- 26,617
- 38,163
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2013
I should clarify but I was mainly making an assessment about progressives’ electability arguments in the Democratic primary and to some extent congressional races, not what happens after the primary. After all, a progressive candidate has yet to get to that point so an assessment on that would purely be speculation without data/results to rely on.I know you didn't ask me...but moderates push their electability over progressives for the general--but Hillary lost.
The fact that Biden could secure southern states in the primary won't matter much because he will, undoubtedly, lose those states in the general.
I think progressives have a better electability argument for a general election because they bring more energy. Which could turn swing states.
A bunch of people begrudgingly voting for Biden, because anybody but Trump, doesn't seem like a real way to win an election.
But we will see in November.
A common theme you hear from some progressives when they get beat by a moderate is something along the lines of ‘the DNC picked [moderate candidate]’, as if voters didn’t resoundingly defeat the competition. In light of Bernie losing significant percentages of voters in areas he dominated in 2016, I'm wondering if that discrepancy could be explained by some portion of Bernie's votes in 2016 coming from an anti-Hillary position rather than a pro-Sanders position. That could explain why this time around his numbers went down in some of those areas despite being in a much stronger position than in 2016.
Last edited: