In a stunning upset that nobody saw, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. Hillary Clinton was thoroughly beaten despite being praised as the one candidate that could take Trump down. But was she really the only choice? You might remember a tough upstart by the name of Bernie Sanders. There was a big scandal about how the Democratic party essentially strong armed Bernie into bowing out of the race because many believed Clinton was the best hope of winning against Trump. Let’s look at the numbers.
Many polls way back in May and June actually had Sanders leading 49.7% to Trump’s 39.3%. That is a very comfortable 10 point cushion. Going back to Trump and Clinton for a second, Trump and Clinton were very close in those very same polls, some even having Trump beating Clinton by a small margin.
In an interview toward the end of May, Sanders said, “Right now, in every major poll, national poll and statewide poll done in the last month, six weeks, we are defeating Trump often by big numbers, and always at a larger margin than secretary Clinton is.” Sanders was dead on. Of course, this was all based on hypothetical situations months before the actual election. Plus we now know how unreliable polls can be. But, the fact that Sanders had a firm grasp of the situation working class Americans faced. They loved Sanders. Ultimately that very same group that Clinton largely ignored ended up voting for Trump and in all likelihood gave him the victory.
This election potentially had the biggest voter turnout of all time. If Trump brought out voters for bad reasons, Sanders brought them out for the best reasons. His message resonated with young voters and electrified a new movement. His approval rate with younger voters was the highest in this election. There was a concern from the Democratic party that his radical and socialist views would not be able to win favor with more traditional demographics. But by all rights, Sanders would have won at least two of the swing states that Clinton needed to win the election with. Whether it was the right thing to prioritize Clinton over Sanders we’ll never know, but hindsight is 20/20.
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