Is Texas Big Enough For Ted Cruz And Bernie Sanders
A candidate who calls himself a democratic socialist wouldnt seem to be the likely savior of Democratic politics in Texas.
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By Mimi Swartz
Contributing Opinion Writer
There are a lot of things I thought I would never see happen in Texas politics. Just to pick a few across a vast and varied spectrum: Ann Richardss election to the governorship in 1990 seemed miraculous a sign that Texas had turned a corner and was finally heading in a progressive direction. Of course it didnt, as we saw with her successor George W. Bush and his ascendancy to the presidency in the 2000 election, a step in a different direction but no less surprising to those who had seen, up close and personal, his pretty confounding lack of gravitas.
State Senator Wendy Davis in pink running shoes giving the anti-abortion boys in the Legislature what-for with her 2013 filibuster was another this cant be happening moment. Some jolts have come on a micro scale, as when I recently learned that a group of liberal friends in Austin occasionally had breakfast with Karl Rove. A master builder of Republican dominance in Texas and elsewhere has transitioned from Evil Genius to Wise Man.
That last statement may be the least surprising of 2020.
Mimi Swartz , an executive editor at Texas Monthly, is a contributing opinion writer.
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Who Would Win A Trump
Sen. Bernie Sanderss victory in the Nevada caucuses Saturday will move him into the lead in the Democratic Partys presidential nominating contest. Polling from the large states that vote on Super Tuesday suggests that Sanders may soon solidify his lead, and, should he do so, he may not relinquish it.
For a number of observers, this has spurred emotional assessments of how Sanders in particular might fare against President Trump in Novembers general election. Its easy to find oneself buffeted by various analyses of where Sanders stands and whether another candidate might fare better. With that in mind, weve grouped evaluations of such a matchup with an eye toward weeding out motivated rhetoric and focusing on whats known.
News Analysis: Vermont Senator Went Into Super Tuesday The Frontrunner That Is No Longer The Case
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If Bernie Sanders was starting to have doubts, he was not displaying them.
Tonight I tell you with absolute confidence: We are going to win the Democratic nomination, he told supporters on Tuesday night, his face fixed into a frown. Were going to win because the people understand it is our campaign, our movement, which is best positioned to defeat Trump
He added: You cannot beat Trump with the same old same old kind of politics.
Yet millions of people on Tuesday night disagreed with the Vermont senator. While polls in California continue to be counted, we know at least 4,477,262 voted for the same old kind of politics on Super Tuesday when they cast their ballots for Joe Biden, handing him at least 433 delegates.
It may be, by the time the counting is done, the 78-year-old Sanders emerges with a similar delegate haul to the 77-year-old Biden. What is certain is that momentum lies with the younger man.
On Wednesday morning, Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who spent $500m of his own money to insert himself into the democratic process, said he was dropping out and endorsed the former vice president.
Ive always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it, he said. After yesterdays vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.
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Bernie Sanders Comes Closest To Beating Trump In Texas New Poll Says
President Donald Trump may still be leading the political polls in Texas, but data released Wednesday show Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is actually the biggest threat to Trump winning the state, although former Vice President Joe Biden is still the current Democratic front runner in Texas.
Polling by the non-partisan organization, the Texas Lyceum, showed that in a trial presidential election ballot, Sanders held 47 percent to Trumpâs 50 percent. When Biden was put up against the president in a hypothetical matchup, Biden scored 46 percent to Trumpâs 51 percent.
Biden did, however, pick up the win for the overall poll as 28 percent of potential Democratic voters in the Texas primary supported Biden. Sanders came in second place with 26 percent while Senator Elizabeth Warren came in a distant third place with 13 percent, a full 13 points behind Sanders.
Newsweek reached out to the Sanders campaign for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Rounding out the top five were billionaire Michael Bloomberg with 9 percent and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 6 percent.
Trump lost the 2016 Texas Republican primary to Texas Senator Ted Cruz by a wide margin. Cruz wound up with almost 44 percent of the vote while Trump came in second with only 26.7 percent. But after Cruzâs popularity spiraled, culminating in a defeat in the Indiana primary, Cruz suspended his campaign.
Democrats Have Loads Of Time To Worry About This
The good news for Democrats is that theres plenty of time to try to game out the Electoral College and figure out how to win. The bad news is theres probably a lot of worrying thats going to happen between now and November.
So lets get the doomsday stuff out of the way now. Wasserman estimates the Democrats need to win the popular vote by 4 points or more to win it in 2020, which is a lot, so Democrats could very well win the popular vote again and still lose. And if theres a 269-269 tie, then the decision goes to the House, which would probably give the presidency to Trump.
Trump has a major advantage so its worth it for Democrats to find a strategy sooner rather than later.
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Why Sanders Thinks He Can Win Trump’s Supporters
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, faulted Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for converting voters’ legitimate concerns into hatred and said he can win over some of those voters with his message about improving the economy.
“Many of Trump’s supporters are working-class people and they’re angry, and they’re angry because they’re working longer hours for lower wages, they’re angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries, they’re angry because they can’t afford to send their kids to college so they can’t retire with dignity,” Sanders said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“What Trump has done with some success is taken that anger, taken those fears which are legitimate and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims, and in my view that is not the way we’re going to address the major problems facing our country,” he said.
He suggested there was a certain irony about the fact that Trump does not want to raise the minimum wage, and is looking at ways to give millions in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the country.
As for his campaign against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Sanders argued he won’t need to attack her the way then-Sen. Obama did in 2008.
A Sanders Path Is Different From A Biden Path
There are a lot of unknowns about how the 2020 race will play out . But at this juncture, the biggest question is probably who the actual Democratic nominee will be. And when it comes to gaming out the Electoral College, that makes a difference.
