Hillary Clinton, the GOP, and their Wall Street funders agree on one thing: Bernie Sanders is ‘dangerous' and must be stopped. So they all push the myth that Bernie Sanders will “be another McGovern." I.e., they want to argue, ‘too liberal; nice guys finish last.'
But they are wrong, and the data proves it. Nixon was polling far above McGovern in every month of the 1972 election, as shown in the above graph.
By contrast, Bernie Sanders is not only beating every GOP candidate in the polls, he is well ahead of Hillary Clinton in all head-to-head matchups for the General Election.
E.g., here is Sanders vs Trump: ahead 47.5 to 38.9:
Here is Sanders vs Rubio: ahead 45.5% to 42.9%:
Similar graphs hold true for all GOP candidates against Bernie Sanders.
This is nothing like George McGovern’s 1972 campaign against Nixon.
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Push back, when you hear the fear-mongering. The facts are in Sanders’ favor.
Of course polls can change — but the fact remains this race is nothing like the dynamics of 1972 McGovern vs Nixon.
Sanders' rise to political fame also is nothing like McGovern's path. Consider his historical role in defeating the Republicans for his Senate seat for the first time, ever (since the GOP was founded in 1854):
For the first century after the founding of the Grand Old Party in 1854, Republicans dominated the politics of the state of Vermont like no other. For more than 100 years, Vermont Republicans won every major race for every statewide office. Republican presidential candidates from John Fremont in 1856 to George H.W. Bush in 1988—with the single exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964—won the Green Mountain State. For one of Vermont’s US Senate seats, an unbroken Republican winning streak continued from before the Civil War to the beginning of the 21st century.
Only in 2006 was the Senate seat streak broken with the election of a candidate who was not a Republican.
His name was Bernie Sanders.