538 - status of Sanders voters

[Ted King]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/abou...y-clinton/

"About A Third Of Bernie Sanders’ Supporters Still Aren’t Backing Hillary Clinton"

Before we get to all the data, let’s be clear about what we’re discussing: The Sanders holdouts aren’t that large a group. If they were forced to choose only between Clinton and Trump, the vast majority would choose Clinton and yet they would add only about 1 percentage point to her overall margin over Trump, according to current polls. That could matter in a close election, but the election isn’t looking all that close at the moment.

The conventions did move some Sanders voters to Clinton. In national polls taken right before the conventions, Clinton was winning around half of Sanders supporters when Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were included as an option — 57 percent (per CNN and Marist) and 44 percent (per YouGov).1 Now, Clinton is at 69 percent (CNN), 65 percent (Marist) and 49 percent (YouGov).

Without third-party candidates, Clinton was already doing much better with Bernie’s fans. Still, the convention helped: She moved from 79 percent up to 91 percent among Sanders supporters in CNN’s polls, 68 percent to 75 percent per Marist, and 59 percent to 65 percent in YouGov’s surveys.

But the sizable portion of Sanders supporters defecting from Clinton when given other options could still be a problem for the Clinton campaign if the election tightens.

Pollsters show Clinton receiving varying levels of support from Sanders voters, but CNN, Fox News,2 Marist and YouGov all show Clinton’s margin over Trump among these voters shrinking when third-party candidates are presented as options. On average, Clinton loses 12 percentage points off her margin over Trump among Sanders backers — identical to the change I calculated before both conventions took place. Clinton is below 70 percent among Sanders backers in all four polls and wins an average of just 63 percent when third-party candidates are included. That’s about as well as Trump is doing among well-educated, moderate Republicans — the wing of the GOP least likely to back him. In other words, the Democratic convention seems to have been somewhat of a failure in convincing Sanders voters who oppose Trump to consolidate behind Clinton rather than Johnson or Stein.

Of course, Clinton has already won over some Sanders holdouts, and she may just steadily pick up more of their votes as the campaign progresses. Additionally, Johnson’s support in national polls — in both our polls-only and polls-plus forecasts — has been trending downwards slightly.3 That suggests voters may be moving away from third-party options, which is in keeping with the history of third-party candidates fading as the election nears.

[rjmacs]

So, as usual - we're faced with the question: how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits who will throw away their vote in the voting booth?

Also, how many of these voters would ever have voted for a major party candidate, and were only supporting Bernie as an anti-party move?

I expect the votes Clinton is supposedly 'losing' are ones she (or a GOP nominee) never had any chance of winning anyway, so it's a wash. These people were never going to vote Clinton or Trump. I would guess that most of them don't regularly vote.

[OWC Jamie]

rjmacs wrote:
So, as usual - we're faced with the question: how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits who will throw away their vote in the voting booth?

Also, how many of these voters would ever have voted for a major party candidate, and were only supporting Bernie as an anti-party move?

I expect the votes Clinton is supposedly 'losing' are ones she (or a GOP nominee) never had any chance of winning anyway, so it's a wash. These people were never going to vote Clinton or Trump. I would guess that most of them don't regularly vote.

What do you expect - they're Democrats. Hard to believe there's that many that would vote their conscience and exercise a modicum of self-respect and actually value their vote, but there you go.

Other polls have 60% of Bernie supporters still unable to vote for the foul vile disgusting pig.

[Ted King]

rjmacs wrote:
So, as usual - we're faced with the question: how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits who will throw away their vote in the voting booth?

That question could be interpreted to imply that if a Sanders supporter doesn't support Clinton in the general election, then they are ideological twits who will throw away their vote. If that is what you meant to imply then I think that is an oversimplification. Is feeling that the soft corruption of money in politics is the keystone issue that needs to be addressed being realistic or ideological?

And, as I alluded to in a response to Lemon Drop, I think that it's important to acknowledge that some Sanders supporters who won't support Clinton may value different things more highly than those who do choose to support Clinton. How do we assess differences in value priorities when deciding what is ideological and what is not?

rjmacs wrote:
Also, how many of these voters would ever have voted for a major party candidate, and were only supporting Bernie as an anti-party move?

I expect the votes Clinton is supposedly 'losing' are ones she (or a GOP nominee) never had any chance of winning anyway, so it's a wash. These people were never going to vote Clinton or Trump. I would guess that most of them don't regularly vote.

I think that is generally true - although I'm not sure about the "don't regularly vote" part; it may be true but I'd like to see some empirical evidence on the matter.

