Bernie vs. Biden's Electability
Bernie vs. Biden's Electability
Rant #6(Opinion)
Originally March 2, 2020
In the 3 short days between the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday's contests, many major developments have potentially turned the primary race on its head.
On Tuesday, registered Democrats in 14 states and territories will determine the allotment of over 1,300 of the total 3,979 delegates for the convention. With each passing day, serious panic within the moderate and establishment camp of the Democratic Party continues to expand. This fear of Bernie Sanders, a left-leaning candidate currently in the lead with both delegates and in the polls, worries these Dems because Bernie's policies lie too far from the center that he has no chance in a national election--or so the thinking goes. Instead, these people think the best strategy to beat Trump is to chose a less ideological, middle-lane candidate to appeal to 2016 Trump voters and win several swing states that way. This faction wants somebody like Joe Biden. Or Pete Buttigieg. Or Amy Klobuchar. Or maybe even Elizabeth Warren; possibly, a Mike Bloomberg.
Up until now, so many moderate candidates have crowded the field and vying for those moderate votes that it has fractured all of their vote shares enough that it has left Bernie Sanders, with a loyal base and a lock on the smaller progressive wing, far ahead of the rest. Nobody can ignore the parallels between this race and the 2016 Republican primary season. Trump managed to win the most delegates in 2016 because of a loyal core of supporters compared to that of the other multiple candidates. With a number of opponents who failed to capture a less intense lane of the party, Trump seized onto a smaller but fiercely determined group that carried him to victory then. And since that time, the Republican establishment which once intensely protested his rise now shows him absolute and total loyalty. Could the same happen for the Democrats?
Maybe. However, unlike the fragmented Republicans who refused to coalesce around a single candidate and continued to squabble amongst themselves, it appears now that the moderate Democratic candidates have decided to hand this thing over to Joe Biden. When Tom Steyer dropped out, nobody thought much of it or that it would have any giant consequences in the upcoming races. Yet Pete Buttigieg came next, suspending his presidential bid. I have my suspicions that in a smoke-filled room somewhere (or, more fittingly for Mayor Pete, a "wine cave"), pro-Biden operatives told Pete that if he dropped out of the race now, he would have a strong shot at running for Vice President in a Biden-Buttigieg ticket. With support hovering somewhere around 10% nationally, these displaced Buttigieg voters could have a defining impact on another candidate if they disburse to them en masse. While Buttigieg has yet to endorse Biden, everybody knows that his move serves the former Vice President directly; I imagine that he will conceal his endorsement until later because Amy Klobuchar announced her thumbs up for Joe Biden, and they don't all want to seem too conspicuous all at once, even though any informed observer can see what is happening here.
Bloomberg has not even appeared on a ballot yet, so he will not stop his bid until at least after he sees how he performs on Super Tuesday; meanwhile, Warren remains in. Her candidacy once sharply divided the progressive side of the Democratic Party, but since last Fall they have mainly all gotten behind Bernie Sanders. Still, some remain in favor of Warren, and a number of moderate and in between moderates and progressives still want her to win. She too polls somewhere around 10%, ranging between 6 or 7% and closer to 20%. A paranoid commentator might say that forces within the DNC have compelled Warren to stay in the race for now as a way to siphon off some of the progressives who would otherwise prefer Bernie.
Given all of this movement to obstruct Bernie's rise--first in 2016 and once again now--it begs the question of how much more electable really is Joe Biden? Conventional wisdom might say that because of his more moderate positions and former bipartisan cooperation, he could take some recently Republican and swing voters, thus defeating Donald Trump. The swing states matter the most because of our whacky system of selecting a president in the United States.
Many concerns about Bernie's viability center around that "he's a socialist!" First of all, not true; in this case, the difference does not simply lie in semantics, but in the ideology altogether. If I had my way, a whole new name for the democratic socialist/mixed economic vision espoused by Bernie would take root and thus nobody could call him a socialist because he has actually said that word in reference to himself. Yet, the Republicans think every Democrat is a socialist. They've said that about Biden, Buttigieg and even Bloomberg, a former Republican! In 2020, they say, any and all Dems are indistinguishable from socialists. Again, Bernie calling himself a democratic socialist doesn't help that narrative... So that's concern #1.
