What motivated Clinton 2016 primary - Sanders 2020 primary voters?

[darklordoftech]

What would lead someone to vote this way?

[Mr. Smith]

Ask a Hispanic voter.

[Schiff for Senate]

A progressive woman who voted for Clinton in 2016 because she wanted the first female president to be elected. In 2020...well, there are a few options:

1. Biden and Sanders were the only candidates left and she went with the more progressive choice.
2. She thought it was basically a 2-way between Biden and Sanders anyway (or at least that none of the female candidates, like Warren or Tulsi, stood a chance), and went with Sanders because she thought it'd be close and thought every Sanders vote counted.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Someone who thought Hillary was more electable in 2016 but on seeing the result decided that maybe they were wrong and wanted to give the other horse a try in 20.

[HAnnA MArin County]

I'm one of these voters! Also voted for Hillary in the 2008 primary as well because of her record of experience. I also remembered how good we had it under Bill in the 90s (granted, I was a child then and didn't know anything about politics). I also felt as though Obama was all talk and no walk in 2008 and I despised the double standard of how the media coddled him and threw the kitchen sink at Hillary. Anytime anyone attacked Obama we were called racists; meanwhile, all of the DEPLORABLE talk about Hillary's hair, pantsuits, the way she handled Bill's affair from media pundits and not one peep about sexism? It was terrible. So terrible that I toyed with the notion of voting for John McCain in 2008. But once he picked Palin and once she opened her mouth, that was game over for me. I knew that my qualms with Obama were just sour grapes; meanwhile, my animosities towards the Republican Party intensified with Sarah Palin. I voted for Barack Obama for President in 2008 and 2012. I still feel that Hillary was done wrong in the primary, but that's water under the bridge now.

Fast forward eight years later and yes, while her campaign was drastically different from her 2008 one, I still felt as though she would make a wonderful President. I still respected and admired Bernie Sanders even before he ran for President. I honestly felt as though he knew that he wouldn't win and that his sole purpose was just to help drag Hillary (and the Democratic Party) to the left, which I wholeheartedly support making the Democratic Party more progressive. The BernieBros on Twitter and the jferns on Atlas just made me roll my eyes, because I fundamentally believed in Bernie's message. I don't blame Bernie for Hillary losing to the tangerine tyrant in the 2016 general, not at all. Unlike the egotistical BernieBros and jferns, Bernie endorsed Hillary and campaigned to help elect her. He didn't tell his supporters to flip the middle finger to the Democratic Party and/or to pull the lever for whack job Jill Stein (or to write in his name). Lots of people are to blame for Hillary's loss in 2016 (yes, even the candidate herself), but I hold no ill will towards Senator Sanders.

Focusing on the 2020 primary, I was absolutely wanting Beto O'Rourke to run following his impressive Senate campaign against Lyin' Ted Cruz in 2018. (I honestly think I donated more to Beto's short-lived campaign than I did for Hillary in 2016.) Once he fizzled out, my second choice was between Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. By the time it came to my state casting our votes in the primary, it was basically a two-man race between Joe Biden and Sanders. I cast my primary ballot in 2020 for Bernie Sanders. I could see the writing on the wall and knew that the party was rapidly coalescing around Biden, but I still wanted to make my voice heard. Again, I was (surprisingly) really bummed when Bernie lost. I kept thinking that the Democratic Party had left me and that maybe I was even too progressive to belong in the party, so I declared myself an independent for awhile but again, all it took for me to listen to the crazy talk coming from the other side for me to remember that no matter how angry I am at the Democrats for our candidates, I can never entertain the notion of voting for any candidate on the other side if I want our democracy to prevail. I happily voted for Joe Biden for President in 2020 and will do so again in 2024 regardless of whom the Trump Cult nominates.

That's my story.

Ask a Hispanic voter.

Non-Hispanic White college-educated agnostic single gay cisgendered right-handed blue-eyed millennial Sagittarius male here.

[TML]

I didn’t vote in the 2016 primary, although I would have voted for Hillary based on my beliefs back then (I thought Clintonism was the proper governing model for Democrats back then). In the aftermath of the 2016 general election, however, I carefully examined the reasons for the election result and concluded that Clintonism was no longer viable in the current political climate, and I thus voted for Sanders in the 2020 primary.

[sguberman]

In the beginning of 2019 I probably would have been one.

[Xing]

A significant number of Latino voters were probably hesitant to vote for Sanders back in 2016, when he wasn't as well known, but connected with his messaging on the economy and healthcare in 2020, especially since his campaign made much more of an effort to reach Latinos in 2020. Among other demographic groups, I imagine at least some moved to the left ideologically, or questioned the idea of the more mainstream candidate being more electable.

[TDAS04]

Hispanic voters liked Hillary, as shown by her 2008 performance, for which 2016 was for the most part a repeat with the Hispanic electorate.  However, there were signs of Bernie’s Hispanic appeal in even in 2016, as demonstrated by his outperformance of Obama (2008 primaries) in the California and Puerto Rico primaries.

[lc1990]

Someone who hasn't forgotten about Anita Hill

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Someone who has left-wing views but became less of a Democrat partisan over the course of 4 years.  We had plenty on AAD. 

[South Dakota Democrat]

Someone who thought Hillary was more electable in 2016 but on seeing the result decided that maybe they were wrong and wanted to give the other horse a try in 20.

This was basically me.  I also moved left between 2016 and 2020.  Also, I admired (and still do) Hillary Clinton a great deal.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Someone who felt Biden would not be aggressive enough againstRepublicans, whereas they thought Hilary would be. IceSpear is a good example

[Sir Mohamed]

The belief that nominating presumed "electable candidates" like HRC, and before Romney and Kerry, was not ht right way forward to beat Trump, but that Dems also had to go the populist route to dethrone a populist like Trump.

[Sol]

Clinton in 2016 did a fairly good job in terms of playing off of nascent 'woke' sentiment in the Democratic base to win over a lot of more social justice oriented Democratic voters. Biden didn't bother to do the same and a lot of people who were sensitive to those appeals went with Bernie, who also made more effort to appeal to that constituency.