If Bernie was the D nominee, does the house flip?

[Tekken_Guy]

Would the house have flipped Republican in 2020 had Bernie Sanders been the Democratic nominee instead of Joe Biden?

[Sir Mohamed]

Not guaranteed, but possible. In my opinion, Sanders would have just done more like downballot Dems while Biden outperformed almost all congressional candidates. If Sanders lost the election, the House would have very likely flipped. If he won, which I believe he would have with the 279 freiwall map, it's more like 50/50.

[Skill and Chance]

Hmmm... on paper, the NPV margin would have to fall to D+1.5 or so for the House to flip.  However, Bernie would have a better-distributed coalition and is one of the only Dem candidates who would have a chance in the EC with a 1.5% PV margin.  Could this carry over to the House map?  Maybe, but it might actually get worse even if the EC gap got better for Bernie.  2012, which was probably the most class-oriented election in the past 30 years, had the worse NPV vs. House seats gap of the era.

[SnowLabrador]

Hot take: Bernie would have done better than Biden. So no. The Democrats would still have lost a few seats, but not as many as they did in our timeline.

[Catalyst138]

I doubt it. I think he would have either narrowly won or very narrowly lost, in either case the House stays blue most likely.

[TML]

Remember that the house incumbents who lost in 2020 were mostly moderate/conservative members who were far apart ideologically from Sanders. This would negate the notion of Sanders having a greater negative effect downballot.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Sanders would have completely destroyed Trump in the general, so of course the House does not flip.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Definitely and Trump pretty clearly would’ve won re-election by pretty solid EV margin.  Trump would’ve won all the states he did against Biden plus GA, AZ, MI, PA, NE-2, WI, NV and possibly MN and NH (although I suspect Bernie would’ve narrowly eeked out wins there).

At the very least, we’d have lost TX-7, NJ-7, MN-2, PA-17, MI-11, IA-3, GA-7, NV-3, AZ-1, WA-8, MI-8, PA-8, VA-2, PA-7, VA-7, GA-6, NJ-5, IL-14, FL-13, and CA-45.  We’d also might’ve very well lost CA-49, NJ-11, NJ-3, TX-32, and NH-1.  We’d have also lost every House seat we lost with Biden as the nominee and there might have been others I’m not thinking of which would’ve been surprise flips.  We wouldn’t have flipped any Senate seats except Colorado either had Bernie been the nominee.  He’d have probably dragged down Gary Peters as well.

For better or worse, the country and even the Democratic primary electorate simply don’t want what Bernie’s selling at this point in time.  A lot of suburban voters who backed Biden would’ve either sat out the election or even just voted straight ticket Republican despite Trump.  And it wouldn’t take that much to flip some of these races.  

Remember that the house incumbents who lost in 2020 were mostly moderate/conservative members who were far apart ideologically from Sanders. This would negate the notion of Sanders having a greater negative effect downballot.

Only because they were in more competitive districts than most Berniecrats.  If we’d nominated Berniecrats in a lot of those seats, we’d be losing so badly that the seats would’ve been Safe R from day one.  If Berniecrats were regularly winning in Trump districts or even swing seats, then you’d have a point, but that’s never been the case.  The closest we’ve gotten to a test case in that regard is Kara Eastman in NE-2 and we all know how that went.  

I’m not saying Berniecrats can’t win, but you guys have to actually start winning before you can make a serious electability argument and so far the track record isn’t great outside of safe seat primaries.  Even Katie Porter’s brand is far more similar to Warren’s than Bernie or AOC’s (although even that is a far from perfect comparison).

[sting in the rafters]

Answered no by accident. If Bernie ran Trump wins NPV outright, Rs get 250+ seats, and 47/53 Senate. If you give the average American a choice between a democratic socialist and a proto-fascist, they will almost invariably choose the proto-fascist. The very least thing a Democratic candidate in the house needs is any sort of credence to the cry of "commie!"

Also Sanders could've fractured the party on foreign policy as awful as it is to say.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

No, I think Bernie does about the same overall as Biden, just redistributed (so OH and IA go to Bernie but GA and NE-02 flip). I think the Republicans might flip the house, as Bernie carrying Finkenauer and Hart to victory is overshadowed by the loss of a few suburban seats and failing to gain GA-07.

[Roll Roons]

No, I think Bernie does about the same overall as Biden, just redistributed (so OH and IA go to Bernie but GA and NE-02 flip). I think the Republicans might flip the house, as Bernie carrying Finkenauer and Hart to victory is overshadowed by the loss of a few suburban seats and failing to gain GA-07.