Another concern I've heard from a lot of Democrats and people despising Trump is that "I don't think Bernie can win the nomination/general election," not "I hate him and don't like his ideas." Sure some do and many aren't crazy about him and his perceptibly radical agenda but his likability among Democrats and regular voters is the highest of all current candidates, including Trump. Match-up polls have relentlessly shown his advantage over Trump as per polls posted on FiveThirtyEight, though of course that could change dramatically between now and November. And yes, polls sometimes err; yet if we review a host of them we then see trends which are a decent proxy for public opinion . So, with that said: a poll last week showed him beating Trump in TEXAS--well within the margin of error, but surprising nonetheless.
In general, Democrats do well when voters choose the candidate they like most--which statistically appears to be Bernie in this case. Yet when the Party picks a perfect-on-paper person to run, like Al Gore, John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton, they end up losing--though often winning the popular vote. Trying to calculate who has the most credentials and such doesn't win over the hearts of the electorate and especially not low-information and swing voters. Inspiring, genuine, enthusiasm-generating candidates win the White House.
For a lot of liberals and irregular voters, Biden doesn't excite them. A lot will intentionally stay home out of spite if Bernie doesn't get the nomination, while more will less deliberately nonetheless skip out because he's just plain uninspiring--more of the same. Not everybody votes from a sense of civic duty--millions of people don't go unless they really like a candidate, and end up casting ballots for other offices since they already came out. We saw this with the 4.4 million Obama 2012 voters who just stayed home last time. If Biden gets the nomination, sure, an exciting Senate race in this state or gubernatorial candidate in that one might draw a higher Democratic turnout--but probably not enough to flip the entire presidential election. Already, this election will probably have a higher-than-usual turnout, but it won't be because of Biden, though the extra million(s) could come from a Sanders ticket.
So Bernie seems to have the right tactic here, not wasting time trying to coax back disaffected Republicans. Trump has a 90% approval rating among those who consider themselves Republicans. That isn't a lot of room to chip away at, even with a moderate like Joe Biden. It's just not. Instead, somebody who can energize the left and offer an alternative, clear-cut, easily digestible vision of America to Trump's will do well. Somebody who has easily repeatable slogans like "Medicare For All" "Green New Deal" and the like, which convey with simplicity the underlying ideas of the campaign. Also, excitement breeds momentum. The volunteers for Biden are primarily doing it because they're afraid of or don't like Trump. Why do they like Biden? For a huge number, they will tell you "because he can beat Trump." Biden has de facto campaigners. Bloomberg had to hire all of his. But the Bernie volunteers are all passionately enthralled with his ideas and integrity. They take their own time to go knock on doors and donate $10 or $15 because not only do they hate Donald Trump and not want him to win this year, but the prospects of accomplishing Bernie's agenda fills them with optimism.
Another very large factor to consider: scandals. If anybody was harmed by the impeachment inquiry, Joe Biden must be counted among the casualties. Sure, he maintained front-runner status in his own party through most of it. Yet through Trump's own mouth and Twitter and the symbiotic propaganda network feeding falsified information to millions of right-wing Americans, now a third of the country truly believes that Biden did something grossly illegal in Ukraine, that Biden is a swamp creature, that Biden benefited from his time in the White House, that Biden awards perks to his cronies...the irony in just that sentence itself could fill a whole textbook but nonetheless, millions of people truly, seriously think those things. As the year goes on, if Biden wins the nomination, we will endlessly hear about Biden firing the prosecutor. The right-wing electorate will parrot these accusations for months and months every time Joe Biden's name gets mentioned, dragging his reputation down with swing voters, particularly low-information voters. The lies will be coming fast like bullets, difficult to dodge every single one: even if the DNC takes an enormous effort to dispel these rumors, it will not reach every single person who has heard some outrageous lie or seen the Facebook posts or memes...this will inescapably damage Biden on November 3rd. Unfortunately, Trump's slung mud has tarnished Joe Biden.
The whole notion of Biden's mental decline also really hurts his image, even though the man has never had a good record when it comes to public speaking, going back decades. While Bernie had a heart attack last Fall, he has since visibly recovered, doing rallies all across the country. Doctors say that the procedure done to him can usually allow the person to live healthily for years after that, so long as they take care of themselves. Truly though, while a president dying suddenly in office of a heart attack would mark a major tragedy in this nation's history, the prospect of one gradually losing touch with reality in old age threatens to do significantly more damage to us all.
