Deafening Silence On Migrant Kids And Other Commentary
With a popular-vote victory in Iowa and an outright win in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders has officially emerged as the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Many commentators have noted the parallels between Sanderss surging, antiestablishment candidacy and Donald Trumps 2016 campaign. The analogy is real. Both men can call upon large, passionate bases of support. Both have also had to contend with the fierce resistance of a party elite bent on denying them victory, along with unfair media coverage.
Trump, of course, confronts these challenges with glee. From the earliest days of his campaign, right through to his celebratory, post-impeachment acquittal press conference, he has turned the tables on the DC insiders.
Trump is a fighter, a self-described counterpuncher, and sold himself to the electorate as such. His voters prize this quality, perhaps above all others. They know that, in Trump, they have a champion who will stand up for them, and see proof of this in his ability to stand up first for himself. It is doubtful, after all, that Trump will ever suffer a Mitt Romney-style Candy Crowley moment. When attacked or corrected by his opponents or the media Donald Trump retaliates with force.
Nor did he ask why a US senator, presidential candidate, and supposed friend would find it appropriate to discuss alleged, private comments for political gain, and whether such a person could, therefore, ever be trusted.
Bernie Sanders Can Beat Trump With His Liberal Vision For America Primary Voters Know It
Do not adjust your television set: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., could very well be the next president of the United States of America.
According to a poll conducted by Morning Consult the day after the New Hampshire primary, the self-described democratic socialist leads the pack of candidates among Democratic primary voters nationwide, with 29 percent of potential voters saying theyd vote for him if their states caucus or primary were held today.
Former vice president Joe Biden, once in the lead, now trails a full 10 points behind Sanders, with billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, former McKinsey consultant-cum-South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in third, fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Bernie Sanders Can Beat Trump Heres The Math
Most available evidence points in the direction of a popular vote and Electoral College victory.
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Mr. Phillips is the host of the podcast Democracy in Color With Steve Phillips.
Whatever you think about Bernie Sanders as a potential president, it is wrong to dismiss his chances of winning the office. Not only does most of the available empirical evidence show Mr. Sanders defeating President Trump in the national popular vote and in the critical Midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College in 2016, but his specific electoral strengths align with changes in the composition of the countrys population in ways that could actually make him a formidable foe for the president.
Almost all of the current polling data shows Mr. Sanders winning the national popular vote. In the most recent national polls testing Democratic candidates against Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders beat him in every single one, with margins varying from 2 percent to 6 percent. This has been the case for nearly a year now, with Mr. Sanders outpolling the president in 67 of 72 head-to-head polls since March.
Steve Phillips , the host of the podcast Democracy in Color With Steve Phillips and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.
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North Carolina To Delay Results
North Carolina election officials voted unanimously to extend voting by 40 minutes on Tuesday.
The extension will also likely mean the delay of official results in the stateâs primary until 8:10 p.m. Itâs not clear whether cable news networks will announce projections or hold off until polls close.
North Carolina, which announced the delay on Twitter, had been scheduled to be the next state to close after Virginia and Vermont, at 7:30 p.m.
âJohn Fritze
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Bernie Vs The Billionaire
Perhaps the most promising feature of this scenario, though, is the vivid contrast made possible by a binary choice between Sanders and Trump.
Because Bernies politics emphasize class conflict, a Trump-Sanders contest promises to be not a mere clash of values and norms, of milieus and manners, but a referendum on the role of the rich and the rest in our society, with each contender representing different sides of the divide.
Sanders has already given us a preview of what this will look like. When he launched his campaign in March, he contrasted his upbringing to Trumps, saying, I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos, and country clubs. I did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of three.
He continued, Unlike Donald Trump, who shut down the government and left 800,000 federal employees without income to pay their bills, I know what its like to be in a family that lives paycheck-to-paycheck.
In a rhetorical flourish that underscored the social implications of Trumps profiteering and juxtaposed them to his own lifelong commitment to equality, Sanders added, I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination. I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation.
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Bernie Sanders Isnt Even My Favorite Senator Running For The 2020 Nomination But I See His Potential To Unite The Democratic Party And Oust Trump
If moderate Democrats are serious when they say their only concern is beating President Donald Trump, they should get used to the thought of backing Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
If you believe in saving democracy, the courts and the planet, and reversing the unrepentant cruelty, corruption and carelessness that define the current administration, you have a duty to at least consider the candidacy of the most popular senator in America, the top fundraiser in the Democratic primaries, and the man who has generally beaten Trump in head-to-head polls for five years now.
