2020 Presidential Election

[Belsnickel]

(02-14-2020, 03:42 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: For clarification, did they literally call them fake statistics? Or did they say it's a broad assumption that, at the moment, people are strictly voting along policy lines? 

That is the reason I used the quotation marks. That was their actual, literal phrase.

(02-14-2020, 03:42 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: What I mean is: The most recent "2nd choice" polling data was released just before NH in which Biden voters' second choice was, surprisingly, most often Bernie.

That poll tells me that people voting for moderates aren't necessarily moderates. They're potentially voting on "electability." So Biden was their number 1 choice because they believe he can beat Trump, probably because the media has told them that.

If that's the case, then the story isn't nearly as grim for Bernie as it looks if you just combine Pete's, Amy's and Joe's numbers from New Hampshire and compare them to Bernie's. When you look at the votes cast in New Hampshire and Iowa, it looks like the moderates are overtaking the progressives. But those are two predominately white, relatively conservative/moderate states. But once you zoom out and start looking at the national picture, I'm not so sure that moderates are dominating progressives.

In recent national polling, accounting for Yang dropping out, the progressive vote adds up to about 39% and the moderate vote adds up to about 53% (presumably with 8% undecided) with 29% of those polled saying Bernie had the best chance of beating Trump (which ranked first). So progressives are behind, if we assume all progressives and moderates are voting along policy lines, but it's not nearly as wide as that one infographic that was circulating (Bernie vs the Moderates) would indicate.

Another really important thing to watch is the minority voters' choice in the next two contests. Klobuchar and Buttigieg are still polling horrendously with black and Hispanic people. 


So are they really competitive? I can't remember the last Democrat to win with little or no minority support.


Meanwhile, Bernie leads with Hispanic people by a fair margin (38%, 17% with Biden is 2nd) and only trails Biden with black people (35% for Biden, 27% for Bernie). If Biden drops, which he may have to if he performs poorly in South Carolina, I doubt those black voters choose Pete or Klobuchar over Bernie, since they are currently polling at 4% and 1%, respectively, with black people. Similarly, they are polling 6% and 2% with Hispanic people.


Another thing of note is that Bloomberg is inundating the country with ads and is polling surprisingly well (18% Post NH). It's unclear why but he has not yet participated in any debates (and therefore hasn't been met with nationally publicized scrutiny like the other candidates have) so his numbers aren't exactly stable. Are people polling for him because they actually like his policies? Or just because of recency bias? His ads basically only bash Trump after all, so it's not clear if the average person even knows what his policies are, let alone agrees with them. Especially with the last few questionable things that have come out about him recently (the thing about ending redlining causing the housing market crash and his justification for stop and frisk).


Reducing the race to progressives vs moderates is a bit reductive for these reasons. I'm not saying that Bernie isn't behind when you combine those moderate votes. That's undeniable. My point is just that people pick candidates for different reasons and they often aren't related to policy. It'll be interesting to see how it all develops.


But if the Bernie bros were denying reality then you are right to criticize them. We can't let our support for Bernie become cult like, as it has become with Trump. We need to keep perspective and view the race as it exists in reality. We mustn't become digital brown shirts...

I'm aware of all of this, and was trying to generate this sort of conversation. Instead it turned into a situation in which they were just denying the actual data in front of them.