There has been a lot written last year about how there is actually very little overlap between Warren supporters and Bernie supporters. In fact, Warren's supporters are largely groups with whom Bernie does the worst. Upper middle to upper class white women and professional black women, two groups which, by the way, vote in extremely high numbers.
And these groups are also typically not single-issue voters, so while they share the same views with Bernie on M4A, that is likely not the only or determining factor. This group doesn't need free college for them or their kids, they don't care about legalizing marijuana (and some may in fact prefer the opposite), and has benefited from capitalism, which Warren openly supports and Bernie does not.
We had Peef here tell us that he may not even vote for Warren if she is the Democratic nominee. Which I found to be extreme, but maybe it's a good example of just how little overlap there is.
But in any event, why is this even being discussed? It's not Elizabeth Warren who is preventing Bernie from being the Democratic nominee. It's that his own base can't be bothered to show up and vote. And also his inability to moderate his message at all - when he saw the center was collapsing and slowly migrating to Biden, he doubled down on Fidel Castro of all things. I mean, really...
Yeah, I'd been thinking about this. Bernie's inability to show any flexibility plays well with the very, very core base of his. But it's been his own downfall. If he had learned some lessons from 2016, he could have changed some tone and opened up a bit to include voters that weren't rallying to the absolutism of his "movement". Instead of insisting the Democratic party make changes to suit his purposes, try to reach out the other way and open the door for lifelong Dems to feel more comfortable supporting him.
But he didn't do that. And we see now an uprising of moderate voters, not happy with either "far" side. And he lost the opportunity to bring those people in.
I'll make another note. Something that Chris Hayes hit on with a guest the other night. They were talking about Bernie's inroads with the hispanic community, and still not so much with the AA community. He said, well he is getting younger black voters, so that's good right?
Well, that's the story right there. It isn't about race at all. It continues to be all about age.
He's only doing better with Latinx voters because the average age of those voters is FAR below that of the average white or black voter.
It was something crazy like the average age of hispanic voters was late 20's or early 30's. This follows right along with who Bernie gets regardless of age.
This is not a recipe for victory. Sanders has a large following of a voting block that votes at about 15%-20%. While someone like Biden has a large following of people that vote at over 60%+.
This doesn't excuse Biden from responsibility of needing to do real outreach now to bring more young people into the fold. But it gives a whole new perspective of Sanders support this time around.
Also, I have to say, that this time, instead of AA voters waiting around for the party to come to them, they looked to have taken control of the process this time around, and said with their vote - we are going to show you who we want to be the nominee. And I think that is pretty inspiring.
Also the fact that the candidate with the most money flopped and the candidate with the least money won big, gives some hope that people's genuine voice is still alive and well.