Sure, you cant ignore a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows socialism half of Sanders democratic socialist brand about as unpopular as capitalism is popular. Conventional wisdom suggests Republicans would love to run against a socialist as the stock market continually hits new highs, raising all boats that happen to float on a sea of 401s.
But every expert in conventional wisdom has one thing in common: Not one of them has ever beaten Trump.
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Sanders Won In Nevada With An Expanded Coalition
Young voters, liberal voters and Hispanic voters all went decisively for Sanders, according to entrance poll results. Nationally, he leads by double digits among women and men in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll of Democrats. He is currently tied with former vice president Joe Biden in polls that ask whom people would vote for in the general election for president, a Democrat or Trump.
But: The big test for Sanders will be South Carolinas primary on Saturday, where the Democratic electorate is made up of a majority of black voters. An influential black member of Congress from South Carolina, James E. Clyburn, expressed skepticism of how Sanders will do there.
I do believe it will be an extra burden for us to have to carry, Clyburn told ABC News on Sunday of Sanders embracing socialism. This is South Carolina, and South Carolinians are pretty leery about that title socialist.”
Still, theres evidence Sanders is scaling Bidens supposed firewall with black voters. In Nevada, Biden won their support, but Sanders still got 27 percent of their vote, not an easy feat in a very crowded field. Outside of Nevada, the Post-ABC poll finds Sanders has more than doubled his support among black Democratic voters since January, support that has been driven by younger black voters who prefer him over Biden.
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Class Politics At Scale
Our enthusiasm about a possible Sanders versus Trump contest isnt confined to the prospect that Sanders will win. How Sanders can beat Trump has enormous implications for the future of American politics.
First, we should remember a simple fact of scale, easy to forget if you follow politics as a vocation or an obsession: general elections are much, much larger than primaries.
About 31 million people voted in the 2016 Democratic primary, one of the most hotly contested nominating contests in U.S. history. Over 136 million voted in the general election. The same ratio applies to campaign spending: together, Clinton and Sanders spent about $445 million in their primary race. In the general election, Clinton and Trump spent about $1.8 billion.
Using the 2016 primary race as his platform, Sanders was able to demonstrate that radical left-wing ideas like Medicare For All, tuition-free public college, and a $15 minimum wage actually had an enormous base of support, far beyond any niche of self-defined progressives. This revelation has already left a deep imprint on the Democratic Party which has absorbed much of Sanderss program, either in fact or in rhetoric and will probably shape American politics for years to come.
A Sanders general election campaign would present an opportunity of the same kind, but on a scale roughly four times as large.
Movement Politicians Create Countermovements
Journalists instinctually love to explain outcomes through dramatic moments: the climactic showdown, the secret strategy, the behind-the-scenes story.
After a cup of coffee or two, however, most of the narrative reconstructions about Bidens comeback seem a bit facilenot wrong, just insufficient. His revival is more indicative of something deep and important going on in the electorate precisely because it does not have a plausible precipitating event.
Yes, South Carolinas Jim Clyburn is a respected African American leader, and has been for decades. But there are not previous examples of him directing huge swaths of voters in his state or across the South merely on his say-so. His endorsement likely was powerful not because so many of his loyalists were waiting to be told what to do by him but because he understood what many of his loyalists were already feeling.
Likewise, Bidens team no doubt needed an infusion of energy from a talented political veteran like Anita Dunn. But its hard to conceive that any internal changes had much to do with Tuesdays Biden wave, which was not accompanied by any big change in messaging or spending. Bidens most recent debate performance and his victory speech after South Carolina were better than some previous outings but were hardly Churchillian.
The more credible explanation was that these things were like well-timed sparks in a dry forest.
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Scaramucci: Bernie Could Absolutely Beat Trump
Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci isnt shy about his feelings towards President Donald Trump following his 10-day tenure in the White House.
Scaramucci previously made it clear that he doesnt think Trump will get re-elected president, asserting that Democratic candidates Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden have a chance to beat him.
Recent polls and early Democratic primaries, though, indicated that Sen. Bernie Sanders is becoming the clear frontrunner. And despite the fact that Sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist, Scaramucci said that he absolutely can win.
If you think Bernie Sanders cant win, youre not paying close enough attention to the Bernie Sanders movement, the same way people werent paying close enough attention to the Donald Trump movement in 2016, Scaramucci said on Yahoo Finances On the Move
A recent poll from Morning Consult backs up Scaramuccis claim that Sanders could beat Trump: 32% of Democratic voters stated hes the best candidate to go up against the current commander-in-chief, with Bloomberg second at 19% and Biden third at 18%.
According to Real Clear Politics, Sanders would beat Trump by approximately 2.4 points if the election were held today.