Sure, Bernie has some questionable past statements and positions...yet he has remained startlingly consistent throughout his entire political career. Just like any dirt fails to damage Donald Trump because he shrugs it off, Bernie somehow has a similar aura. You can call him a communist or a sexist or make all these claims yet it never really sends him spiraling down because he sort of just owns it--if this shocking accusation has not been on the public record for decades.
Honestly, the harder task than Bernie beating Trump is Democrats winning the Senate, where having a 'socialist' at the top of the ticket could hurt close races like in Maine. But still, if Bernie can mobilize Latinos, poorer people especially in bigger cities, some disaffected Trump voters who aren't staunchly conservative, other populists and young people (though don't hold your breath on that last one), then he can win and win big. The political calculus done by media pundits and others have not properly calibrated their viewpoints. The label "liberal media" doesn't accurately describe what goes on in most news sources as much as "cosmopolitan bias." People on network news, writing for major publications, and the like tend to live in or around large cities on one of the coasts, around a diverse group of people, having moved around a lot and mingling with a highly educated social group...another article will go entirely into detail about the distinction between a "liberal bias" and "cosmopolitan bias" in media. Nonetheless, this bias fails to see truly absorb the potential support Bernie Sanders could get in places where one would not guess a far-left progressive candidate could. Many people who voted for Trump in 2016 and many who identify as right-of-center actually prefer Bernie over Trump, and I don't say this anecdotally, I know several individuals like this. They like Bernie and trust him to fight against special interests and the political elite even harder than Donald Trump, though they'd either go Trump or not vote than pick Biden, Buttigieg, Warren and especially Bloomberg. Populists.
In the same way that to many a Trump victory seemed unfathomable, a lot of people, not 100% in the loop but not out of it either, distrust almost anything coming out of LA, DC or NYC (with the exception of Trump, apparently). These people want things to radically change, in certain ways. To drain the swamp--but for real, this time. Tens of millions of Americans have a left-of-center economic opinion, a conservative leaning social viewpoint, and a distrust for big cities, foreign entities, various elites and entrenched politicians. And if that demographic thought that an Ivy League-educated Manhattan billionaire reality TV star spoke for them over seasoned politicians, then a self-described democratic socialist could too win many of their votes in November. Biden, meanwhile, fits right into their archetypal image of the DC elite; the nepotism with his son in Ukraine only adds to that resentment.
Now that Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar have dropped out in this clearly coordinated move with Biden and the DNC, Bernie can totally play with the same narrative that helped Trump win last time: "I'm the underdog, the outsider; those special interests really don't want me in the White House!" The more they try to stop him (and it gets expose before the primary elections), the more steam he will accrue from a certain segment of the electorate, with even more momentum in that regard in the general election, where Trump now IS the Washington establishment.
Yet for Bernie, Biden or whoever, factors other than themselves will impact who takes the White House. The strength of Trump's case for re-election crashes if the economy continues to falter or even declines a little--which appears likely even without the coronavirus, because how much more can it go up and unemployment go down without a correction or recession? Those events which tend to occur every decade or so anyway. If the timing of an economic downturn coincides with the months leading up to the vote, Trump will likely lose. And if the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak really begins to dig into the United States, it will expose the shortcomings of this country's healthcare system: strengthening the argument for Medicare For All, also handing Sanders the White House in November. A public options sounds pretty good too, in that situation, though a single-payer universal system would have more appeal because under the current system or even with a public insurance option, some plans might charge exorbitant amounts for hospital stays or medication, deterring people from seeking treatment and doing more harm to the population as a whole.
Realistically, Biden has less of a chance at winning--or would win by a smaller margin--than Bernie. Right now, it requires squinting to see why, but whether we pick one or the other, it will all make sense as the year goes on. It may seem unlikely now, and if Bernie loses to trump then yeah, every pundit will say "I told you so," but just like the trump victory in 2016, the Bernie campaign this year could be looked back at and studied for years to come.
Works Cited:
-Vox, info on DNC delegate count.
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