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Would Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren have defeated Trump in the election?

  • Yes, both would have also defeated Trump, he was going down no matter what

    Votes: 247 11.0%
  • No, Biden was the only candidate who could beat Trump

    Votes: 1,410 62.8%
  • Bernie would have won, Warren would have lost

    Votes: 367 16.3%
  • Warren would have won, Bernie would have lost

    Votes: 60 2.7%
  • I don't really care. Do you?

    Votes: 162 7.2%

  • Total voters
    2,246
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Oct 22, 2020
6,280
I think it's worth focusing on the high probability that Warren and Sanders would have both almost certainly won the popular vote over Trump.

There was basically no scenario where Trump was ever going to win the popular vote in this election. (Unless, I dunno, Gabbard or Delaney had won the primary?)

And yet, I think both would have probably still lost the Electoral College against him.

Just a truly fucked up, indefensible system we live under.
 

KDC720

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,322
Warren had absolutely no chance.

Bernie is a bit more complicated. I think he had a good chance in 2016, but I don't believe he would have won 2020. He relied on having the moderate vote split amongst 3 candidates (Biden, Mayor Pete, Klob) and once the moderates consolidated behind Biden his chances sunk considerably.

To be clear, I wanted either Bernie or Warren to win, and progressive policies are growing more and popular as time goes on which is good, but I don't think Bernie or Warren were good spokespeople for those policies. The progressive wing of the Dem party needs to find a candidate with Obama levels of charisma.
 

1.21Gigawatts

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,278
Munich
Not sure. On the one hand, I think Sanders would have had more enthusiastic support on the left while at the same time having broader appeal than Biden, even getting some votes on the right.
On the other hand, I don't know how susceptible centrist voters in the US would have been for smear campaigns against Sanders, especially when these same smears are repeated by the Democratic establishment.
Then again, Biden's huge turnout seems to have been mostly votes against Trump instead of votes for Biden and that phenomenon could have happened the same for Sanders.


But I am sure that the US needs to normalize genuine left-wing candidates because continuing to contrast far-right autocrats with center-right neoliberals will undoubtedly lead to the end of US democracy. In the history of democracy, I don't remember a single instance where anti-democratic extremists have been fended off by moderates who mostly represented corporate interests.

But if I am being honest, US democracy has been beyond saving for at least 20 years now.
 

RailWays

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
15,668
Bernie and Warren could have won imo, but it would likely have been by an even less margin. Even with an economic populist message there were a lot of closet Trumpers waiting to vote. Republican turnout and enthusiasm was at an all-time high. I think the one thing that is certain was that there was no easy win against Trump, regardless of the candidate.
 

plagiarize

Eating crackers
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
27,511
Cape Cod, MA
I believe both could have won. Whether they *would* have is impossible to say really. We don't know the campaign they'd have run.
 

Deleted member 2145

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
29,223
I do think Bernie would have had better messaging on the pandemic and hitting Trump there but who's to say what that would've done. man got almost 75m votes

2016 was Bernie's year, 2020 not so much

for Warren I don't think you could even squint and pretend she had a shot, her coalition just wasn't broad at all. I don't even think you could call it a coalition, it was just college educated white people.
 

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,760
At this point, I think anybody assuming how things would have played out is full of shit. We need to remember just how crazy 2020 was and how wildly different the messaging would have been from either Warren or Sanders during the pandemic, BLM protests and so on.
 

maxxpower

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,950
California
No, this country is shitty and center right at best. We are fucked forever and will never have free healthcare or higher education unless we have a revolution or if younger people turn out for the progressives. Though young white men are on that nazi kool aid so we can't count on them.
 

Ronnie Poncho

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,133
Sadly not. As much as it would be good for America to have Bernie or Warren as President, they didn't stand a chance.

Somehow the Orange Goblin increased his vote count despite everything, despite COVID, despite the corruption. Joe was the perfect choice to act as a 'revert to last save' option.
 

UltimateHigh

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,500
I think bernie could've won... I mean, it's possible. warren...no.

Biden was the best candidate at this moment, in terms of flipping surburbia voters and the like.

couldn't really make any sort of attack stick in their minds.
 

Tahnit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,965
The can of diet coke on my desk would have beaten Trump. /s.

But no really. ANYONE would have beaten Trump as democrats have had enough of him and these 4 years have been absolutely horrible. We were going to vote his ass out in droves regardless who it was and NO ONE from the left wanted 4 more years of this.
 

RailWays

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
15,668
for Warren I don't think you could even squint and pretend she had a shot, her coalition just wasn't broad at all. I don't even think you could call it a coalition, it was just college educated white people.
I think Warren is a weird case in that many Democrats like her (at least, as far as primary polling is concerned), but she was the first choice of very few. How that would have impacted a general election performance is hard to say.
 

CJSeven

Member
Oct 30, 2018
773
I voted no, but they would've only had to flip MI, PA, and WI, which was within the realm of possibility for either. However with that narrow of a victory, the last couple months would've been even more insane with overthrow attempts.
 

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,915
They might have taken the W but the margins would almost certainly be slimmer, which would have lent much needed credence to the GOP's attempts to reverse the results, and the down ballot results would have been even worse than what we got. If Bernie had run a better primary campaign and learned from the mistakes of 2016 I think there's a case to be made that he had a higher theoretical ceiling, but that didn't happen
 

lunarworks

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,128
Toronto
No, this country is shitty and center right at best. We are fucked forever and will never have free healthcare or higher education unless we have a revolution or if younger people turn out for the progressives. Though young white men are on that nazi kool aid so we can't count on them.
It's not "free healthcare", it's "universal healthcare". Language is important.
 

Geeker

Member
May 11, 2019
592
Before the election I would have predicted a narrow Bernie win and a narrow Warren loss.

After the election? It's depressingly clear Trump had far more support than we gave him credit for and only Biden could have pulled it off. Thank god for Joe Biden.

Agree with this. Trump's support was waaaay higher than anyone anticipated right up until election day
 

JigglesBunny

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
31,102
Chicago
Biden was the guy who got in and won because Biden was the only guy who could get in and win.

In a perfect world, we would have had Bernie, and it wouldn't have even been close. That being said, in a perfect world, nobody would have to run against Donald Trump for President because Donald Trump wouldn't even exist in that perfect world. Unfortunately for us all, we do not live in a perfect world.
 

Royalan

I can say DEI; you can't.
Moderator
Oct 24, 2017
11,943
Biden wasn't in my top 5 at the start of the primaries, but it became clear to me months in that he was likely the best shot.

For me, the writing on the wall was the Midwest and the WWC vote. Bernie's support did not hold up among this group compared to how he did in 2016. When he lost every single county in Michigan to Biden, the glamour was truly dispelled. Likewise with Elizabeth Warren, who was in my top 5 (top 3, actually), despite clinging on to make it to the early states, couldn't really put together a solid base that existed anywhere besides early polling.

Against Trump who, as we now know, was able to maintain his coalition despite everything, I don't think either Sanders or Warren would have stood a chance.

As weak as Biden looked at the start of the primaries, looking back, no other candidate really demonstrated the ability to hold the Obama coalition together which, until further notice, is still the model for Democratic victory.
 

Deleted member 2145

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
29,223
also I'm not sure Bernie would've lost Georgia. it's not like Biden was the driving force behind getting the vote out there, it was the BLM protests and on the ground activism.
 

ChaosZeroX

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,370
Honestly, an earlier post really killed it by mentioning "they couldn't even beat Biden". I love Bernie and Warren, but they had no chance at beating Trump.
 

Artdayne

Banned
Nov 7, 2017
5,015
Yeah, I'm sure Bernie's message about healthcare reform and economic populism would have totally bombed during a historic pandemic. /s
 

Deleted member 3896

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,815
No. I voted Warren and was a huge supporter and I prefer Sanders's policy positions overall compared to Biden's but he clearly was the best choice to defeat Trump who was even more entrenched in the minds of too many Americans than most of us thought.
 

