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
Showing posts with label favorability/unfavorability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label favorability/unfavorability. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Friday, March 25, 2016
Who is more electable??
Dear Friends,
One of the arguments I hear all the time about why I should support Secretary Clinton instead of Senator Sanders is that she can win the general election and he cannot. I disagree with that argument. In fact I think a very strong case can be made that Senator Sanders can win and that Secretary Clinton cannot win.
While the polls are not the best way to analyze who is more electable, they do provide some insights. Real Clear Politics provides a very helpful service in compiling all the major polls. I strongly recommend that you visit their website (here) because the information is very interesting and available in lots of formats. In the average of the polls they follow for March through the 22nd, here are some interesting averages,
Clinton beats Trump on average by 11.2 percentage points
Sanders beats Trump on average by 17.5 percentage points
In both cases, the spread increased in March.
But it is also important to consider what happens if the stop Trump movement is successful.
Clinton beats Cruz on average by 2.9 percentage points (well within the margin of error)
Sanders beats Cruz on average by 8.4 percentage points
Whereas Clinton's lead over Cruz has dropped during 2016, Sanders' lead over Cruz has widened considerably.
With respect to the Democratic nomination, the average of the polls in March so far give Clinton a 9 percentage point lead over Sanders but that is down from 24 percentage points at the beginning of 2016.
The truth is that the more people find out about Senator Sanders, and the more they hear and understand his message, the more popular he is and the better he does against all other candidates, Democratic and Republican. In addition, Senator Sanders is the only candidate with a positive favorability rating. According to the averages on Real Clear Politics for March, here are the results:
Sanders Favorable 48.7% Unfavorable 41.3% +7.4
Clinton Favorable 40.7% Unfavorable 53.9% -13.2
Cruz Favorable 33.4% Unfavorable 51.0% -17.6
Trump Favorable 30.4% Unfavorable 63.2% -32.8
The latest polls indicate that perhaps Donald Trump is beginning to lose ground, but we have heard that before, so who knows. Also the latest Democratic nomination poll shows Sanders ahead of Clinton by 1 percentage point. The daily and weekly variations among polls should not receive too much weight but the overall direction is important. Also so far in this election cycle, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders tend to out perform the polls.
So if you believe in polls, it is clear that Bernie Sanders is more electable than Hillary Clinton.
Clinton has won 14 states by more than 1 percentage point and 4 by 1 percentage point or less. Nine of the 14 states are very red states. Trump has won 12 of those states as well, and all but 3 of those states are very red states. The only two states that Trump has not won that Clinton won were Texas (home of Cruz) and Ohio (home of Kasich). So the states where Clinton performs well are states that have been won by Trump and are overwhelmingly red states. So it is impossible to say that Clinton has demonstrated that she can win against Trump based on her current performance.
Sanders has won 11 states. Of those states, the Republicans have not yet had a primary/caucus in 2 of them. In the nine states that have voted, Cruz has won 5, Trump has won 3 and Rubio won 1. Six of the 11 states that Sanders won went for Obama in 2012, 2 of which are on the list of the closest races in 2012. The results so far suggest that Sanders would win the traditionally blue states and be apt to win the close states that went for Obama last time. If anything, this analysis says that Sanders has a better chance of winning the general election than Clinton does, but the analysis is far from certain.
There is a lot of talk about Sanders supporters who say they will vote for Trump rather than Clinton if Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Clinton supporters attribute this position to the privilege of those Sanders supporters. This allegation is yet another example of Clinton supporters and others in the "Establishment" not understanding the anti-establishment sentiment that exists in this country.
For the last 30 years at least, the middle class has lost ground while the rich and powerful have gained incredible wealth and power. Many Sanders supporters are active in the political process today because they are tired of the status quo and are appalled at the inequality, in all respects, in this country. They did not become involved to fight for a Democrat or a Republican. They became involved to get rid of the "Establishment" and make big changes to the status quo.
