Although Joe Biden remains the only candidate in the Democratic primary to repeatedly outperform President Trump in red state polls, such as Texas and North Carolina, Bernie Sanders is closing in on the front-runner’s pivotal lead in the Rust Belt swing states that handed Trump the Oval Office. If Sanders wins the nomination, he could narrowly beat Trump in a general election.
Trump clearly knows this, given the tenor of his recent tweets chiding the septuagenarian socialist.
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Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020
Given the word salad of an anti-Bernie endorsement from the editorial board of the New York Times, the newspaper of record knows this too.
The editorial board’s disdain for both Bernie and Biden was evident from the mere transcripts of its interviews, but its anti-Sanders animus was rendered only more weird by its blatant favoritism towards fellow leftist Elizabeth Warren. During the interview, the board repeatedly tried to fact check Bernie on immigration’s effect on labor with fallacious logic and call out his plans for being too ambitious. But Warren was hotly celebrated by the board for that same pie-in-sky liberalism.
Whatever the reason for its Bernie bashing, the reason for its salience became evident in its final endorsement editorial: Bernie can win, and like Trump, the Times finally gets this.
Despite their radically oppositional politics, both Bernie and Biden poll well with two key demographics: working-class white voters and voters of color. Even more importantly, Bernie comes second to Biden in key swing states.
Recent polling shows that Bernie beats Trump outside of the margin of error in head-to-head polling in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. While he polls less well than Biden and still doesn’t clinch other Trump states that Biden gets, states won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 plus those three total 273 votes in the Electoral College. You only need 270 to win.
Republicans praying for Bernie to eke out the nomination better be careful for what they wish for. If the Times turned any more votes to Warren and away from Bernie (mind you, one day before at least a two week period where Senate impeachment rules will render both all but invisible to the outside world), they could have offered Trump the best gift of his candidacy yet.