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Aoc Is The Democrats Best Shot Against Trump In 2024
When Barack Obama came out of nowhere to win his Senate seat in 2004, it almost felt preordained. As if he was the person we had been waiting for to breathe fresh air into the Democratic Party.
Flash forward to 2018, and the meteoric rise of a 29-year-old bartender from Queens feels eerily similar. She has been unafraid, unapologetic and unwilling to bend to the will of Washington. She is a force to be reckoned with, and in 2024 Democrats are going to need her force to reckon with Republicans.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is less of a personality and more of a movement. Yes, the smart, photogenic congresswoman is the face of the rising progressive movement, but she is also the future of the Democratic Party. AOC has cultivated a following beyond politics. Shes an influencer in its purest form. Her ability to relate to her supporters and allow them a glimpse into her private life is a blueprint for Democrats trying to act less like mannequins and more like humans.
Shes the voice of a movement that began after the banks were bailed out by the government, while homeowners were left to default. The simplicity with which she talks about everyday struggles hints that shes not just a persona for consumption. She isnt beholden to corporations, is a prodigious small-dollar fundraiser, and could out-Trump Trump like no other politician has been able to.
Michael Starr Hopkins is a founding partner at Northern Starr Strategies.
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Virginia Vermont First To Close Polls
First up on this Super Tuesday: Vermont and Virginia.
Those two contests one potentially competitive, the other probably not closed at 7 p.m.
Results will take hours to come in, and sometimes projections will as well. But in other instances, the winner could be called quickly. In South Carolina, one network called former Vice President Joe Biden the winner based on exit polling seconds before the voting was over. Another called it the second polls closed.
Vermont is the home state of Sen. Bernie Sanders, giving him a significant home-field advantage.
Virginia is a state where Biden has spent a significant amount of time, and his success or failure there could be an early indicator of whether his South Carolina win was a one-off or a sign of new momentum.
Thirty minutes later, another key state closes: Alabama. Thats another close contest where Bidens recent success in South Carolina could be a factor.
Then a large wave of states come in at 8 p.m.: Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Tennessee had planned to close at 8 p.m. but some voting locations will stay open longer because of the deadly storms that hit the state early Tuesday.
The last state to close is California, where voting will wrap up at 11 p.m. EST. It could take days for the results in that state, however, as many voters have mailed their ballots.
âJohn Fritze
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% Of Democratic Voters Believe Bernie Sanders Would Beat Trump In 2020 Election New Poll Shows
Nearly three-quarters of Democratic voters believe Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont would defeat incumbent President Donald Trump if Sanders were selected to be the party’s presidential nominee, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday.
Pollsters asked respondents who were Democrats or leaned Democratic which candidate they thought would win against Trump if that candidate were to represent the party in November. Seventy-two percent said that they thought Sanders would defeat Trump in a one-on-one match-up, while 24 percent thought Trump would win and 4 percent had no opinion.
Of all the Democratic candidates, Sanders was the one who respondents said they believed had the best chance of defeating the incumbent. Billionaire businessman and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg performed second-best in this question69 percent of respondents said they thought he could beat Trump in the general, while 28 percent said they thought the victory would go to Trump and 3 percent said they did not have an opinion.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who performed first in most national polls prior to the February 3 Iowa caucuses, was third. Sixty-eight percent of respondents to this question said they expected him to win against Trump if he were selected to represent the party, while 28 percent thought Trump would win and 4 percent had no opinion.
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Us Election : Could It Be Bernie Sanders V Donald Trump
Bernie Sanders is firmly the front-runner in the race to become the Democratic challenger to Republican President Donald Trump, fresh from a victory this week in the second state-by-state contest. His support is fervent but is his party, let alone the country, ready to embrace such an unusual candidate?
Bernie Sanders likes to call his presidential campaign a revolution, but these days it feels more like a touring rock concert.
The Vermont senator may seem like an unlikely front-man for bands like Vampire Weekend and The Strokes, but both have served as his warm-up acts, playing at recent campaign rallies.
But the thousands of fans in packed arenas reserve their loudest cheers for the scruffy-haired 78-year-old candidate with a clipped Brooklyn accent.
After nearly a year-long marathon of rallies, meetings, debates and ground-laying, the Sanders campaign is now entering a sprint of near-nonstop activity that will carry it through dozens of states across the country – an impressive test of endurance for a man who just months ago was hospitalised for a heart attack.
“Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that has given me the courage to believe that we cannot only demand bold, radical change, but that it’s actually very attainable,” said Aletha Shapiro, who travelled to New Hampshire from Long Island, New York, to help the Sanders campaign.
“If the people stick together, we can actually put power back in the hands of the people.”
