Bernie Sanders Does Better vs. Trump? Wouldn’t Be Prudent to Assume That
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Version 0 of 1. Each week, Nate Cohn, The Upshot’s elections analyst, and Toni Monkovic, an Upshot editor, will discuss the 2016 race and post a lightly edited transcript of their written exchange. Toni We’re going to hear about this all the way to the convention, and most likely during the convention — maybe even after the convention: Bernie Sanders does better than Hillary Clinton in polling against Donald Trump. But it’s not nearly so simple. Nate No, it’s not. There are basically two reasons. One is that Bernie Sanders’s supporters are a big reason Clinton is doing worse in her polling against Trump. In the recent YouGov poll, Clinton had just a 40-point lead against Trump among Sanders voters, while Sanders had a 70-point lead. Trump was getting virtually the same share of the vote against both candidates — 40 percent against Clinton, 39 percent against Sanders. Presumably most Sanders supporters will ultimately get behind Clinton, and, on the flip side, Clinton supporters would have been much more negative on Sanders if he had posed a more serious threat to her victory. The second thing is that Sanders just hasn’t faced any major attacks on his record. The Republicans have cheered him on against Clinton, whom they realize they’re inevitably going to face. Clinton never really attacked him, either — no big negative television ad buys, for example — in no small part because she didn’t want to alienate his supporters. So Sanders is set to lose, but in a way that leaves him unscathed and therefore appearing very strong in the general. There was something similar with John Kasich. Maybe Sanders really would have survived all of the attacks from Clinton that would have come if he had been a bigger threat to win the nomination. But as it is, it’s just a question mark. Toni We don’t want to analyze each poll — that would be a waste of time, as Norm Ornstein and Alan Abramowitz pointed out here in The New York Times. But Abramowitz, on Twitter, showed particular disdain for a Fox poll showing Trump leading Clinton by three percentage points. He pointed out, for example, that Trump led Clinton by roughly the same three points in recent polling of Georgia and Arizona — two states that are red, not representative of a national vote. Nate As you said, it’s a single poll. Fox is generally a decent pollster, and it had Clinton ahead by seven points in a prior survey. It was a bad result for Clinton, and there will be more of them. The point about Georgia/Arizona is a good one. We have plenty of recent polls consistent with a national Clinton advantage, whether it’s the other national surveys (like Thursday’s CBS/NYT poll), or some high-quality state polls. Toni Ross Douthat of The Times would like to see Mitt Romney run. Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator, said: “I can’t believe I’m even writing this. But seriously, Mitt Romney should run for president again and transcend party for the good of the country.” How much damage could Romney do to Trump if he ran a third-party race? A lot of state deadlines have already been missed. Utah is one of the most conservative states, but could Romney sink Trump in Utah if he got on the ballot there? Nate Romney could outright win Utah, I would think. I think Romney could do a lot of damage to Trump, even if he missed the deadline in a lot of states, assuming he ran strongly in those states where he is on the ballot. Toni It looks as if Bill Weld will be on Gary Johnson’s libertarian ticket. What’s a ballpark figure for how much of the vote they’ll ultimately get? It wouldn’t be too surprising if, early on, they got high single-digit numbers because the unfavorables for both Trump and Clinton are so high. But by Election Day, it will be most likely be a different story, right? Nate Early polls almost always overestimate the share of the vote for minor candidates, even when there aren’t two candidates coming out of pretty contentious primaries. But how much will it ultimately end at? I don’t know; I could imagine a sizable protest vote of a few points on either the left or the right, which would be a lot more than usual but not as much as what the current surveys show. It could easily come down even more. Toni Let’s say that in the final polling in November, Jill Stein of the Green Party is at 2 percent. That would hurt Clinton. And let’s say that the Johnson-Weld team is at 3 percent. Would the libertarian vote hurt Trump or Clinton more? Nate I don’t think it would make much of a difference. Toni Because it’s hard to know the Trump-Clinton split for the libertarian vote or it’s too small to matter? Or both? Nate Both. And there’s the question of how many of them would actually vote, too. Toni Maybe the most compelling Senate race is in Arizona, where John McCain is in a bind, one that some other down-ballot Republicans find themselves in. If they’re against Trump, they face the wrath of his supporters and could lose their jobs. If they’re for him, they can be accused of all sorts of things, including in McCain’s case, of trading in his integrity. It shapes up as a grim few months for him. (First, he will have to beat back a primary challenge, probably from Kelli Ward, and if he wins, he will face Ann Kirkpatrick in November.) Nate I’m a little surprised by how poorly McCain seems to be doing. It seems like he’s put himself in a tough spot: enough of a maverick to court opposition from the right and a real primary threat, not enough of a moderate to earn broad appeal in the general electorate — perhaps in no small part because of his efforts to court the party’s base. The Democrats have a strong candidate, McCain’s numbers are weak, and although the state is conservative, it’s more competitive than most red states. I’d still be surprised if he lost, but there are plenty of indications that he’s vulnerable. Toni Trump has said he can win New York. I’ll break the bad news to him before you can: It would take a miracle for him to win. But is there an argument that he could keep Clinton several notches below 60 percent in New York? In the last three elections, the winning percentage for the Democratic candidate in the state was 63.3 (2012), 62.8 (2008) and 57.9 (2004). Nate I think that if Trump keeps Clinton several notches under 60 in New York that Trump has probably won the presidency. So in that sense, yes, it’s possible. Otherwise, it’s hard. Maybe you can imagine some scenario in which Trump plays extremely well among white Catholics on Long Island and Staten Island, but Republicans already win the white vote there anyway. Toni Some people are still under the impression that the Sanders-Clinton race is close in pledged delegates. What’s a good statistic or analogy to point out that it’s not? Nate Sanders would need another 30 results like his Oregon victory to basically tie Clinton in pledged delegates (and then he would probably fall behind again after the Puerto Rico, New Jersey, California and District of Columbia contests). Toni The betting markets have ticked down a bit for the Democratic nominee in the general election; PredictWise now has it as a 67 percent chance to win. That may be a reaction to recent polls, but also to the recent uncertainty about whether Sanders will fully embrace Clinton’s candidacy. The Sanders campaign said it was willing to harm Clinton’s prospects, at least in the short term, in pursuit of its goals. How much would it damage Clinton if he gave her only a halfhearted endorsement? Nate I think Clinton would ultimately be fine. She has a lot of things to help her out: Elizabeth Warren, President Obama, the option to select a progressive vice president, and Donald Trump himself. But clearly she doesn’t want to spend her summer trying to lock down her left flank at a moment when there’s probably an unprecedented opportunity to peel away moderate, suburban, well-educated and female Republicans. Last week, Nate and Toni discussed whether Elizabeth Warren could have beaten Hillary Clinton and whether she should be the vice-presidential pick. Readers can submit questions for future chats, and we’ll select one or two of the best ones. |