Would Bernie Sanders have defeated Donald Trump?

[Stranger in a strange land]

No way. Bernie woulda gotten red-baited into oblivion.

Disagree.  It's not the 1950's anymore. 

The right-wing smear machine would've gone into overdrive. You give the average American a choice between a socialist and a fascist, they're going to choose the fascist.

The average American is 40 or so, the average under 35 would definitely vote socialist first. It's only a few years away at most.

A) >60% of voters are over 35 per most exit polls

B) Wait until every social media company tweaks their algorithm to favor anti-Bernie content.

Corporate America wouldn't have given him a fair chance.

The other issue is that Trump's efforts to overturn the election went nowhere because the country's basically conservative institutions (the judiciary, the military, the security state, large corporations, and the media) refused to support him. Against Bernie, I'm not at all sure this would have been the case.

[Motorcity]

I say Bernie would have won in 2016, not 2020. Trump has incumbency and I doubt Bernie could win suburban moderates and Biden's levels with minorities.

Of course, didn't Bloomberg plan to run third party in 2016 had Sanders won the nomination? Than Trump wins 40 states

[jdk]

Anyone who says yes is delusional.  Bernie would have lost badly in both 2016 and 2020. 

[Spark]

2016:

2020:

Sanders would have likely won in 2016 due to his populist stances dampening Trump's appeal. However, he could be vulnerable in states with high minority populations like NV, AZ, etc. He'd still win due to having strong enthusiasm and turnout from the Democratic base.

For 2020, Sanders would undoubtedly struggle to turn out black voters so he'd drop GA, PA, and WI due to lower black turnout and support than Biden. Sanders would outperform Biden with Hispanics in the West and under-perform him with college-educated voters, black voters, older voters to just name a few.

[Alcibiades]

2016, possibly, at any rate he would have done better than Hillary. He had more of that #populist energy then. 2020, on the other hand, when he ran more explicitly as a leftie, would have been a disaster.

[Sol]

Definitely in 2016.

IMO he would have won in 2020 as well, albeit with a weaker performance. I was gaming this out to some extent with other atlas folks elsewhere yesterday and my take was that he would do somewhat worse than Biden with affluent suburbanites, but almost make up for with a very robust performance with non-Miami Latinos and New Englanders.

[Pollster]

Important to remember that as a candidate, Sanders has little to no self-awareness and often refuses to listen to very good strategic advice.

Also important to remember that corporate America would have gone into overdrive to make Trump palatable to 50%+1 of the country if Bernie had managed to win the Democratic nomination in 2016.

[Clarence Boddicker]

Yes in 2016, but no in 2020.

[Nightcore Nationalist]

Either way it would be close, but I'd give Trump the nod very narrowly.

2016:



2020: