This is an attempt to parse a hypothetical, I’ll consider any reasonable suggestions about changing the analysis.
It's common to see warnings that Bernie Sanders voters are getting so offended or disaffected that they won't participate in November or might even vote for Trump out of spite. What is the nature of this threat, practically speaking? There are, broadly speaking, five categories of Bernie supporters (well four real categories and one imaginary), the percentage next to these is a guess and entirely up for revision:
The New Voters — 15-30% of Bernie’s support
First, for the part of Bernie's coalition represents a brand new influx of voters into the system, the the threat of them not participating in November or throwing away their vote on a third-party candidate is actually nil. Hillary will win easily with the traditional Democratic vote against a candidate as divisive as Trump. These lost voters will cease to matter as a “negative” in the electoral calculus. If they vote for Hillary that’s great, but if they drop out she won’t be affected.
If this new coalition breaks decidedly for Trump, rather than simply dropping out, the hypothetical scenario is so unusual that it’s fair to hypothesize other unusual contingencies as well, such as an unprecedented anti-Trump Hispanic vote, which would again neutralize the Berner effect. There’s likely to be high Hispanic turnout anyway, but if we pretend angry Berners are going to flock to Trump we can easily pretend even more angry Hispanics will rise up for Hillary.
The Unreachables- 10%
There are Sanders voters who will never back Hillary, no matter what. Some are fanatic leftists, some have decided Hillary is just evil, some are libertarians or anarchists, some are GOP saboteurs taking advantage of the open primaries, some are unshakably devoted to Bernie Sanders. Nothing said by us or by Hillary will bring these people around. Some may drop out, some may vote for Trump and some may vote third party. As much of a problem as these voters may be, it’s important to note that nothing can be done to reach them. So there’s no threat of losing these voters, they were never available to Hillary Clinton and never will be.
So this is not a threat, just like it’s not a threat to say you’ll cut off my toes after my leg is amputated. They are simply out of reach for the general, and nothing said in these diaries will change that.
The Pragmatists — 70-90% (I think this really should be 90%+)
The vast majority of Bernie Sanders’s supporters are pragmatists. They will vote for Hillary in November, some enthusiastically, some stoically, but they are mature enough to know that you don’t always get your first choice in Presidential campaigns and the consequences of not supporting her are too dire to entertain.
It is possible, but difficult, to estrange this group. Anyone rational enough to vote this way will also be more influenced by Hillary’s campaign than any flame wars happening on a blog. And Hillary herself is promoting a very tolerant view towards Bernie and continually reaches out to his supporters. Name calling and hurt feelings on this or similar websites are unpleasant, but won’t change how this block votes.
Also, this friction will evaporate when Bernie ends his campaign. Looking back at the PUMA diaries from 2008 it’s clear there’s zero interest in spiking the football once the primary is resolved. A few days after Hillary conceded users were loudly chastising anyone still doing a victory dance.
The Mythical Beast — irrelevant
A republican voter swayed by Bernie’s message who is willing to cross over and vote for him. Someone truly out of left field, as it were. First, it is not clear this person exists and even if there are a few out there I doubt they engage with Daily Kos, so anti-Bernie statements here won’t reach them. It’s not clear where they belong, sans Bernie, but I’d guess they become unreachable. If Trump becomes unhinged enough they may vote for Hillary out of loyalty to the greater good, but nothing done by her or us could affect much change.
The Persuadable Hillary Voter — 10%?
This final cohort is the one “in play” for this threat: a Bernie supporter passionate enough to vote, yet willing to consider Hillary if that’s the only viable option. These supporters demand to be wooed, and treated nicely, or they will withhold their support. The are over 22 years old, and have a history of voting in the past. If a large number of these did not vote for Hillary, it would undermine her traditional voting support and could put the election at risk. So how big are they?
[Yes the percentages total more than 100%, even at their lowest ranges. Since these are all guesses, it’s worth pretending each category is a generous as possible, even if it doesn’t add up altogether. It doesn’t add up in the end, anyway, so it hardly matters here.]
Let’s look at how big Bernie’s movement has turned out to be. Here is where things get even more fuzzy:
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Real Clear Politics has 9.9m votes for Bernie already recorded.
- Let’s guess there’s 1m more votes for Bernie from the caucuses
- There’s about 5.5m votes remaining in California, et al. If we give Bernie his 43%, then that’s another 2.4m
The total Bernie coalition is then about 13.3m voters. Some voters won’t have participated in the primaries, but some other portion won’t make it to the general despite their best intentions, so it’s a decent ballpark number.
Of that 12.2m voters, roughly 1.3m are the ones “in play” when threats are made about Sanders voters not participating. And, unfortunately for this threat, they tend to be more concentrated in reliably blue states. So they have much less marginal effect than if they were evenly distributed. In the last 3 elections, there have been between 62-69m Democratic votes, and only 59-60m Republican ones. In other words, 1.3 million votes isn’t enough to sway the popular vote, even guessing that ALL 1.3 million refused to vote for Clinton.
Considering these factors, there doesn’t seem to much consequence for Hillary in this threat. She will work to secure as many votes as possible, so the threat doesn’t affect her behavior to begin with, it’s only really directed at fellow DKs users. While it’s important to respect opposing views and try to grow the party, there doesn’t seem to be much reason to fear the effect of a small shift in Bernie votes come November. This is not an excuse to bash anyone, just an observation that the threat of lost votes in November seems very small when examined. I think this threat does not hold water.
But...the Future!
A variation on this threat is that bad blood now will be irrevocably damaged the party in future elections, presumably ones in which are more competitive and in which Donald Trump is not the GOP nominee. As this is neither a claim about death or taxes, it seems so hypothetical as to be irrelevant. There are two recent examples we have to consider: PUMAs were ignored, and vanished like smoke. The Tea Party was indulged and has ruined the GOP. I am certain Bernie is different than both of those, but they’re not great examples in the case of this particular threat.
UPDATED 5/20/16 —
The calculation about voters whom Hillary may lose missed a significant demographic mentioned above: The Unreachables (10%) — 1.3m). So including those the net vote gap may be as high as 2.6m ultimately. I strongly doubt it will even be a tenth this size in real life, and if Hillary doesn’t beat Trump by millions more than this she’s not nearly the candidate she aspires to be. So I still don’t think it’s at all a concern. Do we want a big tent that includes progressives? Of course, they’re a driving force in the party. Should we let the threat of losing some of them derail the entire nomination process? Not at all. Hillary can win without the votes of the fringe who refuse to move on after Bernie drops out.