Serpens007

Well, Tosca isn't for everyone
Moderator
Oct 31, 2017
8,127
Chile
I think that any Democratic candidate would have beaten Trump because of Covid, BLM protests and so much more that has happened, and the fact that the election perspective wasn't about how good Biden is, but that Trump had to be beaten at all costs.

Biden probably was a safer bet because of how he could reach to "moderates", while Bernie would have gotten socialism fearmongering so it would have been harder. Warren would have ended in between them I think. But again, since the whole election was about "we need to beat Trump", any of the main Democratic candidates would have done it.
 

Foffy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,379
No. This country falls consistently for false information and propaganda.

Half the country refuses to wear masks. Many think this election was stolen. Many were okay with a collapsing economy because Fox Business said how great it was for the elite.

This is the same awful fucking place that has treated school shootings as a normal way of life. Any candidate of sensibility and data is doomed. And even then, Biden, being the "centrist" he is, barely eked out what should have been a blowout.
 

fontguy

Avenger
Oct 8, 2018
16,152
Yes, but neither of them would have delivered Georgia or, pending the runoff results, the Senate.
 

The Climaxan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,971
NC-USA
I believe Bernie would have won in 2016. Trumpism hadn't completely set in at that point. 4 years later, the fear around "socialism" had grown to a fever pitch on the right and through the moderate left. That's why I believe Bernie and Warren fell so quickly in the primaries. In a world turned upside down, the vast majority of the populace yearns for normalcy. Biden is as normal as they come in the traditional american politics sense.
 

SwampBastard

The Fallen
Nov 1, 2017
11,016
If you would have asked me before the election, I would have said either of them could beat him handily. Having seen how things actually turned out, how many dumb motherfuckers STILL voted for Trump after his four years of trapping us in a waking nightmare, I don't think either of them would have been able to beat him.
 

Indiana Jones

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,177
Could AOC be that person?

By the time AOC is old enough to run for president she'll have been a Fox News villain for so long she'll be the new Hillary Clinton. Obama had the advantage of launching out of relative obscurity and the rightwing didn't take him seriously so they couldn't smear and define him in time to stall his momentum.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 31923

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 8, 2017
5,826
Sadly not. As much as it would be good for America to have Bernie or Warren as President, they didn't stand a chance.

Somehow the Orange Goblin increased his vote count despite everything, despite COVID, despite the corruption. Joe was the perfect choice to act as a 'revert to last save' option.

He increased his vote count, and that is depressing, but it was a high turnout election in 2020, and he didn't increase his vote margin by much. Trump got 46.1 percent of the vote in 2016 and 46.9 percent in 2020. That's effectively the same margin, plus third parties chewed up a lot more votes in 2016 than they did in 2020.
 

Powdered Egg

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
17,070
Whoever won the primary would have beaten Trump. Democratic voters organized and got out there as a rebuke of Trump.
 

Fhtagn

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,615
Bernie would have won with a larger margin because of his popularity with latino voters, and he would have won by a larger margin because he would have been vocal in public about actually helping people with their material conditions ($2000 a month back to the start of the pandemic) whereas Biden basically hid for the entire campaign and didn't offer anything other than platitudes.

Biden would have lost if not for the pandemic. (Won by a huge margin in popular vote, but a decisive loss in the electoral college, I mean.)
 

sibarraz

Prophet of Regret - One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
18,102
The election would have been over the second that Trump said "Commie Bernie" on one of his rallys
 

Thatonedice1

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,112
Working on that also.
I feel like alot of posts in this thread forget that Bernie was killing it early on and was the clear front runner after winning Nevada. It wasn't until all the other moderates started dropping out and endorsing Biden did Bernie's numbers start to falter a bit. Virginia was the big "Oh Biden has this" moment but I still think Bernie stood a chance after Virginia but covid was getting worse at the time and Bernie's campaign was receiving heavy criticism for not concedeing cause of covid. I think Bernie could have taken it to the convention.
 

Deusmico

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,254
the trump + gop coordinated attacks against "socialism" would made it almost impossible for those candidates.
 

iksenpets

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,486
Dallas, TX
I think Warren would've made the best president of the bunch, but looking at Biden's results, pretty sure she loses. She was always a bet that Trump had made himself so unelectable that the Dems really could swing more for the ideal than the electable, and that just wasn't true based on the vote Trump ended up getting.

I'm a bit less certain on Bernie, but I'd lean towards he also loses. He would have to make up a lot of votes to counter all the lapsed Republican suburbanites Biden managed to pull against Trump, most of whom would probably never pull the lever for Bernie.

You could look to young voters, but Bernie was never able to get a turnout surge from them in the primary, so it seems very hopeful to think he could've gotten it in the general. You could look to him poaching some number of anti-establishment blue-collar whites from Trump, but again, looking at the primary, Bernie's working-class white support evaporated pretty quickly against Biden, so it really starts to feel like Bernie's rep as a Rust Belt whisperer was just an illusion from running against Hillary. You could point to Biden's underwhelming Black turnout, but hard to see how Bernie fixes that when Biden trounced him in the Black vote. The best path is Bernie really did cream Biden in the Hispanic vote in the primary, but of the close states that Biden won through suburban votes, it seems like Arizona is the only one where that maybe gives you a road to make up the Biden votes you'd be losing.

Bernie almost certainly loses Georgia, and AZ/WI/PA would all seem to be at risk. And any heavily Hispanic states Biden lost seem equally out of reach for Bernie. Bernie probably does even worse with Florida Hispanics because of the socialist taboo among Cubans, and while maybe he could've reversed some of the weird disaster in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, it would've come at the cost of huge losses in way more populous areas in suburban Dallas and Houston.

I feel like alot of posts in this thread forget that Bernie was killing it early on and was the clear front runner after winning Nevada. It wasn't until all the other moderates started dropping out and endorsing Biden did Bernie's numbers start to falter a bit. Virginia was the big "Oh Biden has this" moment but I still think Bernie stood a chance after Virginia but covid was getting worse at the time and Bernie's campaign was receiving heavy criticism for not concedeing cause of covid. I think Bernie could have taken it to the convention.

Bernie's numbers didn't really falter though. He was always winning with ~30% of the vote against a divided field. Nevada was his best at 40%, which has its own weirdness since it's one of the last remaining caucus states. It was always a bet that he could win with a minority so long as the opposition was split, and there really wasn't a strategy for what to do if the moderates actually did coalesce behind a single candidate. That same 30-40% that could win in Nevada and feel like he was killing it against a half dozen challengers didn't mean much when Biden could reliably pull 60% to himself without the others distracting.
 
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iori9999

Member
Dec 8, 2017
2,294
Well I personally think Bernie could have won in 2016 and I do think Bernie had a legit shot this year as well. Granted I think the election would have been even more tight than if Biden were the candidate. What I do think puts Bernie over the top is that he would have done better with the Latino vote so he probably could have won a state like Florida and NC while probably losing Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Bernie would have won with a larger margin because of his popularity with latino voters, and he would have won by a larger margin because he would have been vocal in public about actually helping people with their material conditions ($2000 a month back to the start of the pandemic) whereas Biden basically hid for the entire campaign and didn't offer anything other than platitudes.

Biden would have lost if not for the pandemic. (Won by a huge margin in popular vote, but a decisive loss in the electoral college, I mean.)

Yeah I think he would have killed it with latino and asian voters but I do think he probably does worse with black and white voters so it evens out a bit. Most guys I know in the Detroit area liked Biden over Bernie.
 

PawPrints

Member
Oct 30, 2017
2,442
Bernie got a huge boost from the anti-Hillary crowd in the 2016 primaries. He would have been demolished by Trump.

Warren would probably have lost because men are terrible
 
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