There’s a very interesting piece up on Huffington Post, which argues very convincingly that the only thing holding back Bernie Sanders is a lack of voter familiarity — along with the time and resources that could put the campaign on the ground early enough in the state contests to win or really close the gap. (I apologize if this has been diaried before, but I didn’t see it, if it was.)
As argued in this piece — “Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You” — It’s the early voting that has been the difference for Clinton. While it’s true that Sanders is winning caucus states, as Obama did in ‘08, it’s less to do with the format than the timing. Even in primary states, Sanders is winning the day — at least Election Day. He’s winning the majority of votes being cast on (Primary/Caucus) Election Day. Even in there states where Clinton does win the majority of votes on Election Day, it’s by very slim margins.
Arizona — where a huge percentage of voters voted early -- is a prime example of this phenomenon.
So how did Bernie Sanders do on Election Day in Arizona?
As of the writing of this essay (2:45 AM ET), Sanders was leading Clinton in Election Day voting in Arizona 50.2% to 49.8%, with just under 75,000 votes (about 17.3% of all Election Day votes) counted.
Sanders invested a lot of time and advertising dollars in Arizona, Unfortunately, the dynamics of race meant he couldn’t do that before the last week, when so many Arizonans had already voted (look at all the votes Rubio got in the GOP side). Early voting is a part of the process, for good or ill, but it’s clearly the thing that has Clinton in the lead.
If Sanders was on the ground in many of these states early enough for the voters there to get to know him and see the enthusiasm for his campaign, he’d win this race handily — which also puts the lie to the argument that Sanders would struggle int he general election, when voters get to know more about him.. The evidence suggests the opposite. When more voters get to hear more about Sanders and more they get to hear him directly, more voters decide to vote for Bernie Sanders than for HIllary Clinton.
As the HuffPost writer notes, this should at least provide food for thought for the super-delegates come convention time.
“Given that Election Day voting in the spring is the very same sort of high-information voting that will occur in November, you’d think super-delegates would be quite interested to know that, in live voting, Bernie Sanders beats Hillary Clinton more often than not.”