Which candidate beats Trump?

Dear Friends,

The mainstream media continues to proclaim that the Presidential race will be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  These same media giants and their pundits, all of whom failed to recognize that Donald Trump was a real candidate regardless of his lack of qualifications and personality and who were certain that he would never be the Republican nominee and that Bernie Sanders would never pose a real threat to Hillary Clinton, are now saying that Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump by a landslide.

They continue to fail to understand that the American people are angry and scared.  Many Republicans are angry because they are finally figuring out that the Republican Party establishment has been using them for years.  People are angry because the establishment including big corporations, Wall Street, the mainstream media and the two major political parties have created a political and financial system that has concentrated all of the wealth and power in the hands of the few at the top of the economic heap.  They are scared for a variety of reasons and not all reasons apply to all the people.  Old white men are scared because they are losing their privilege.  Most everybody is scared about their financial futures.  Thoughtful ones are scared for the lives their children and grandchildren will live because of climate change.  Those who have fallen for the Republican fear mongering are afraid of Muslims, blacks, hispanics and GLBT people.  The establishment types in the mainstream media do not understand that the American electorate is ready for real and significant change, and they are looking for leaders who agree with them and can lead them in achieving that change.

I cannot imagine anything worse for the world and our future than Donald Trump beating the Democratic nominee and becoming President of the United States.  In addition to all the reasons that I have put forth in prior posts demonstrating why I think that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to effectuate the real and radical changes that we need, I now want to make the case for why Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.

I have created my own spreadsheet of the Electoral College results by State for 2000 through 2012 and my predictions based on history and the polls to date.  Under my analysis, there are 10 states that are up for grabs this year.  I have given the electoral votes from the others to either Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate.  The result being
Donald Trump          180
Democrat                  226
Undecided                132
Keep in mind that a candidate needs 270 votes to win.  Under my analysis and virtually all the others I found online, the Democrat has a big lead but does not get to 270 without some of the undecided states.

Here is what I have gleaned from the polls about the undecided states.

In three states there is no worthwhile polling: Colorado (9 votes), Nevada (6 votes) and New Mexico (5 votes).

In one state, Indiana (11 votes) both Democratic candidates lose to Donald Trump in recent polls but Hillary Clinton loses by 7.5 percentage points while Bernie Sanders loses by only 1 percentage point indicating that he might win Indiana.

Florida (29 votes) is the only state where the polls indicate that both Democratic candidates would beat Donald Trump where Hillary Clinton wins by more than Bernie Sanders.  Hillary Clinton wins by 4.3 percentage points and Bernie Sanders wins by 0.5 percentage points.

In all the other states Bernie Sanders beats Donald Trump by wider margins than Hillary Clinton.

Iowa (6 votes)                               Sanders +9        Clinton +4
North Carolina (15 votes)             Sanders +7.3     Clinton +3.3
Ohio (18 votes)                             Sanders +5        Clinton +3
Pennsylvania (20 votes)                Sanders +12.7   Clinton +7

Based on the current polling numbers, Bernie Sanders is a much better bet to beat Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton and her surrogates claim that Bernie Sanders has not been fully vetted and attacked they way that Donald Trump will attack him.  The Clinton Campaign has attacked Bernie Sanders repeatedly, and his campaign gets stronger.  The more people know Bernie Sanders the more they like him.  The more people are exposed to Hillary Clinton the less they like her.  The Huffington Post tracks the trends for the favorable and unfavorable ratings of both Bernie Sanders (here) and Hillary Clinton (here).

According to the Huffington Post analysis, Bernie Sanders currently has a 51.6% favorable rating and a 41.1% unfavorable rating, a net 10.5% positive.  Since July 2015, both his favorable and unfavorable ratings have gone up as people have been exposed to him, but his net positive rating has steadily increased since that time.

Conversely, the Huffington Post analysis shows that Hillary Clinton currently has a 41.5% favorable rating and 54.6% unfavorable rating, a net 13.1% negative.  Except for a small bump up in February 2011, Hillary Clinton's favorability rating has declined since October 2010 and her unfavorable ratings have steadily increased since February 2011.  The last time she had a net positive favorable/unfavorable rating was in April 2015 and her net negative rating has continued to grow since then.  The Clinton campaign likes to say that her bad ratings are the result of decades of unfair treatment by the Republicans, but just over a year ago she had a net positive rating which during the campaign has rapidly become a really significant 13.1% net negative rating.

Of course Donald Trump has worse ratings than Hillary Clinton.  The Huffington Post analysis (here) shows that Donald Trump currently has a 58.6% unfavorable rating and a 36.5% favorable rating for a net negative rating of 21.1% which is worse than Hillary Clinton's net negative rating of 13.1%.  If you only read the mainstream media you would not believe that Donald Trump's favorability ratings have been increasing and his unfavorability ratings have been decreasing since April when he had a net negative of 31.3%.  If the trends of Hillary Clinton's net ratings getting worse and Donald Trump's net ratings getting better continue, Hillary Clinton's chances of winning would be further diminished.

While I understand that Bernie Sanders has a narrow chance of winning the Democratic nomination, if he continues to win the primaries/caucuses between now and the convention and the polling numbers and favorable/unfavorable numbers continue their present trends, I would hope that the Super Delegates would do their job for the good of the world, country and party and nominate Bernie Sanders.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal