The truth is the opposite: Bernie Sanders is the least divisive figure in American politics.
A thread
morningconsult.com/senator-rankin…
statista.com/statistics/102…
Funnily enough Sanders does the best of an 2020 candidate among independents too, including Trump, whom he crushes with this group.
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…
nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/…
newsweek.com/majority-democ…
As you might have been able to piece together by now, Sanders is the best positioned candidate to do that.
realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_…
newsweek.com/2020-democrati…
fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-u…
But it's not real life
"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…
"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…
"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.
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.
Not lawyers, tho
waldrn.com/candidate-supp…
Hey guess who does super well in the Midwest (not surprising given he demolished Clinton there in 2016)?
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…
newsweek.com/more-voters-be…