There is no way Bernie would have won Iowa or Ohio.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

No, I think Bernie does about the same overall as Biden, just redistributed (so OH and IA go to Bernie but GA and NE-02 flip). I think the Republicans might flip the house, as Bernie carrying Finkenauer and Hart to victory is overshadowed by the loss of a few suburban seats and failing to gain GA-07.

There is no way Bernie would have won Iowa or Ohio.

As much as I don't want to admit it, there is.

[MT Treasurer]

Remember that the house incumbents who lost in 2020 were mostly moderate/conservative members who were far apart ideologically from Sanders. This would negate the notion of Sanders having a greater negative effect downballot.

While I agree that Sanders wouldn’t have had the particularly pronounced negative effect downballot that some people suspect he would have had, these people did not lose because they were perceived as too moderate/conservative. If anyone actually believes this, they are a living TYT parody who have probably never been to a single one of these districts.

Also, can people stop calling him "Bernie" and just type Sanders instead?

[Meatball Ron]

Remember that the house incumbents who lost in 2020 were mostly moderate/conservative members who were far apart ideologically from Sanders. This would negate the notion of Sanders having a greater negative effect downballot.

If anything, doesn't this lend further credence to the fact that down-ballot Dems would have done worse, or at least as poorly, with Sanders at the top of the ticket?

The Dem members who lost (or nearly lost - in the case of members like Spanberger) were some of the most centrist members in the caucus, yet (in large part due to the GOP or at least split lean of their district, further exacerbated by Dems' lack of in-person canvassing or events) they still couldn't overcome highly effective GOP messaging (or fear mongering) as to what a Dem trifecta might entail (socialism, open borders, defunding the police, etc.) With an actual self-identified democratic socialist at the top of the ticket, fending off these attacks would have been even more difficult - and you'd probably see a few more of the tight races (Ossoff v. Perdue, NJ-07, IA-03, IL-14, VA-07, maybe PA-17 and MI-Sen) land in the GOP column. Maybe (probably?) not enough to flip the House entirely, but likely enough to keep the Senate in GOP hands.

It's also unclear to me what the impact would have been in races like FL-26, FL-27, TX-15, etc. On the one hand, Sanders outperformed Biden with Hispanic voters (at least in the early contests) in the primary, so there's a case to be made that he would have also done so in the general (which could have had down-ballot impacts), but on the other hand the socialism attacks that hurt Dems with certain subsegments of Hispanic voters (namely Cuban-American/Venezuelan-American voters in FL and Tejano voters in South Texas) would have probably had a more pronounced impact with Sanders at the top of the ticket.

[GALeftist]

I would really like to meet these supposed legions of voters who would have defected if Sanders had been nominated, because, anecdotally, even in Georgia (which I think it's fair to say is the most likely flip under a Sanders nomination) most of the Romney-voting suburbanites I know voted for Biden would have probably voted for Tulsi over Trump, let alone Sanders. Do people really think that these voters would have been enough to flip not only Georgia and NE-02, but also two of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada (bearing in mind that progressives have historically fared relatively well in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada, as well as the fact that Arizona and Nevada both have large non-Cuban Hispanic populations)? Or, even more absurdly, that enough of these voters exist to swing the NPV to Trump when Biden won it by north of 7 million votes in reality? Get real.

With respect to the actual question, Sanders would have needed to lose an additional five seats to lose the majority. In my view, the most likely candidates are, in order, NJ-07, IL-14, VA-07, IA-03, and PA-17; it is pretty difficult for me to see anything beyond those (e.g. MN-02, MI-11, GA-07) actually flipping, even if the margins shrunk. On the other hand, I think there's a decent chance that, under a Bernie nomination, Democrats win IA-02 (the margin was so thin, who can really say), CA-21, and CA-25. In 2020, Democrats ended up losing most of the really close races anyway, so it's extremely difficult for me to see Sanders losing the amount of support he'd need to to lose the House. I think the better case to make for Bernie anti-stans is that he'd have lost the Senate, although even then I'm not sure it'd be a slam dunk.

[GALeftist]

Definitely and Trump pretty clearly would’ve won re-election by pretty solid EV margin.  Trump would’ve won all the states he did against Biden plus GA, AZ, MI, PA, NE-2, WI, NV and possibly MN and NH (although I suspect Bernie would’ve narrowly eeked out wins there).

At the very least, we’d have lost TX-7, NJ-7, MN-2, PA-17, MI-11, IA-3, GA-7, NV-3, AZ-1, WA-8, MI-8, PA-8, VA-2, PA-7, VA-7, GA-6, NJ-5, IL-14, FL-13, and CA-45.  We’d also might’ve very well lost CA-49, NJ-11, NJ-3, TX-32, and NH-1.  We’d have also lost every House seat we lost with Biden as the nominee and there might have been others I’m not thinking of which would’ve been surprise flips.  We wouldn’t have flipped any Senate seats except Colorado either had Bernie been the nominee.  He’d have probably dragged down Gary Peters as well.

