I’m not sure I buy that Bernie would have ‘been worse’. Having looked at the numbers, the obvious issue was turnout in D areas. If someone can post a good map showing total votes by county 2012/2016 you’ll see what I mean, Rust Belt especially.
The question that solves the problem is “Why?” and I think the answer is “We didn’t give them enough to vote *for*”. I was a Bernie voter that was not 100% for either one, but Hillary was obviously fine. But I would put myself in the well-educated and highly-informed and engaged groups, so I’m not really who needed to be convinced.
From @BenSasse in APR post today:
08Obama 69M*
12Obama 66M*
04Bush 62M
12Romney 61M
8McCain 60M
16Clinton 59.6M*
16Trump 59.4M
Democratic vote *totals* have fallen with our excitement level with the candidate, while the GOP votes have remained nearly constant with a slight fall. That, my friends, is the story. Was Bernie exciting enough, that’s another story, but it is hard to argue that Hillary had a broad set of people fired up for sure, as we all know she had very many people grudgingly accepting her. A little more follows below:
Bernie, however, had a very clear message that focused domestically, and was particularly focused on exactly the Trumps of the world. Yes, he is Jewish, and that would have been another glass ceiling and I think that particular bigotry is small and baked into the Trump numbers anyway, meaning I don’t think another 2M people show up to vote against “the Jew”. However, how might it motivated people in a more positive way? Hard to say, but at least he would not have had scandal-drag and the #NeverHillary people, which may have also played a role.
Would it have been enough? Maybe. The lesson, regardless, is that just like the folks on the right, who get ginned up and show up to vote for all the things they jump up and down about, we need to have candidates that distill ideas simply and passionately and that resonate with the people who don’t have time or capacity to remember more than a few lines. That’s all most people want to be involved with politics, and they are not reading this, that’s for sure.
Donald Trump had no serious GOTV operation and virtually no difference in turnout. We had a massive and expensive GOTV and got less than last time. It’s not that I think the GOTV doesn’t matter, it’s that I think you can’t turn out people who don’t care. You know the GOP cares *a lot* about their issues and their candidates throw all the meat they need. When we find a candidate that does that for us, we need to run with them.