It is not showing white privilege or any other kind of privilege for these voters to say that the most important thing is to get rid of the status quo. These voters will not vote for Clinton because she represents the Democratic Establishment. They might vote for Trump just to get rid of the "Establishment" or they might just drop out of politics. I disagree with that approach and will most certainly vote for Clinton if she is the nominee, but to tell those voters that they are rejecting Clinton because of their privilege is not only wrong, it is stupid and offensive, particularly if you want their vote.
I believe the reason that Sanders does better against Trump and Cruz than Clinton does is that these voters will stay involved and vote for Sanders rather than either Trump or Cruz. If, however, their choice is Clinton or either terrible Trump or Cruz, they will either vote for the terrible person or they will just drop out. This result will be even more certain if Clinton wins the nomination and then moves to the right during the general election campaign. Certainly her history of positions suggests that she has only moved left because of pressure from the success of the Sanders campaign. If she wins the nomination, moves to the right and continues to denigrate Sanders supporters by calling them uninformed, sexist, naive and now privileged, she will surely lose their support and votes.
Neither Trump nor Cruz is actually crazy. They are fighting for the Republican nomination now. They will run a different race once they get the nomination. Cruz is an ideologue who will have trouble changing his positions but can probably change his demeanor. Trump has no scruples so he will change to whatever he thinks will win. He will certainly try to become less awful as a general election candidate and who knows what positions he will take. He might even try to make himself look normal, as difficult as that is to believe right now. If he does that, Clinton will have an even more difficult time defeating him because she will sound like the pot calling the kettle black if she criticizes Trump for changing positions. Sanders, on the other hand, has not changed his positions and will be able to call Trump on his change in positions without fear of hearing the same back.
The nomination of the Democratic candidate for President is a long way off and much can change. While it is true that Senator Sanders has an uphill battle, that has always been the case. The Democratic Establishment, the media, the elites and the general establishment are all against him, but together we can overcome all of that and have a Presidential nominee and a President that will change this country and who will make us proud.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
One of the arguments I hear all the time about why I should support Secretary Clinton instead of Senator Sanders is that she can win the general election and he cannot. I disagree with that argument. In fact I think a very strong case can be made that Senator Sanders can win and that Secretary Clinton cannot win.
While the polls are not the best way to analyze who is more electable, they do provide some insights. Real Clear Politics provides a very helpful service in compiling all the major polls. I strongly recommend that you visit their website (here) because the information is very interesting and available in lots of formats. In the average of the polls they follow for March through the 22nd, here are some interesting averages,
Clinton beats Trump on average by 11.2 percentage points
Sanders beats Trump on average by 17.5 percentage points
In both cases, the spread increased in March.
But it is also important to consider what happens if the stop Trump movement is successful.
Clinton beats Cruz on average by 2.9 percentage points (well within the margin of error)
Sanders beats Cruz on average by 8.4 percentage points
Whereas Clinton's lead over Cruz has dropped during 2016, Sanders' lead over Cruz has widened considerably.
With respect to the Democratic nomination, the average of the polls in March so far give Clinton a 9 percentage point lead over Sanders but that is down from 24 percentage points at the beginning of 2016.
The truth is that the more people find out about Senator Sanders, and the more they hear and understand his message, the more popular he is and the better he does against all other candidates, Democratic and Republican. In addition, Senator Sanders is the only candidate with a positive favorability rating. According to the averages on Real Clear Politics for March, here are the results:
Sanders Favorable 48.7% Unfavorable 41.3% +7.4
Clinton Favorable 40.7% Unfavorable 53.9% -13.2
Cruz Favorable 33.4% Unfavorable 51.0% -17.6
Trump Favorable 30.4% Unfavorable 63.2% -32.8
The latest polls indicate that perhaps Donald Trump is beginning to lose ground, but we have heard that before, so who knows. Also the latest Democratic nomination poll shows Sanders ahead of Clinton by 1 percentage point. The daily and weekly variations among polls should not receive too much weight but the overall direction is important. Also so far in this election cycle, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders tend to out perform the polls.
