historical perspective would help:

1) Hillary leads Bernie by 230 pledged delegates, which is more than double the maximum delegate lead (110) that Obama ever had over Hillary in 2008.

2) Hillary managed to whittle Obama's lead down to 70 going into the convention in 2008. In other words, throughout the slog from April through June, Hillary's wins only netted her 40 more delegates than Obama.

Bernie's revolution did not materialize in the first half of the primary (he's 2.5 million voters short of Hillary), there's no indication there is a revolution to come after the half-time.

Democrat primary voters -- PROTECT YOUR VOTE. While voting should be straightforward, it's not. When you register to vote, declare a party affiliation or you can be left out of the primary. Even after you've registered to vote, party affiliations can arbitrarily change in the system, making you ineligible to vote on primary election day. Check your party affiliation often (takes two seconds online) and document it so you are prepared to give proof (when you arrive early) at your polling place. Don't let anyone steal your vote. Check your status now at: https://www.headcount.org/verify-voter-registration/

Sen. Sanders does much better in open elections. That involves the independent vote; the all important swing vote that is needed in the general election. Bernie Sanders is more electable and our best bet to defeat the GOP come November.

Bernie is still rising nationally and gaining in all demographics. It will be an uphill battle all the way, but as a New Yorker or a Californian most of my life, I have confidence Bernie can win both states. California by a larger margin because it's west coast like the states he just won and because independents can vote in the Democratic primary.