Thread by @JackElgin7

If you live your life on Twitter or only consume corporate media, it's easy to think that Bernie Sanders is a divisive figure.

The truth is the opposite: Bernie Sanders is the least divisive figure in American politics.

A thread

Bernie Sanders has topped the Morning Consult for something like ten surveys in a row as the most popular Senator in the country.

morningconsult.com/senator-rankin…

He has a 53% net favoribility with Democratic voters, the highest of any candidate. The only one who comes close is Biden at 47%. That's NET. That's after subtracting the people who have a negative view of him.

statista.com/statistics/102…

"But we need to win independents!"

Funnily enough Sanders does the best of an 2020 candidate among independents too, including Trump, whom he crushes with this group.

https://twitter.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1227068915982925824

"But black people don't support him."

By literally every metric- voter preference, second preference, favorability- black voters prefer Sanders to everyone except Biden by wide margins, and young black voters prefer Sanders, period.

washingtonpost.com/context/washin…

Meanwhile Sanders is first with voters of color overall, and particularly dominates with Latino voters. And the Muslim community, which, for a Jewish candidate, would be a big story if it were one the corporate press wanted to talk about.

nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/…

Polling shows that most Democratic voters want other candidates to be more like Sanders, even ones that aren't currently supporting him. Sanders isn't winning because of a personality cult but because of the popularity of his policies.

newsweek.com/majority-democ…

"But we need someone who can defeat Trump!"

As you might have been able to piece together by now, Sanders is the best positioned candidate to do that.

realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_…

One reason why voters are more willing to support Sanders might be that he is considered extremely trustworthy- in fact, the most trusted candidate in the Democratic primary on basically every important issue.

newsweek.com/2020-democrati…

In conclusion, Bernie Sanders is the most popular and trusted candidate with Democratic and Independent voters by a wide margin. His is not, as Trump was in the GOP primary of 2016, divisive as a figure. This narrative is a creation of social/mainstream media.

Actually it's probably worth an addendum to point out that while politics is usually cyclical, and the number of people planning to vote Bernie is on the upswing, most of this isn't new or a flash in the pan. Sanders has been consistently popular.

fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-u…

Sometimes people talk about Sanders having a dedicated but small following, which is/was somewhat true in terms of ride or die voters, but since 2016 the Democratic electorate and a lot of independents have been and stayed broadly very supportive of Sanders and his platform.

So if it feels weird to you sometimes that it's portrayed as divisive to like this nice old man who fights for basic human rights for marginalized people, if you feel like you're going crazy- you're not. It IS weird. It's a weird bubble of centrist elitism

But it's not real life

Addendum 1:

"But Trump will call him a socialist and he'll lose"

They did polling on this and guess what? Not only does he still beat Trump when you tell people he's a socialist, he does better than when you tell people he's a Democrat

vox.com/2020/1/31/2111…

Addendum 2:

"He's in trouble if the moderate lane ever consolidates/if you add X Y and Z candidates together he really lost!"

Voters don't work that way. "Lanes" are a media narrative. Sanders is a leading fallback choice for tons of moderate voters.

fivethirtyeight.com/features/voter…

Addendum 3:

"But his support dropped by half since 2016!"

This one is so stupid I don't even know where to start with it, honestly.

2016 was a two person race. You can pick a number you want here but there's anywhere from 6 to 8 serious candidates this time.

As I just covered, Sanders is a popular fallback option. It's not that voters don't like Bernie, they just like someone else more out of 8 options, or they were voting strategically based on perceived electability or whatever.

So if his support drops by 50% but his opposition increases by 500%, the idea that that shows weakness is absurd. That's a much stronger showing relative to the field. If we randomized votes, getting 50% between 2 people is average. Getting 25% out of 8 is twice as strong.

"But he hasn't been vetted"

This isn't true, he's been vetted and there just isn't anything useful to attack him with. Hillary's people tried. As per Peter Daou who literally led the oppo research on Bernie in 2016 for Hillary.

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1222524697117646849

This doesn't address a specific argument but worth adding that Sanders also just dominates in support among working class voters- categories he dominates donations from include retail workers, truck drivers, waitstaff, nurses, teachers.

Not lawyers, tho

waldrn.com/candidate-supp…

Confirming that the "He's in trouble if voters consolidate on a moderate!" narrative exists only in the heads of elite pundits:

https://twitter.com/YouGovUS/status/1228394098425384961

"But the electoral college is what matters- we need to win back the Midwest!"

Hey guess who does super well in the Midwest (not surprising given he demolished Clinton there in 2016)?

https://twitter.com/HawkbitAlpha/status/1228488815825838080

"But what we need is a return to civility, to decency, to values!"

I mean. Okay. Let' say that's true (and it's not) but okay.

Guess which candidate voters consider to have the best values, most like theirs?

usatoday.com/story/news/pol…

Also they consider him the most honest. Again, this is the general population, not just Dems

newsweek.com/more-voters-be…