I realize that we have some pretty significant political disagreements, but I generally think you're a pretty good poster, so it puzzles me why you're making all these plainly wild claims regarding Sanders's electability. I understand that you think that progressives are not electable, but just applying a blanket 7 point swing to Biden's margin is not going to correct for that. At this point, I think even the most ardent anti-progressive has got to concede that progressivism has significant appeal in certain parts of the country. Maybe that doesn't mean that he'd win, but come on, some of these speculations are absurd. Minnesota and New Hampshire? Bernie won the primary in New Hampshire and did relatively well in Minnesota, and, more importantly, Biden won both these states by north of 7 points! This would be like if some MAGA nut waltzed in and said that John Kasich or Ted Cruz would lose or barely win Ohio. Similarly, a number of your hypothetical flips are districts where A. progressivism demonstrably isn't horribly unpopular and B. you are alleging that a nominee swap would be resulting in swings nearing double digits. I don't know, it just seems pretty obviously ideologically motivated to me.

For better or worse, the country and even the Democratic primary electorate simply don’t want what Bernie’s selling at this point in time.

This is another thing which I wish people would stop saying. Even if your imagined scenario came to pass, I don't think you're arguing that Bernie would have lost the popular vote, which means that even in this nightmare scenario the country would want what he's selling, albeit not by enough to overcome institutional barriers. This sort of rhetoric falsely implies that there are enough voters out there diametrically opposed to progressivism that their opinion can be seen as the will of the country, and it's just not the case.

[coloradocowboi]

I see Bernie still triggers insanity in the centrists...

From the data that I have seen, I really don't think that the *only* politician with consistently positive approval ratings out of that field would have somehow been the one who lost the house. The answer you are looking for is Kamala Harris, although I also suspect maybe the crossover voters who Biden actively courted and legitimated prolly had something to do with this year's outcome.

Anyway, factually speaking we know already that the voters who dislike both parties and sit out elections lean left populist. We know that if Bernie was the nominee the party would have to either acquiesce to him or risk permanent irrelevance (which is why they got even Obama and Warren to sabotage his campaign. We also know that the "scary socialist policies" he runs are popular and increasingly resilient to the centrist propaganda campaign to discredit them.

I honestly think that if Bernie were the nominee, we might have an even larger majority. Looks what swing seat Blue Dogger won--the one who supports M4A. The idea that somehow the American people *want* trickle down, neolib, New Democrat policies is demonstrably false. The only reason these politicians ever win is a combo of the Dems using identity politics to improve their brand and the convenient boogeyman Republicans provide. Nobody likes neoliberalism except for know-it-all white boys who post on the internet. As a matter of fact, criticizing it almost got *Donald Trump* elected twice to office, and did get him elected once.

Centrists and liberals are just afraid of what will happen if a competent and sincere critic gets the chance.

[Xing]

The notion that 20% of Biden voters would’ve voted for Trump if Sanders were the nominee, as well as the notion that 20% of Trump voters would’ve voted for Sanders if he were the nominee are both ridiculous, in my opinion. Feelings about Trump were largely baked in, and the number of Biden>Trump>Sanders and Sanders>Trump>Biden voters is tiny at best (the former is overrepresented quite a bit on this forum.) Sanders would’ve done roughly the same, maybe he would’ve barely lost GA (just barely), but downballot races would’ve gone down similarly, give or take a seat or two. People are letting their feelings get the best of them when it comes to their analysis, unsurprisingly.

[brucejoel99]

The notion that 20% of Biden voters would’ve voted for Trump if Sanders were the nominee, as well as the notion that 20% of Trump voters would’ve voted for Sanders if he were the nominee are both ridiculous, in my opinion. Feelings about Trump were largely baked in, and the number of Biden>Trump>Sanders and Sanders>Trump>Biden voters is tiny at best (the former is overrepresented quite a bit on this forum.) Sanders would’ve done roughly the same, maybe he would’ve barely lost GA (just barely), but downballot races would’ve gone down similarly, give or take a seat or two. People are letting their feelings get the best of them when it comes to their analysis, unsurprisingly.

Probably AZ too.

[Xing]

The notion that 20% of Biden voters would’ve voted for Trump if Sanders were the nominee, as well as the notion that 20% of Trump voters would’ve voted for Sanders if he were the nominee are both ridiculous, in my opinion. Feelings about Trump were largely baked in, and the number of Biden>Trump>Sanders and Sanders>Trump>Biden voters is tiny at best (the former is overrepresented quite a bit on this forum.) Sanders would’ve done roughly the same, maybe he would’ve barely lost GA (just barely), but downballot races would’ve gone down similarly, give or take a seat or two. People are letting their feelings get the best of them when it comes to their analysis, unsurprisingly.

Probably AZ too.

I actually think Sanders would’ve pulled off AZ narrowly, albeit with a slightly different coalition than Biden (slightly less support in Maricopa, a bit more support among Latinos, particularly in Yuma and Santa Cruz.)

[GeneralMacArthur]

Imagine if Bernie Sanders were the nominee during the summer BLM protests.  He would alienate the base by being tone-deaf on race and lacking any credibility or accomplishments.  Can you imagine Bernie giving a major address on race relations?  Meanwhile most of his inner circle and most prominent supporters spent that entire summer attacking Biden and the Democratic Party for not getting behind #DefundThePolice or #AbolishPrison or #ACAB.  So it would have been much easier to associate Bernie with those toxic ideologies because even if he didn't support them himself, everyone around him did.

The events of the summer were largely responsible for us losing a lot of those House seats, and that was in spite of the Biden/Harris ticket distancing itself from the radical elements of the protests.  The radical elements of the protests were Bernie's core constituency, he couldn't distance himself from them even if he tried.

[GALeftist]

Imagine if Bernie Sanders were the nominee during the summer BLM protests.  He would alienate the base by being tone-deaf on race and lacking any credibility or accomplishments.  Can you imagine Bernie giving a major address on race relations?  Meanwhile most of his inner circle and most prominent supporters spent that entire summer attacking Biden and the Democratic Party for not getting behind #DefundThePolice or #AbolishPrison or #ACAB.  So it would have been much easier to associate Bernie with those toxic ideologies because even if he didn't support them himself, everyone around him did.

The events of the summer were largely responsible for us losing a lot of those House seats, and that was in spite of the Biden/Harris ticket distancing itself from the radical elements of the protests.  The radical elements of the protests were Bernie's core constituency, he couldn't distance himself from them even if he tried.

Imagine if this guy I didn't like was incredibly bad at everything, unlike the guy I like, who was as good as it was possible to be. The guy I don't like would lose horribly! Don't you feel stupid now, Bernie Bros??

[GeneralMacArthur]

Imagine if this guy I didn't like was incredibly bad at everything, unlike the guy I like, who was as good as it was possible to be. The guy I don't like would lose horribly! Don't you feel stupid now, Bernie Bros??

You don't have to imagine.

He was already terrible at race relations while he was running, that's why he got destroyed in the black vote.

He was already terrible about being a walking talking gift to the Republican Party while he was running, that's why the #1 strategy Republicans used in 2020 was to try and tie Joe Biden and downballot Dems to Bernie Sanders.

[Sestak]

2020 Bernie? Yes.

Joe Biden was the only Democratic candidate who wasn't fully Twitterized by the time 2020 rolled around. I love Bernie personally, but his campaign the second time around was fully taken over by his own set of blue check twitter losers who appeal to no one. The Democratic Party as a whole in 2020 was dogged by their image as the party defined by the woke Twitter Brain pseudo-academic. The only people in the general who were really separated from this were Biden, a few House candidates, and Ossock (plus maybe a few of the longer shot candidates like Bullock or Espy).

Given the margins in the House, I don't think any of the Twitter-embracers could have navigated all of the various happenings from April through November between protests, Covid, etc. without severely dogging both themselves and further hurting the candidates below them.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The notion that 20% of Biden voters would’ve voted for Trump if Sanders were the nominee, as well as the notion that 20% of Trump voters would’ve voted for Sanders if he were the nominee are both ridiculous, in my opinion. Feelings about Trump were largely baked in, and the number of Biden>Trump>Sanders and Sanders>Trump>Biden voters is tiny at best (the former is overrepresented quite a bit on this forum.) Sanders would’ve done roughly the same, maybe he would’ve barely lost GA (just barely), but downballot races would’ve gone down similarly, give or take a seat or two. People are letting their feelings get the best of them when it comes to their analysis, unsurprisingly.

Probably AZ too.

I actually think Sanders would’ve pulled off AZ narrowly, albeit with a slightly different coalition than Biden (slightly less support in Maricopa, a bit more support among Latinos, particularly in Yuma and Santa Cruz.)

True, GA is the iffier one due to fewer Hispanics. But even if lost GA, I think there's a small chance he wins NC.