Rural Americans felt abandoned by Democrats in 2016, so they abandoned them back

[Rjjr77]

What exactly are Democrats supposed to give Rural America to get them to vote for Democratic? Nobody benefited more from ACA/Obamacare than rural America (especially Medicaid expansion) and yet they still continue to trend to the Republicans.

The GOP's policies are poison to the needs of rural Americans, especially farmers

Umm stop thinking "giving them something" is what they want?

Winning back rural America is easy, dial back the attacks on religion and guns, dial back the BLM pandering, and talk about the economy again.

[Rjjr77]

What exactly are Democrats supposed to give Rural America to get them to vote for Democratic? Nobody benefited more from ACA/Obamacare than rural America (especially Medicaid expansion) and yet they still continue to trend to the Republicans.

The GOP's policies are poison to the needs of rural Americans, especially farmers

Umm stop thinking "giving them something" is what they want?

Winning back rural America is easy, dial back the attacks on religion and guns, dial back the BLM pandering, and talk about the economy again.

So tell minorities/soon to be majorities to shut up got it never

Yeah, nice leap there. No one is saying telling minorities to shut up...

The majority of even democrats let alone rural America doesn't like these SJW, militant side of BLM, and Antifa stuff. Every riot pushes blue collar voters to the right.

[Rjjr77]

Regarding the comment "Bernie would have won" .. I think the Healthcare debate with Cruz... hints to the fact that Sanders is much more effective debating and running in a primary- where the voters are inclined to go with the major parts of his arguments... But not so effective when having to debate Republican... who fundamentally do not agree with even the premise of his argument.

I agree, sure they may have picked up some stein voters in every state, but that's not to say they wouldn't have lost quite a bit of suburban voters in exchange.

[Rjjr77]

Regarding the comment "Bernie would have won" .. I think the Healthcare debate with Cruz... hints to the fact that Sanders is much more effective debating and running in a primary- where the voters are inclined to go with the major parts of his arguments... But not so effective when having to debate Republican... who fundamentally do not agree with even the premise of his argument.

-Goldwater lost. Sometimes, the conservative position is not the popular one. And Cruz lost his debate with Sanders, as he couldn't coherently defend an alternative to Obamacare.

Goldwater did lose, people viewed as being on the fringes usually do in The us.

As for Cruz losing the debate, I don't think that was the consensus, Bernie got smacked around quite a bit.

[Rjjr77]

Regarding the comment "Bernie would have won" .. I think the Healthcare debate with Cruz... hints to the fact that Sanders is much more effective debating and running in a primary- where the voters are inclined to go with the major parts of his arguments... But not so effective when having to debate Republican... who fundamentally do not agree with even the premise of his argument.

I agree, sure they may have picked up some stein voters in every state, but that's not to say they wouldn't have lost quite a bit of suburban voters in exchange.

-Who are the Clinton voters who'd never consider voting for Sanders, again? I suspect these people fall into two categories; a tiny minority of Appalachians and fictional characters.

The moderate suburban Rs and republican leaning unaffiliated. Socialism is still a bad bad word to much of the US

[Rjjr77]

Regarding the comment "Bernie would have won" .. I think the Healthcare debate with Cruz... hints to the fact that Sanders is much more effective debating and running in a primary- where the voters are inclined to go with the major parts of his arguments... But not so effective when having to debate Republican... who fundamentally do not agree with even the premise of his argument.

I agree, sure they may have picked up some stein voters in every state, but that's not to say they wouldn't have lost quite a bit of suburban voters in exchange.

-Who are the Clinton voters who'd never consider voting for Sanders, again? I suspect these people fall into two categories; a tiny minority of Appalachians and fictional characters.

The moderate suburban Rs and republican leaning unaffiliated. Socialism is still a bad bad word to much of the US

-I can assure you those Rubio voters in Loudoun County and Kasich-voting elitists in East Grand Rapids who voted for HRC would never vote for Trump, unless perhaps the Democratic nominee was Kanye. What concrete reasons would they have for not voting for Sanders if they voted for HRC?

one, no you can't "assure" me of that difference, and who's to say they would automatically swing trump? 8% of voters who ID'd as republicans and 16% of those that ID'd as conservative voted for Hillary, a large chunk of those may have voted third party when presented with an open socialist in Sanders. I don't see how sanders would have held those voters and gained all the stein voters.

[Rjjr77]

-Who are the Clinton voters who'd never consider voting for Sanders, again? I suspect these people fall into two categories; a tiny minority of Appalachians and fictional characters.

The moderate suburban Rs and republican leaning unaffiliated. Socialism is still a bad bad word to much of the US

Its probably more the case that many of these voters just simply stay home and not vote.

I doubt this, there may have been more blank ballots, but too many people vote for other reasons than simply president, might have seen a stronger Johnson

[Rjjr77]

Regarding the comment "Bernie would have won" .. I think the Healthcare debate with Cruz... hints to the fact that Sanders is much more effective debating and running in a primary- where the voters are inclined to go with the major parts of his arguments... But not so effective when having to debate Republican... who fundamentally do not agree with even the premise of his argument.

I agree, sure they may have picked up some stein voters in every state, but that's not to say they wouldn't have lost quite a bit of suburban voters in exchange.

-Who are the Clinton voters who'd never consider voting for Sanders, again? I suspect these people fall into two categories; a tiny minority of Appalachians and fictional characters.

The moderate suburban Rs and republican leaning unaffiliated. Socialism is still a bad bad word to much of the US

-I can assure you those Rubio voters in Loudoun County and Kasich-voting elitists in East Grand Rapids who voted for HRC would never vote for Trump, unless perhaps the Democratic nominee was Kanye. What concrete reasons would they have for not voting for Sanders if they voted for HRC?

one, no you can't "assure" me of that difference, and who's to say they would automatically swing trump? 8% of voters who ID'd as republicans and 16% of those that ID'd as conservative voted for Hillary, a large chunk of those may have voted third party when presented with an open socialist in Sanders. I don't see how sanders would have held those voters and gained all the stein voters.

-Why wouldn't Sanders have held all these voters? He was too popular? Yes; Bernie would likely have done even worse than HRC in rural Appalachia. So?

How popular was sanders? He didn't win the D primary, it's ignorant to assume he'd have done what Hillary did and just added stein voters.

Because he is an open socialist, those policies don't always align with what many regular Americans actually believe, would he have done well in rural PA? No. Would he have done well in rural Wisconsin? Doubtful. It's an ignorant statement to view this election with a Ceteris Paribus mind frame

[Rjjr77]

Again, Rjjr77, you have not shown a single example of a #NeverSanders HRC 2016 voter. I do think such a creature may exist, but only in Appalachia. #NeverHillary was very much a thing! Look at Wyandotte, MI, Sauk County, WI, and Royalston, MA.

There are tons of examples, but they are all anecdotal, which is worthless in this discussion. As for sanders, yes he did better in general election polls, so did Kasich, neither of whom actually ran in a general election. Just assuming these polls carry over after a full campaign is silly.

Yes sanders won counties in the democrat primary, that's a primary campaign with more partisan voters, he did great in Kansas trump didn't, using your logic he would have won there. You can't expect a candidate who didn't face a barrage of attacks to just magically claim points based on no evidence. They could have easily ran ads through the upper Midwest with his far more ideological left stances and communist level affiliations.

[Rjjr77]

Again, Rjjr77, you have not shown a single example of a #NeverSanders HRC 2016 voter. I do think such a creature may exist, but only in Appalachia. #NeverHillary was very much a thing! Look at Wyandotte, MI, Sauk County, WI, and Royalston, MA.

There are tons of examples, but they are all anecdotal, which is worthless in this discussion. As for sanders, yes he did better in general election polls, so did Kasich, neither of whom actually ran in a general election. Just assuming these polls carry over after a full campaign is silly.

Yes sanders won counties in the democrat primary, that's a primary campaign with more partisan voters, he did great in Kansas trump didn't, using your logic he would have won there. You can't expect a candidate who didn't face a barrage of attacks to just magically claim points based on no evidence. They could have easily ran ads through the upper Midwest with his far more ideological left stances and communist level affiliations.

-Give me some anecdotal examples; they're better than nothing. Kasich did not win a single state outside his home state; Bernie won lots of states outside Vermont. Very different levels of being untested.

Sanders would have done better in KS than HRC, but not well enough to win.

He won the White vote in the primaries precisely because of his ideological left stances. They didn't hurt him in the polls.

I've seen tons of anecdotal evidence, but it's anecdotal and doesn't matter. You can't say "sanders did better in the primary with whites, he would have done better in the general." We've never seen correlations like that between primary and general, because the electorates are different. Hillary dominated Bernie with rural whites in Ohio in the primary, and got hammered by them in the general, sanders lost white voters in Pennsylvania, so he would have done worse there than in the general? Your argument ignores how elections work as well, you take far too many assumptions.

[Rjjr77]

Again, Rjjr77, you have not shown a single example of a #NeverSanders HRC 2016 voter. I do think such a creature may exist, but only in Appalachia. #NeverHillary was very much a thing! Look at Wyandotte, MI, Sauk County, WI, and Royalston, MA.

There are tons of examples, but they are all anecdotal, which is worthless in this discussion. As for sanders, yes he did better in general election polls, so did Kasich, neither of whom actually ran in a general election. Just assuming these polls carry over after a full campaign is silly.

Yes sanders won counties in the democrat primary, that's a primary campaign with more partisan voters, he did great in Kansas trump didn't, using your logic he would have won there. You can't expect a candidate who didn't face a barrage of attacks to just magically claim points based on no evidence. They could have easily ran ads through the upper Midwest with his far more ideological left stances and communist level affiliations.

-Give me some anecdotal examples; they're better than nothing. Kasich did not win a single state outside his home state; Bernie won lots of states outside Vermont. Very different levels of being untested.

Sanders would have done better in KS than HRC, but not well enough to win.

He won the White vote in the primaries precisely because of his ideological left stances. They didn't hurt him in the polls.

I've seen tons of anecdotal evidence, but it's anecdotal and doesn't matter. You can't say "sanders did better in the primary with whites, he would have done better in the general." We've never seen correlations like that between primary and general, because the electorates are different. Hillary dominated Bernie with rural whites in Ohio in the primary, and got hammered by them in the general, sanders lost white voters in Pennsylvania, so he would have done worse there than in the general? Your argument ignores how elections work as well, you take far too many assumptions.

-Ohio was a special case due to Sanders supporters voting for Kasich.

Yes; Sanders probably would have won PA by doing better in Lancaster County and similar areas. He didn't have toxic foreign policy views, a sense of stagnation, and an email scandal around his neck.

Sanders supporters voting for Kasich? Proof?

Sanders would have won PA? But democrats didn't vote for him... You use election results to prove why he would win Wisconsin and Michigan  but ignore them when they don't back your theory in Ohio and PA...

Sanders had plenty of ammo that an opposition candidate could have used, it just wasn't used in the primary, because Hillary instead co-opted his ideas.

I get why you could argue that sanders would have won, but you can't say with any actual facts that he would have, and it's foolish to assume the campaign's would remain the same.

[Rjjr77]

Again, Rjjr77, you have not shown a single example of a #NeverSanders HRC 2016 voter. I do think such a creature may exist, but only in Appalachia. #NeverHillary was very much a thing! Look at Wyandotte, MI, Sauk County, WI, and Royalston, MA.

There are tons of examples, but they are all anecdotal, which is worthless in this discussion. As for sanders, yes he did better in general election polls, so did Kasich, neither of whom actually ran in a general election. Just assuming these polls carry over after a full campaign is silly.

Yes sanders won counties in the democrat primary, that's a primary campaign with more partisan voters, he did great in Kansas trump didn't, using your logic he would have won there. You can't expect a candidate who didn't face a barrage of attacks to just magically claim points based on no evidence. They could have easily ran ads through the upper Midwest with his far more ideological left stances and communist level affiliations.

-Give me some anecdotal examples; they're better than nothing. Kasich did not win a single state outside his home state; Bernie won lots of states outside Vermont. Very different levels of being untested.

Sanders would have done better in KS than HRC, but not well enough to win.

He won the White vote in the primaries precisely because of his ideological left stances. They didn't hurt him in the polls.

I've seen tons of anecdotal evidence, but it's anecdotal and doesn't matter. You can't say "sanders did better in the primary with whites, he would have done better in the general." We've never seen correlations like that between primary and general, because the electorates are different. Hillary dominated Bernie with rural whites in Ohio in the primary, and got hammered by them in the general, sanders lost white voters in Pennsylvania, so he would have done worse there than in the general? Your argument ignores how elections work as well, you take far too many assumptions.

-Ohio was a special case due to Sanders supporters voting for Kasich.

Yes; Sanders probably would have won PA by doing better in Lancaster County and similar areas. He didn't have toxic foreign policy views, a sense of stagnation, and an email scandal around his neck.

Sanders supporters voting for Kasich? Proof?

Sanders would have won PA? But democrats didn't vote for him... You use election results to prove why he would win Wisconsin and Michigan  but ignore them when they don't back your theory in Ohio and PA...

Sanders had plenty of ammo that an opposition candidate could have used, it just wasn't used in the primary, because Hillary instead co-opted his ideas.

I get why you could argue that sanders would have won, but you can't say with any actual facts that he would have, and it's foolish to assume the campaign's would remain the same.

-Sanders, Trump's, and Clinton's favorability ratings were all fairly constant from May to November. There was never any reason to assume Trump could come up with altogether new, powerful, and damaging attacks against Crazy Bernie, as none of HRC's attacks ended up working in the end against him or visa versa.

Except the simple continuation of the attacks.

As for favorability ratings staying constant? What? Hillary and trump regularly faced pendulum swings throughout the election, but from a political trend line they were predictable, but they also had very high name id, as for Bernie, he easily would have seen his favorable numbers fall, just like almost every presidential candidate before had seen during an election.

But let's claim that it does, so what? That doesn't mean his primary exit poll numbers would have equaled his state results, or in some of your cases the opposite. There's nothing to back your actual claim except you saying so, your prediction is that Bernie would have done better, but there's no way to prove that.