I supported Sanders from the beginning. I’ve given plenty of $50 contributions to his campaign, even into this month. I’m glad he’s taking this to the end (at least California, if not DC), because I consider his campaign proof-of-concept for how a progressive candidate outside the establishment could win the nomination with better groundwork. Of course, the race technically isn’t over until the convention, when the superdelegates actually cast their votes. But we all know what the outcome of that vote will be, barring some sort of catastrophic realignment between now and the convention.
However, until the supers actually vote, their support is technically up for grabs. Any or all of them could change their commitments. (They won’t, but they could.) Sanders has every right to make his pitch to the superdelegates to switch their support. It’s also reasonable for Sanders to make an “electability” argument to the supers as a reason to change their votes. Current polls show he does better against Trump than Hillary does, so it’s a plausible argument on the surface. The Clinton camp can reasonably respond with a “Bernie hasn’t been attacked yet” argument because it’s a sound rebuttal.
But it won’t matter, because “electability” is irrelevant at this point. Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. The Democratic nominee, whoever it is (and it will be Clinton; she hasn’t won yet, but she will) will beat Trump in November, assuming she runs a minimally competent campaign.
Why do we know this? The math, of course. And the demographics.
Most of us know about the “Blue Wall.” Nate Silver claims it doesn’t exist, and I don’t want to take victory for granted, but it’s obvious there are states that will go blue this November absent an epic faceplant by the Democratic candidate. We can expect California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, New Mexico (not a “blue wall” state, but nobody expects it to be competitive this year), Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia to all fall into the blue column. These states have strongly Democratic demographics, so a Democrat wins those states by simply campaigning there in the fall and not being outed as a serial killer. So that’s 201 electoral votes for the Democratic nominee right off the top.
The remaining “blue wall” states are Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. (Some argue Minnesota might be up for grabs, but the last time Minnesota went Republican was 1972. I don’t see that changing this year.) Wisconsin is theoretically competitive, but it has gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1988 and composite polling shows Clinton 12 points up right now. So I’ll assume Clinton wins those ten electoral votes, bringing the total to 211, because there’s no way Donald Trump becomes the first Republican since Reagan to win Wisconsin.
Clinton also leads Trump in Michigan, currently by 7 points. No poll taken this year shows Trump leading, and the best he did last year was a tie. Michigan has gone Democratic since 1992, and there’s no reason to think this year will be different. Add 16 more EVs for Clinton, bringing the total to 227.
Pennsylvania is always deemed a swing state based on polling, but it’s gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1992. Clinton currently leads by 5 points in composite polling, but some polls put her as high as 15 and her worst numbers show a tie. I expect Clinton will win Pennsylvania because if Dole, McCain or Romney couldn’t turn the state red, Trump won’t. Expect 20 more EVs for Clinton. That’s 247 as long as she doesn’t implode.
Clinton is up 7 points in Iowa as well, putting her at 253. That’s only 17 electoral votes shy of what she needs to win.
(Of course, Sanders likely takes all those states, possibly by larger margins. But margins are immaterial. A win is a win, and Clinton will almost certainly win all of those states since she won’t take any of them for granted.)
Clinton needs just 17 more likely electoral votes to utterly dispose of the electability argument. So where do they come from?
Clinton could win outright with either Ohio (where she’s currently up by 3 points over Trump) or Florida (where she’s also up by 3, and the Puerto Rican crisis may be turning Florida blue). Either of those states alone would put her over the top.
If she loses both of those states, Clinton can also win with Virginia plus New Hampshire, a total of 17 electoral votes. She leads both states by 3 points in composite polling, with no poll in either state showing a Trump victory.
Instead of Virginia, she might win both Nevada and Colorado, for a total of 15 EVs, which gets her to 270 if she also wins New Hampshire. I haven’t found current general election polling on Nevada and Colorado, but both states went for Obama twice, and both are about 20% Hispanic. Trump’s candidacy has been driving registration and driving new citizenship among Hispanics, likely making the demographics in those states more favorable to Democrats this time around than in the last two presidential elections.
Trump has no path to victory that doesn’t require him to win both Ohio and Florida. But on top of that, he’ll also need North Carolina and Virginia and at least one other state. If he loses either North Carolina or Virginia, he’ll need to win every other state in play — a sweep of Colorado and Nevada and New Hampshire. Where there’s polling, Trump is trailing in every state that he needs to win, other than North Carolina. Meanwhile, Hillary is competitive in Arizona.
Bear in mind, all of these numbers are with the primary still going and Hillary under attack from elements of the Democratic base. Her numbers will look a lot better once the party is unified. Even if Bernie takes this all the way to the convention and there’s a floor fight and Hillary doesn’t do the effective outreach to Sanders supporters I expect her to do, Trump will have unified the Democratic party solidly against him well before November. He’s done most of the work already. A few die-hard Bernie-or-busters still hanging on in November won’t make much of a difference.
In the fall, Clinton will have an unparalleled team of potent surrogates to help get out the vote. She’ll have her husband, of course, as well as her running mate, President Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and possibly Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren all raising money and inspiring volunteers and getting out the vote for her one way or another. She’ll have no trouble getting over the top in at least a few of the contested swing states. Right now she’s consistently leading in all of them where there’s polling except North Carolina.
(What surrogates will Trump have to unleash upon swing states, other than his running mate? Sarah Palin?)
So yes, Bernie Sanders can make the electability argument, because it’s facially plausible due to his current stronger polling. And the superdelegates should pay attention to it (as well as the Clinton camp’s rebuttals), because they really should think about these things if they want a winner in November. But the supers should overrule the voters only if the voters have selected a candidate who clearly will lose in the fall, and there’s an alternative candidate who is substantially more likely to win. That’s not the case here. Even putting aside speculation about Republican attacks hurting Sanders, he won’t win an election that Clinton would lose. Assuming basic competence by the candidate and her campaign (a very safe bet), a Clinton loss in November isn’t a strong possibility. That means “electability” isn’t a genuine issue this election cycle.