The definitive guide for why Bernie would have won in 2016

 So, 2016 is something that centrists and lefties love to relitigate. Lefties go "Bernie would have won" and centrists claim there's no way he would have won. Well, realclearpolitics has polling going back to 2004, so got the receipts. Let's do some discussion here. 

General election polling

Trump vs Clinton: Clinton +3.2%

Trump vs Sanders: Sanders +10.4%

Cruz vs Clinton: Clinton +5.4%

Cruz vs Sanders: Sanders +13.0%

Kasich vs Clinton: Kasich +7.4%

Kasich vs Sanders: Sanders +3.3%

So, I will admit one flaw with this data in a bit, but let's just walk through this.

If I were to compare this with our 2024 situation where we're talking replacing Biden who is currently down 2.7% to Trump, and we had a candidate who polled about 8 points better, I would be arguing that it would be complete and utter MALPRACTICE by the democratic party NOT to run that candidate. An 8 point shift would reverse uno, the entire situation between Biden and Trump. We would be going from being down 4.6% in the electoral college to being around 3.4% ahead. We would go from a 12.5% chance to something like an 80% chance. 

If we had these numbers from an alternative to Biden this election cycle, right now, I would be like, you're stupid if you DONT put this alternative candidate in.

Now, TO BE FAIR, the Clinton vs Trump data has one flaw. And that is that it's far more recent. This polling average is from election day, while the other ones were from May-June 2016. So I would need to dig back in the data to get a fair comparison.

So I did that, and I get:

Trump vs Clinton: Clinton +1.5% (as of June 5, 2016)

Trump vs Sanders: Sanders + 10.4% (as of June 5, 2016)

You might look at it and think it's unfair to compare here since Clinton went WAY down at this point, but um...thats the latest date I have sanders data. And given this wasnt the only time clinton's numbers collapsed, she did this in September when she crawled into a car and looked sick, and also in November right in time for the election. So...yeah. Clinton....had issues. She collapsed in the polling several times. Sanders didn't. 

So let's look at what swing states thought of Sanders. Here's the latest reported data from realclearpolitics. 

Virginia: Sanders +22.0%

New Hampshire: Sanders +20.6%

Michigan: Sanders +20.0%

Wisconsin: Sanders +19.0%

Minnesota: Sanders +16.0%

Connecticut: Sanders +14.0%

Pennsylvania: Sanders +12.7%

Iowa: Sanders +9.0%

Arizona: Sanders +8.3%

North Carolina: Sanders +7.5%

Ohio: Sanders +5.0%

Florida: Sanders +3.2%

Nevada: No data

New Mexico: no data

Indiana: Trump +1%

Colorado: Trump +2.0%

Missouri: Trump +2.3%

Georgia: Trump +3.8%

Ok, so this looks insane. In the relevant states that cost Clinton the election, he was up like 20 points? TWENTY. POINTS?! This is INSANE. So if anyone thinks that national vote lead didn't lead to some sort of state level improvement, here's your data. 

And here's the map this produces:

This is INSANE. This is an obama 2008 level map. He has 275 SAFE electoral votes. He had a 98% chance of winning at this point. It was statistically significant. That means it was OVER. Bernie would have won. 

Now, what would clinton's map have looked like around this time? It's hard to dig back in the data to figure out what things would look like in May/June, but I did do my first election update in 2016 on 6/19/16, and here's my original electoral map. So, you might, that looks kind of similar. Sure, it does. And i didnt do shadings there, although I concluded a Trump +4 map wouldve done it for her. So, that gives her something like a 80% chance give or take to win?

Bernie had a 98% chance. He had an 8+ point lead. 

And yes, Clinton supporters will tell us that Bernie wouldve been attacked in the general, and his numbers would go down, claiming "oh he honeymooned in the USSR", "he was a socialist" blah blah blah. Look. I have no doubt that he would have probably not made it to november with these numbers, but let's look at the margins of actual swing states in 2016:

Virginia: Clinton +5.3%

Colorado: Clinton + 4.9%

 

Maine: Clinton +3.0%

Nevada: Clinton +2.4%

Minnesota: Clinton +1.5%

New Hampshire: Clinton +0.4%

Michigan: Trump +0.2%

Pennsylvania: Trump +0.7%

Wisconsin: Trump +0.8%

Florida: Trump +1.2%

Nebraska CD2: Trump +2.2%

Arizona: Trump +3.5%

North Carolina: Trump +3.7%

Georgia: Trump +5.1%

Ohio: Trump + 8.1%

Texas: Trump +9.0%

Iowa: Trump +9.4%

Maine CD2: Trump +10.2%

South Carolina: Trump + 14.3%

Alaska: Trump +14.7%

This is the actual 2016 electoral map. 

Hillary only needed ONE MORE POINT to win. Say it with me. Bernie would've won.

Bernie's ceiling over clinton was up to 9 points. If he overperformed Hillary by one point, he would've won. 

Again, say it with me. BERNIE WOULD HAVE WON!

Say he overperformed by 4 points. Around half the margin he possibly could have. What would the map look like? This:

Again, say it with me. BERNIE WOULD HAVE WON!

Lets give Bernie a whole 8 point advantage over Hillary Clinton, what the polls said he would have had when they stopped measuring. 

Once again, let's say it. Louder for those in the back. 

BERNIE. WOULD. HAVE. WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I NEVER want to hear from some smarmy centrist democrats who has some idea Bernie wouldn't have won. I'm sick of people saying democrats would've lost no matter what.

NO. YOU CHOSE A BAD CANDIDATE THAT NO ONE LIKED AND THREW AWAY AN EASILY WINNABLE ELECTION!

Now, I'm not going to say the last map here would be what we would've got had he ran. Maybe he would've taken some hits. But all he needed was ONE POINT. ONE POINT ABOVE CLINTON. Could he have done it? If polls matter, easily.

The fact is, centrists who deny Bernie would have won, deny reality. They are the ones who ignore today, that Biden is losing. Who says polls don't matter. For all of their talk about "reality" and blah blah blah, they tend to deny it when it conveniently doesn't fit their perspective.

Would Bernie have won in 2020? I believe he would have, but Biden did have stronger polling. 2024? Eh, he polls the same as everyone else. But in 2016? There is no doubt. Bernie was what the country wanted, he would have won, and the fact that he wasn't the nominee, is why people went for Trump instead. 

Never forget, never let centrist democrats gaslight you. If they knew so much about elections, they wouldn't have lost, and they wouldn't be deny that we're losing in 2024. 

These are the same people who thought 2020 would be a literal landslide for Clinton the day before election day, when I was basically saying "yeah, Trump had a chance, it's gonna be close." These guys are the ones who deny reality.

I'm not sure where we would be if Bernie won today, but I truly believe the dems going with Clinton threw us into the worst possible timeline, and everything going bad with us is because of that. A Sanders win would have been devastating to the GOP. It would have caused it to collapse like it did in the 1930s, and moderate like it did in the 1950s. The fact that we're here now, is a testament to the democrats' failures.

Never forget. 

And thus concludes my history lesson.