Did the New York Times just stealth-endorse Bernie Sanders for president?
The New York Times editorial board is up today with an opinion piece that one would have to go out of the way not to read as an endorsement of Bernie Sanders as the Democrat most likely to deliver victory in November.
The board didn’t write “vote Bernie Sanders” or explicitly call ‘take-backs’ on their January 30 endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the piece. But the editorial cites an awful lot of polling data about Democrats’ prospects for the fall, and none of it is favorable to Clinton.
A particularly eye-popping number was the 9 percent of Sanders’ millennial voters who would vote for Trump rather than Clinton in the fall — a potential 18 point swing away from the Democrats in the demo–unless Sanders gets the nomination. Add that to the 20 percent of younger voters in his camp who would simply stay home if Sanders loses, a statistic also cited, and it’s pretty hard to escape the strong hint that the Vermont senator is the Dem’s best chance for ‘Holding on to New Voters in November,” the editorial’s title.
The Times emphasizes the fact that low turnout favors Republicans and also points to the ugly campaign Clinton is vulnerable to from Trump in the fall:
“Some Democrats may assume Mr. Trump will be easy to defeat if he is the Republican nominee, but to think that way is reckless. If Mrs. Clinton wins the nomination, Mr. Trump, the Republican who will say anything, can be expected to attack her long record and run an ugly campaign — as he has against his Republican rivals — that could prove persuasive to some.”
The editorial comes one day after a Bloomberg poll showed Sanders passing Clinton nationally for the first time, after steadily gaining through the spring, as more voters learned more about him. the Vermont senator spoke to 15,000 people at Seattle’s Safeco field Friday, as crowds continue to throng to guaranteed hours-long waits in the lines that precede all of his rallies.
“As Mr. Obama said in a closed-door meeting of Democratic donors this month, party leaders will need to unite soon, and figure out how to bring new voters to the polls,” the piece concludes.
If Superdelegates were created as a “thumb on the scale” system to prevent Democrats from nominating a weak candidate who threatens the party’s chances in the fall, it couldn’t be more clear at this moment that Clinton is the one Democrats need to be worried about.
Related: If Trump and Clinton are the best we can do, Go home, Democracy, you’re drunk
NYTimes Editorial: Holding on to New Voters in November
