Throughout this primary election cycle, there’s been a lot of talk from the Bernie Sanders camp about the dangers of nominating a candidate who “only wins red states,” “loses independents,” and “struggles in blue states.” There’s also regular references to Hillary Clinton’s favorability and trustworthiness numbers, the implication being that she is a uniquely weak and flawed candidate. While I haven’t heard the opposite arguments made as much, they’re out there too: a Clinton partisan might say that there’s danger in nominating a candidate who’s “remarkably weak with racial minorities, who make up a large part of the base,” “can’t win crucial swing states like Florida and Ohio,” and who is uniquely weak and flawed due to his vulnerability to portrayal as an extremist, untested nature, and political persona ripe for Republican exploitation.
There’s also been, in general, a lot of talk about what an unpredictable election year this is. Predicting elections might as well be magical thinking.
But these viewpoints are incorrect, so let’s debunk some conventional wisdom.
Red States and Blue States
This is among the most widespread claims floating around in this election cycle: Hillary Clinton is leading in the delegate race only because she dominated in the allegedly conservative South, while Bernie Sanders has easily won many blue states, presaging general election struggles for Clinton in the blue states.
This claim is undercut by the fact that Clinton has won some blue states (MA and IL, as well as borderline case NV), while Sanders has won some red states (UT, ID, KS, NE, WY, OK, and AK). It is also undermined by the reality that the Sanders wins in blue states (with the exception of WI and NH) have been in low-participation caucuses. It also ignores that Democrats in the South are not necessarily conservatives, and are certainly not “Confederates.” Rather, they are mostly African-American.
Even granting the premise, however, the conclusion is wrong. The Democratic nominee will not fail to carry blue states in November. Political science research has demonstrated that party preference and fundamental factors such as presidential approval and economics are much more predictive of voter behavior than individual candidates or campaigns. Studies have found that upwards of 80% of general election votes cast can be predicted based solely on these fundamentals. Furthermore, 538 has examined the difficult task faced by Donald Trump or another GOP candidate seeking to flip blue states to red. By definition, blue states include a larger number of voters who prefer the Democratic Party, and who approve of the President’s performance. No Democrat, barring a truly catastrophic event, will lose these states in the general election. Primary strength in the South certainly wasn’t an issue for Barack Obama, who lost blue states like California, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and New Mexico in the primary, only to win them without drama in the general.
Those same predictive fundamentals are also way, way more predictive than perceptions about individual candidate "favorability” and “trustworthiness,” especially this far out from the general election.
Left-Leaning Independents and the Youth Vote
It has also been argued that Sanders must be nominated because of his strength among left-leaning independents and young voters. Sanders, the argument goes, has transformed the electorate with a flood of new voters, leading to record breaking turnout. Only he can deliver these voters for the Democrats.
There are a couple of problems here. The first is that there is no voter turnout revolution, and there is no revolution in the makeup of the electorate. Turnout is down from its 2008 peak, and there hasn't been a really appreciable change in the electorate in favor of Sanders-friendly demographics. Few would argue with a straight face that a Democratic nominee Sanders would fail to carry Clinton-friendly demographics like African-Americans, Latinos, and Democratic women. Given that there has been no transformative change and no appreciable turnout revolution in this year's Democratic electorate, there is no reason to believe Sanders has a unique ability to deliver the demographics friendly to him in a general election. Furthermore, in every Democratic primary, the candidates have demographic strengths. In 2008, Barack Obama dominated with African-Americans, young voters, left-leaning independents, and professionals while Hillary Clinton was strong with Latino voters and the Democratic portion of the white working class. But all demographics supportive of the Democratic Party united to give Obama their support in the general election. Given this recent past experience and the data linking the fast majority of voting behavior to fundamentals like presidential approval and party preference, it is likely that things will be the same this time around. These factors are not 100% predictive, and it is reasonable to assume there could be some differences of turnout and electorate composition at the margins. In that case, I still think Hillary Clinton is a good bet given that there is at least some evidence that her strongest demographics, such as African-Americans actually have increased as a share of the electorate relative to 2008.
But This Election is Different, So the Old Models Don’t Work!
People say this in pretty much every election cycle, but there just isn’t much evidence of it being true. Turnout this year is not breaking records. Registration is also not breaking records in many states. Even the campaigns themselves are basically the typical players in a Democratic primary. There is a mainstream party candidate, and a left-lane challenger. Sanders’ fundraising operation and message appeal has certainly been impressive, but his campaign is simply not without precedent. There is nothing in voter turnout, electorate makeup, voter registration, voting patterns, or prediction efforts that suggests that this election cycle (on the Democratic side) is somehow truly different or transformative. The available data should lead us to reject conventional speculation about Sanders having some unique ability to deliver electoral victory for the party, as well as any notion that this Democratic primary is really a break from precedent.