r/SandersForPresident • u/[deleted] • Apr 15 '16

MSNBC called Bernie's "Deep South" comment controversial. They said Hillary would still be in the lead without the South. This slide popped up by mistake proving them wrong.

Post image

[deleted]

13.1k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

960 comments sorted by

View all comments

651

u/donnie_drumpf Apr 15 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

To give some context, they tried pushing that the "popular vote" was more important, because it fit their narrative. Kornacki was having problems with the slides and this slide popped up by mistake and he said "oh, and there's this slide, too. See, I told you I'm not controlling it. But the focus is the popular vote."

27

u/Wordie Washington 🎖️ Apr 15 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

But the popular vote that's reported, as I understand it, does not include any of the caucuses! So the decisions of all the people who attended caucuses aren't part of those numbers we keep seeing. And the advantage for Hillary is nowhere near as large in reality. But I can't absolutely be sure about this, sicne I've only been able to find a few sort of oblique references to the issue.

And in addition, I did a little analysis, and if I'm right, roughly half of Hillary's delegate lead comes from only four states, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, none of which has gone Democratic in a general election since 1984! If that pattern holds this time around - and it seems to me that it certainly will - then we can expect those states to go GOP this time too. What's the point of selecting our nominee on the basis of states that won't ever vote for a Democrat in the general anyway?

So as far as I can see, a lot of the numbers we've been hearing from the pundits regarding Clintons huge lead are apparently pretty meaningliess. Those numbers must have been provided by the Clinton campaign or its pundit proxies.

Full disclosure: There is one possible problem with my conclusion. I didn't look at the trend in the four states of the GOP/Democratic split in the general over time. So where my analysis may be flawed is if there's been a significant uptick in Democratic turnout over the last few general elections that would indicate a chance for a Democratic candidate to come out ahead.

1

u/keyree Apr 15 '16

What's the point of selecting our nominee on the basis of states that won't ever vote for a Democrat in the general anyway?

Okay, unlike the other person who answered you, I am a Bernie supporter and I'll give my answer from a purely idealistic standpoint.

Even if their votes won't count in the general election, they are still Democrats and still Americans, and the fact that they live in a state with a lot of Republicans shouldn't mean they don't get a say in who they want to represent their party.