Why do people think Bernie would have done worse than Biden?

[brucejoel99]

Because it's incredibly likely that Bernie would've done worse than Biden.

Let's take a look back at the primary. In it, Bernie ultimately proved to be a poor campaigner & especially a poor political strategist: as both Lucky & Battle for the Soul made clear, his team's strategy to win the nomination was to just get a plurality of the vote in the primaries thanks to a splintered field & then demand the nomination at a contested convention. Anybody with just a general understanding of Democratic politics could've told them that the aforementioned strategy was garbage & bound to completely collapse as soon as the most moderate candidates realized that the only candidates left with a chance at the nomination were Bernie & "Not Bernie" - as it turned out, Biden, in this case - & so just dropped out as a result. Hell, those of us right here on this forum could've told them that: say what can be said about moderate Democrats, but they're not as stupid as the Never-Trump Republicans were back in the 2016 primary, & tend to value safety & going with the option that's perceived as most electable above all else. Candidates like Buttigieg, Klobuchar, & Bloomberg could clearly see where the wind was blowing in terms of their candidacies, & they weren't about to risk damaging their reputations in Democratic politics by potentially depriving the party of its most "electable" candidate just for the pleasure of getting to stroke their egos for a few more months like Cruz, Kasich, & Rubio were all willing to do in the Republican primary 4 years prior. Basically, where the likes of Cruz, Kasich, & Rubio were all in it for themselves insofar as massaging their egos in a fruitless quest for the nomination was concerned, the moderate Democrats of 2020 - although also in it for themselves - were such in the sense of "doing what's best for the party keeps their reputations therein intact."

Moreover, Bernie's performance in the primaries proved that he'd been unable to expand his 2016 base of support in any significant fashion, which was unfortunate for him because his base of support was largely predicated upon a group of voters - young voters - that already tend to turn-out in especially low numbers, which remained the case even when none other than he himself was the name that was being printed on their ballots. What's more, outright giving up on reaching out to Black voters - as Lucky & Battle for the Soul both made clear - certainly didn't do him any favors on this front either.

Finally, in regards to the general election, Republican messaging in-real-life was literally all about Bernie & his policies. Trump literally ignored Biden & what his policies actually are in the process of trying with all of his muster to paint the Democrats as "Bernie's party of radical liberal progressive socialist Marxists." Just as Bernie had put all of his primary eggs into the basket of "fighting for the nomination at a contested convention after getting a plurality of the vote in the primaries thanks to a splintered field that hopefully isn't ruined by any of the moderates dropping out in the meantime," Republicans had clearly put all of their general eggs into the assumption that Bernie would be the Democratic nominee whom they'd be facing off against, a strategy which the nomination of Biden - for whom they had no credibility to attack as a radical leftist - served to completely upend. And yet, even with Biden having been the nominee, their strategy still turned out to be surprisingly successful insofar as "convincing a significant sum of people that Biden was a radical leftist whom would impose the threat of socialist Marxism upon them just like Bernie would" was concerned, as was made evident by the fact that shifts totaling just 21,461 votes in GA, WI, & AZ would've seen Trump re-taking the White House in spite of literally everything that was going on at the time. Suffice it to say that this strategy would've undeniably been a much easier undertaking - & a more successful one too - for the Republicans had Bernie actually been the nominee, to an extent that even Bernie's Latino base & canvassing in-person may not have been enough to counteract all of that. It was hard to credibly attack Biden as a radical leftist, & yet it damn near worked. If Bernie had actually been the nominee, that attack would - rightly or wrongly - have carried a lot more credibility, & would've undoubtedly been more successful as a result: socialist Bernie surely wasn't winning FL & fracking-ban Bernie surely wasn't winning PA, not to mention that perpetually-bad-with-Black-voters Bernie surely wasn't gonna get the necessary margins among them to win GA by just 11K votes.

And jumping off of that lattermost point concerning Bernie's relationship with Black voters, say goodbye to Senator Ossoff: Perdue was just 27K votes away from preventing a run-off, & he probably manages to end up doing so in this scenario. Even if Bernie could somehow still manage to win 270 EVs in this scenario, he likely doesn't have a Senate to work with, & even if Bernie still won 270 EVs *&* Perdue still went to a run-off in this scenario, who knows if Trump's overturn-the-election tantrum is even still enough to result in both of GA's Senate seats going to the Democrats at the end of the day?

Suffice it to say that it's not at all unreasonable for many people to think that Bernie would've done worse than Biden.