May 5, 2016

Clinton has not won a fair contest in 6 weeks

Recently, Hillary supporters have argued that unfair closed primaries are a moot point — that if you only count open or semi-open/semi-closed contests, Clinton is still ahead. It was so hard to verify this data, (no major outlets seem to list results and the style of primary in one place) that I created my own spreadsheet. I deleted all the closed contests and indeed, as of May 5th, if you only count open contests, Clinton is still ahead, in both delegates, and human votes.

However, deleting the closed contests disregards possible outcomes. Who knows what would have happened? We’ll never know.

Here’s one thing we do know though: A simple data sort gave me this, and its worth noting… CLINTON HAS NOT WON AN OPEN CONTEST SINCE MARCH 15th.

That equates to national momentum for Sanders! And her biggest open contest delegate-haul … came on March 1st, over 2 months ago, when she won 147 delegates from Texas, a state that will almost definitely mean nothing to Democrats in the general election.

Consistent takeaway: Sanders is the strongest candidate against Trump and the most effective way to draw voter turnout — vital for down-ticket Democratic wins.

If either of those things are vital to you or the existence of the Republic, as so many seem to believe, you must support Bernie Sanders.

If fear of Trump is what the Democratic party thinks will motivate Sanders supporters to come to the polls, shouldn’t the Super-Delegates use that same logic to support the best candidate for the two-fold job of defeating Trump and getting people to the polls? Why in the world would you pit against the most disliked politician in history the second most disliked politician, when you quite clearly have the option of pitting against him one of the most liked, trusted and inspirational politicans of recent history?

The two most disliked presumptive-nominees/frontrunners in history.

It was noted on NPR after Tuesday’s primary, and reiterated on fivethirtyeight that if it’s Trump v Clinton, it will be an historic matchup for being the two most disliked nominees ever. Sounds like a gamble to me.