I thought this was excellent commentary by Jonathan Chait on Medium today.
The Democratic presidential field has largely abandoned that model. Working from the premise that the country largely agrees with them on everything, or that agreeing with the majority of voters on issues is not necessary to win, the campaign has proceeded in blissful unawareness of the extremely high chance that Trump will win again.
A new batch of swing state polls from the New York Times ought to deliver a bracing shock to Democrats. The polls find that, in six swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona — Trump is highly competitive. He trails Joe Biden there by the narrowest of margins, and leads Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Normally, it is a mistake to overreact to the findings of a single poll. In general, an outlier result should only marginally nudge our preexisting understanding of where public opinion stands. This case is different. To see why, you need to understand two interrelated flaws in the 2016 polling. First, they tended to under-sample white voters without college degrees. And this made them especially vulnerable to polling misses in a handful of states with disproportionately large numbers of white non-college voters. The Times found several months ago that Trump might well win 270 Electoral College votes even in the face of a larger national vote defeat than he suffered in 2016.
Unfortunately the reality is that the white voters without college degrees are critical to Democrats winning in six six swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona. While we progressives might not like that reality — reality it is.
I don’t think Bloomberg is the answer — he’s perceived as a white privileged liberal from NYC. And yes you are right he’s being encouraged to run by the Democrats on Wall Street who are terrified of a Sanders or Warren win.
My candidate was always Sherrod Brown, a gravelly-voiced progressive from Ohio who tells it like it is, and strikes an acceptable progressive middle ground. Oh well the Senate couldn’t afford to loose him I guess.
It’s a bad thing when six states dominate our democracy, but until that changes I’m afraid a progressive candidate and agenda will have a hard time winning an election in the US, no matter if the majority of people in the US support them. Through the electoral college the scales are weighted towards minority rule.
