j4remi wrote:Brings me back to my old theory that Bernie was more electable because he appealed to the voters who would stay home as opposed to the "vote blue no matter who" voters that were gonna show up for the Dems regardless of the nominee.
Bernie's edge in the General is that he'll have activated the subset of voters that stay home when they aren't galvanized while the section that voted against him (in the primary) are the most reliable portion of the Democratic voters. I think his(Bernie's) numbers are the portion of Democrats who need to be turned out in order to win, but don't consistently show up.
What Obama managed was to merge these volatile voting base that Bernie has tapped into with the broadly reliable voters who show up consistently to always vote blue. But Bernie hasn't locked those consistent types yet. But just because he's not their first choice doesn't mean those people wouldn't vote for Bernie or that they even dislike his policies. Bernie polls best as Biden voters' second choice.
Bold added for clarity since I'm pulling this from a mid-convo PM.
Edit: Also, just to throw this in. If youth is the target, Pressley >>> Harris or Abrams imo. That's not data based though, just the sense I get from convo's with progressives. Abrams has lost some of her shine with progressives (albeit I disagree with some of the issues they've taken) and Harris never had it.
I mean, the whole thing about Biden was that 90% of his voters said they were blue no matter who, compared to 50% of Bernie's voters, and they were both the 2nd choice for the majority of each other's base. Bernie got people who aren't traditionally part of the Dem base to vote for him, his challenge was gonna be to convince the base to still turn out
Which he could have done like how Obama did it, with a Biden type of VP
So it's like, Biden has the most broad support, but he isn't bringing anyone new to the table. Almost anyone who's voting for Biden is doing so as a vote against Trump, in which case their votes still likely go to Bernie. With that being said, Biden still won the primary, although I do have to wonder how much of that was due to the establishment and the media pushing the "Biden is the only electable candidate" angle
But the Dems are gonna go back to that same well of appealing to the old, white, middle class folk who only vote blue when the Republican option is categorically worse, and even then they still don't vote Dem, just less majority vote Rep. Which isn't an issue this election, but time has shown that coming off a Dem presidency, those voters will always go back to voting for the Republican, and the Dems keep relying on them to not do that. Which is why even if Biden wins this fall, if the Dems go back to that same well in 2024, they're gonna lose again