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Why would you try to extrapolate from results in Iowa? It's a.) a caucus, which has weird effects on turnout, and b.) not at all representative of Democrat vote
by danenania 7y ago
Why would you try to extrapolate from results in Iowa? It's a.) a caucus, which has weird effects on turnout, and b.) not at all representative of Democrat voters. And if you are going to extrapolate from Iowa, you can't simply ignore Sanders' dramatic over-performance with the few minorities that do live there.
You're also referencing polls on who would vote for a Democratic socialist, while ignoring polls of who would vote for Sanders specifically, overall approval ratings of Sanders (consistently near the top for any politician in the country), and head-to-head polls of Sanders vs. Trump.
It's pretty clear that you're just cherrypicking to fit a narrative. You're entitled to your opinion, but don't pretend it's supported by data in any sort of definitive way when that's plainly not the case.
- rayiner 7y agoI’m extrapolating from Iowa because it provides concrete data about the nature of Sander’s plurality support. He’s clearly the #1 choice of a significant minority of democrats. But is he the #2 choice of a sufficient number of others? Or is he only winning a plurality because the anti-Sanders candidates can’t pick an alternative? (On this front, it’s critical to note that Biden was leading Sanders by large margins until he fell apart in Iowa.) Matchups against Trump this far out are not helpful. In the months before the nomination, Clinton had up to a 10 point lead on Trump. That closed significantly once the campaigning started. The nomination is when the rubber hits the road. That’s when the attack ads will start, going into Sanders’ lengthy record of anti-Amrrican, communist sympathizing statements. That’s not baked into the poll numbers for Sanders yet. (Meanwhile, all of Trump’s bad statements are already baked into his poll numbers.)
- danenania 7y ago"He’s clearly the #1 choice of a significant minority of democrats. But is he the #2 choice of a sufficient number of others? Or is he only winning a plurality because the anti-Sanders candidates can’t pick an alternative?" He's also winning handily in national head-to-head polls vs. others in the primary, which seem a lot more relevant to me than Iowa caucus realignment numbers: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/02/18/democrat-head-to-head-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... "Matchups against Trump this far out are not helpful." Ah, so we can base all kinds of conclusions on a poll asking "would you vote for a Democratic socialist?", but one taken at the same time asking "would you vote for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump?" is not helpful? :-/
- iron0013 7y agoI wonder if "inexplicable Republican best friends"* like Rayiner, who try to tell Democrats who their candidate should be, know that they are actually showing their hand and telling the rest of us who they're most afraid of. * https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-69-the-rise-of-the-inexplicable-republican-best-friend-42a4e814cd39 https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-69-the-rise-of-t...
- int_19h 7y agoPolls say that Sanders is the most popular second choice for Biden supporters. Is that a sufficient number?
- rayiner 7y agoThose polls show that 75% of Biden supporters would prefer someone other than Sanders for their second choice: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-second-choice-candidates-show-a-race-that-is-still-fluid/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-second-choice-ca... For the majority of the party, Sanders is neither their first or second choice: https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-passes-joe-biden-top-democrat-2020-poll-1486983 https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-passes-joe-biden-top... (22% support him as the first choice, another 10% say he’s their second choice). This isn’t rocket science. It’s literally why ranked choice voting was invented.