I think that a very small number of Sanders supporters really are Bernie or busters. No Bernie means then bust the system. They may vote for Trump in hopes that he will win and be such a screw-up as president that "the system" will break down and give them the opening they think they need (the naive ones probably actually believe that their message will prevail when the chaos hits and the realistic ones who want such a break down are probably at least quasi-anarchists).

I also think a very small number of Sanders supporters have gotten caught up in a "cult of personality" thing where not supporting Clinton is really mostly about hurt feelings more than policy considerations.

[August West]

...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...

Wow. :barf:

[rjmacs]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
So, as usual - we're faced with the question: how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits who will throw away their vote in the voting booth?

That question could be interpreted to imply that if a Sanders supporter doesn't support Clinton in the general election, then they are ideological twits who will throw away their vote. If that is what you meant to imply then I think that is an oversimplification. Is feeling that the soft corruption of money in politics is the keystone issue that needs to be addressed being realistic or ideological?

And, as I alluded to in a response to Lemon Drop, I think that it's important to acknowledge that some Sanders supporters who won't support Clinton may value different things more highly than those who do choose to support Clinton. How do we assess differences in value priorities when deciding what is ideological and what is not?
Feeling that the soft corruption of money in politics is a keystone issue that needs to be addressed is a chiefly practical matter, not an ideological one. If Bernie supporters want to address this matter practically, they need to ask which of the candidates would create a greater opening for reform: the one who publicly espouses legislation that limits money in politics and promises to "repeal Citizens United" (despite the impossibility of doing so as the executive) through SCotUS appointments, or the one who just selected a panel of millionaires and billionaires to his economic advising team. It's a simple enough evaluation.

Ted King wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
Also, how many of these voters would ever have voted for a major party candidate, and were only supporting Bernie as an anti-party move?

I expect the votes Clinton is supposedly 'losing' are ones she (or a GOP nominee) never had any chance of winning anyway, so it's a wash. These people were never going to vote Clinton or Trump. I would guess that most of them don't regularly vote.

I think that is generally true - although I'm not sure about the "don't regularly vote" part; it may be true but I'd like to see some empirical evidence on the matter.

I think that a very small number of Sanders supporters really are Bernie or busters. No Bernie means then bust the system. They may vote for Trump in hopes that he will win and be such a screw-up as president that "the system" will break down and give them the opening they think they need (the naive ones probably actually believe that their message will prevail when the chaos hits and the realistic ones who want such a break down are probably at least quasi-anarchists).

I also think a very small number of Sanders supporters have gotten caught up in a "cult of personality" thing where not supporting Clinton is really mostly about hurt feelings more than policy considerations.
Any Bernie supporters who think that Trump "will win and be such a screw-up as president that 'the system' will break down" are, frankly, idiots with no appreciation of history or reality. This does not detract, however, from the fact that a Trump presidency could be enormously harmful to the Republic and its citizens.

I think that responsible participants in democracy are both pragmatic voters and aspirational citizens who do more than vote. Joining nonpartisan civic engagement groups that do good and promote positive values (even those outside the political mainstream) is a great way to be a Bernie supporter. There was a time when universal primary education was a radical idea in this country. When women having the vote was seen as a dangerous proposition that could bring down the nation. When integrating schools was seen as a form of cultural genocide. Keep working, Bernie Bros - but in the interim, stop trashing Hillary and give her your vote.

[rjmacs]

August West wrote:

...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...

Wow. :barf:

Sorry, August West - voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or god help us Drumpf is a fool's errand. There's no defending it. In my estimation, that earns you the title "twit." There are worse words...

[Filliam H. Muffman]

rjmacs wrote:
[quote=August West]

...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...

Wow. :barf:

Sorry, August West - voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or god help us Drumpf is a fool's errand. There's no defending it. In my estimation, that earns you the title "twit." There are worse words...
A party crony insulting dedicated Bernie-ites isn't the way to win their votes. I bet Stein gets at least 4x as much of the turnout compared to last election. It won't be enough for their party to truly be taken seriously, but it might be enough to make it a nail biter for Clinton.

[max]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
[quote=August West]

...how many Sanders supporters are ideological twits...

Wow. :barf:

Sorry, August West - voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson ...In my estimation, that earns you the title "twit."
A party crony insulting dedicated Bernie-ites isn't the way to win their votes.
True dat....

[sekker]

Repeat after me -

There

Is

No

Such

Thing

As

A

Protest

Vote