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Reminder: The polls were right all along. Sanders would have won in 2016.
Two days before the 2016 election, I wrote this on my blog:
This would’ve been a boring election if the Democratic establishment hadn’t been committed to nominating another neoliberal. In May, Sanders was polling with the general public at 10 points over Trump.
That wasn’t a fluke. In the many polls of public opinion taken from July 2015 to May 2016, only six showed Trump having an advantage and only one showed them in a tie.
Compare that with Clinton. Currently, she has a 1.8% advantage in the aggregated polls at RealClearPolitics, so she’s the safer bet but not a sure bet. Over the same period that Sanders stayed well ahead of Trump, Clinton was only a point or two ahead on average, with 29 polls showing her losing and 13 in a tie.
You can check that for yourself: RealClearPolitics — Election 2016 — General Election: Trump vs. Sanders
From June 2016: Why does Sanders do better than Clinton against Trump? | MSNBC:
…those who would vote for Sanders but not Clinton against Trump are evenly split when it comes to party identification — 35 percent identify as Republicans, 33 percent as Independents and 31 percent as Democrats. This is not particularly good news for Clinton as more than two-thirds…
