Okay, just to explicitly make the argument:
So far, 569,000 first-choice votes have been cast in the Democratic primary. That's 3.3% of the 2016 total.
Of those, 27% have been for Bernie Sanders.
So far, 569,000 first-choice votes have been cast in the Democratic primary. That's 3.3% of the 2016 total.
Of those, 27% have been for Bernie Sanders.
It's undeniable that Bernie is in strong position: he has a plurality lead nationwide, and his many opponents are so divided they could easily fall below the delegate threshold.
But what people need to start understanding is that Bernie's current strength is a result of a highly divided primary and nebulous ideas about "momentum." He is underperforming himself in 2016, to say nothing of candidates like Obama in 2008.
If Sanders is at the head of a mass movement of some kind, or if he's going to produce an irresistible groundswell of support that will transform politics, there is simply no evidence of it so far.
It is absolutely possible for these two things to be true at once:
-Sanders is currently winning the primary in this fashion
-There are a large number of Democrats who oppose him VERY strongly, maybe close to as many as he has current supporters
-Sanders is currently winning the primary in this fashion
-There are a large number of Democrats who oppose him VERY strongly, maybe close to as many as he has current supporters
None of this is to say he couldn't win the primary, the general, or that anyone shouldn't support him. But it's getting exhausting reading takes that reduce this to some kind of primal, mystical war for the soul of the party. First and foremost, it's just coalition math.
Right now Sanders' coalition is bigger than his opponents', but a smallish minority within the party. He appears to want to attempt some kind of hostile takeover of the party anyway. He could succeed! (Trump did the same in 2016.) But unsurprisingly, it's a fractious process.
And just to pre-rebut this, it's less important than you think that Bernie has high favorability within the party. The relevant question is the depth of the opposition among the people who oppose him.