Right now, its most obvious to look at the map for Sanders, who may have the clearest path to the nomination. So how might the general election play out for him?
If Bernie Sanders is the nominee, hes going to lean into the working-class states where his populism has more appeal. Those include Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, although his pledge to ban fracking is problematic in Pennsylvania, Wasserman said.
On the flip side, one place Sanders might struggle is Florida. arent going to do him any favors among the states Cuban population. And his support skews young, which Florida voters are not. But maybe he could make up for it by getting Puerto Ricans displaced to Florida out to vote.
And in a state like Arizona, Sanders may gain in appeal to young and Latino voters, but he struggles more with other demographics. The Democrats gains have been more on the backs of white college-educated voters in the suburbs, Coleman said. One Arizona poll from December showed Sanders trailing Trump by 13 points in a head-to-head matchup. Biden, on the other hand, was just a point behind the president.
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Opinionhow A Socialist Candidate Can Win The Us Presidential Election In 2020
The social forces that propelled Sanders to the national stage in 2016 after years as an obscure voice for progress seemed to surprise even him and even more so than last time, hes running to win, not just to start a conversation.
Of course, his candidacy would never have taken off the way it did in 2016 or again in 2020 if grassroots movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter hadn’t empowered regular, working class people to talk about our political-economic system’s failure to deliver on their promises for all but a lucky few. And, more recently, the nationwide wave of teachers strikes both fed into, and was fed by, the movement behind Sanders.
After Strong Finishes In Iowa And New Hampshire Sanders Hopes To Win Texas
9:12 PM on Feb 14, 2020 CST
MESQUITE Bernie Sanders on Friday said he will win Texas on the strength of a multigenerational movement, and then oust President Donald Trump from the White House.
Were going to win the state of Texas,â Sanders told several thousand supporters in Mesquite. Were going to beat Trump. Were going to transform this country.
Sanders said Trump had steered the nation off course and continued to be a flawed president.
We cannot have a president who continues to be a pathological liar, Sanders said.
More than 4,000 people gathered at the Mesquite rodeo arena to hear Sanders, who is riding high after strong finishes in the early contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
The Texas presidential primary is March 3, and a win here could cement Sanders as the Democratic Partys front-runner for the nomination against Trump.
Sanders sought to assure voters that his progressive policies were nothing to fear. Rivals have warned that the nomination a self-described Democratic socialist against Trump would lead to certain defeat. He said that was a sign that his campaign is resonating.
The establishment is getting very nervous, Sanders said. He said that his campaign is not just about beating Trump, but taking on the Democratic Party establishment and the greed of powerful corporations what he called the âbillionaire class.
At the rally, Sanders said, this country belongs to all of us, not just the one percent.
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The Reason Sanders Appears Equally Electable
These Bernie or bust voters that come off the sidelines for Sanders in our survey are almost entirely limited to one group: Democrats and independents under age 35. These voters are about 11 percentage points more likely to say they would vote for Democrats if Sanders is nominated and almost all of them say they would not vote at all or vote third party if hes not on the ballot.
However, the Bernie or bust phenomenon appears almost entirely limited to left-leaning young people, who are usually a small share of the overall electorate. This stands in contrast to many theories of Sanderss electoral appeal: For example, whites without a college degree a demographic some speculate Sanders could win over are actually more likely to say they will vote for Trump against Sanders than against the other Democrats. The same is true of the rest of the electorate, except left-leaning young people.
This finding in our data mirrors many other surveys: Morning Consult finds dramatic increases in young Americans stated turnout intentions when asked how they would vote in matchups between Sanders and Trump.
Get A Grip Bernie Bed
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The Bernie bed-wetting has reached full-blown rubber sheet mode. With Bernie Sanders hanging on to a slim polling lead in Iowa and an even bigger one in New Hampshire, panicked Democrats are sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders could surf a wave of unstoppable momentum all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. Nominating Sanders to run against Donald Trump would be an Act of Insanity, according to New York magazines Jonathan Chait. Dems Tormented Over How to Stop Bernie, read a recent Politico headline, which quoted Rahm Emanuel, the high priest of boardroom centrism, proclaiming with authority that Sanders will repel swing voters. The New York Times cited Bonnie Campbell, a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton and now Joe Biden, talking about Sanders as if he was infected with the coronavirus. I can tell you, I hear from friends and colleagues who say: Oh, my God, what are we going to do if Bernie wins? Campbell said, sounding haunted.
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From Obama To Trump To Sanders
For Democrats still scarred by the memory of November 2016, it is easy to imagine that Donald Trump is an electoral juggernaut, endowed with awesome and occult powers. But the truth is closer to the opposite: Trump is a historically unpopular leader who won a narrow electoral college victory over an equally unpopular rival.
Beyond a core of die-hard Republicans, most Americans dont like Trump at all. Since his first few months in office, Trumps overall approval rating has hovered between 38 and 42 percent, making him by far the most consistently disliked president in modern US history. George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, the last two incumbents to lose an election, had much better numbers than Trump over their first three years in office.
Even in the key swing states where he defeated Hillary Clinton Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania Trumps approval rating has been consistently underwater for over a year now.
Trump can be beaten, and the way to do it involves winning three key groups of voters in these Rust Belt battlegrounds: first, the Democrats and independents who backed Obama twice before turning to Trump second, Obama voters who declined to vote in 2016 and third, the even larger group of Americans who do not typically vote at all.
Despite his residual popularity among Democrats stemming from the Obama years , Joe Biden cannot deliver this message.