So if you believe in polls, it is clear that Bernie Sanders is more electable than Hillary Clinton.
Clinton has won 14 states by more than 1 percentage point and 4 by 1 percentage point or less. Nine of the 14 states are very red states. Trump has won 12 of those states as well, and all but 3 of those states are very red states. The only two states that Trump has not won that Clinton won were Texas (home of Cruz) and Ohio (home of Kasich). So the states where Clinton performs well are states that have been won by Trump and are overwhelmingly red states. So it is impossible to say that Clinton has demonstrated that she can win against Trump based on her current performance.
Sanders has won 11 states. Of those states, the Republicans have not yet had a primary/caucus in 2 of them. In the nine states that have voted, Cruz has won 5, Trump has won 3 and Rubio won 1. Six of the 11 states that Sanders won went for Obama in 2012, 2 of which are on the list of the closest races in 2012. The results so far suggest that Sanders would win the traditionally blue states and be apt to win the close states that went for Obama last time. If anything, this analysis says that Sanders has a better chance of winning the general election than Clinton does, but the analysis is far from certain.
There is a lot of talk about Sanders supporters who say they will vote for Trump rather than Clinton if Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Clinton supporters attribute this position to the privilege of those Sanders supporters. This allegation is yet another example of Clinton supporters and others in the "Establishment" not understanding the anti-establishment sentiment that exists in this country.
For the last 30 years at least, the middle class has lost ground while the rich and powerful have gained incredible wealth and power. Many Sanders supporters are active in the political process today because they are tired of the status quo and are appalled at the inequality, in all respects, in this country. They did not become involved to fight for a Democrat or a Republican. They became involved to get rid of the "Establishment" and make big changes to the status quo.
It is not showing white privilege or any other kind of privilege for these voters to say that the most important thing is to get rid of the status quo. These voters will not vote for Clinton because she represents the Democratic Establishment. They might vote for Trump just to get rid of the "Establishment" or they might just drop out of politics. I disagree with that approach and will most certainly vote for Clinton if she is the nominee, but to tell those voters that they are rejecting Clinton because of their privilege is not only wrong, it is stupid and offensive, particularly if you want their vote.
I believe the reason that Sanders does better against Trump and Cruz than Clinton does is that these voters will stay involved and vote for Sanders rather than either Trump or Cruz. If, however, their choice is Clinton or either terrible Trump or Cruz, they will either vote for the terrible person or they will just drop out. This result will be even more certain if Clinton wins the nomination and then moves to the right during the general election campaign. Certainly her history of positions suggests that she has only moved left because of pressure from the success of the Sanders campaign. If she wins the nomination, moves to the right and continues to denigrate Sanders supporters by calling them uninformed, sexist, naive and now privileged, she will surely lose their support and votes.
Neither Trump nor Cruz is actually crazy. They are fighting for the Republican nomination now. They will run a different race once they get the nomination. Cruz is an ideologue who will have trouble changing his positions but can probably change his demeanor. Trump has no scruples so he will change to whatever he thinks will win. He will certainly try to become less awful as a general election candidate and who knows what positions he will take. He might even try to make himself look normal, as difficult as that is to believe right now. If he does that, Clinton will have an even more difficult time defeating him because she will sound like the pot calling the kettle black if she criticizes Trump for changing positions. Sanders, on the other hand, has not changed his positions and will be able to call Trump on his change in positions without fear of hearing the same back.
The nomination of the Democratic candidate for President is a long way off and much can change. While it is true that Senator Sanders has an uphill battle, that has always been the case. The Democratic Establishment, the media, the elites and the general establishment are all against him, but together we can overcome all of that and have a Presidential nominee and a President that will change this country and who will make us proud.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
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