In the midst of the 2020 election season, let’s take a brief trip back in time to the 1972 election season.
Almost a half century ago, a very large number of Democratic candidates emerged to take on a Republican President running for his second term. The President’s reputation for unethical behavior made him a possible target despite a strong economy. The Democratic field included a former Vice-President, a centrist establishment preference, the first minority woman to run for a major party nomination, multiple Senators, multiple Governors, and multiple Mayors.
A far-left Senator took full advantage of both the ensuing chaos and recent rules changes in the Democratic nomination process. These rules changes had been largely led by that same Senator after his failed attempt to win the nomination four years prior. The Senator mobilized an enthusiastic grass-roots base of young voters by calling for single-payer health care and income equality. This base won him good placement in many early-state caucuses and primaries. These, in turn, managed to push many of his competitors out of contention even before much of the nation had a chance to weigh in.
Sounds just a tad familiar to this point, huh?
Spoiler Alert: That Senator, George McGovern, did eventually win the Democratic nomination of a divided party over Hubert Humphrey, Ed Muskie, and many others. McGovern then proceeded to lose 49 states to Richard Nixon in the general election. Concurrently, the McGovern-led ticket caused Democrats to lose twelve seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.
To be sure, the political landscape has changed significantly since the 1970s. Given today’s polarization, Senator Bernie Sanders would be in no danger whatsoever of losing the solidly Democratic states in the general election. California and New York won’t vote for Trump under any circumstances. In fact, recent polls suggest that Sanders could well win the nationwide popular vote over Trump. Unfortunately, that’s not how we elect a President. The Electoral map paints an entirely different picture.
Indeed, as I noted in my previous post, most states simply aren’t in-play this year. There are only eleven states that matter at all. Only four of those are true toss-ups (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona) and another seven states lean Democratic but aren’t slam-dunks.
Early head-to-head polling of a Sanders vs. Trump contest in the above states is sparse and, at this point, undoubtedly favors Sanders. Trump hasn’t yet concentrated his fire on an individual Democrat and, in a possible indication of his preferred opponent, Trump has largely stayed away from directly attacking Sanders.
That said, the existing polls do have Sanders ahead in nine of the eleven in-play states, with Trump ahead in only Wisconsin and Arizona. The problem is that even this extremely rosy picture isn’t quite rosy enough. Adding just Wisconsin and Arizona to the states I’ve already conceded to Trump gives him 270 Electoral votes – which is exactly enough to win the election.
Trump’s current base would likely be very motivated to turn out against Sanders. The Republican campaign script in the swing states is pretty clear: Sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist running to be President of the world’s leading capitalist democracy; Sanders himself is a multi-millionaire with three houses – which makes him more of a hypocrite than a socialist; Sanders had recent heart issues but won’t release his medical records after promising he would; Sanders hasn’t a clue how to pay for Medicare-For-All nor how to deal with the economic hit we’d take by killing the health insurance industry; etc.
Another big concern is the probable impact of a Sanders-led ticket on down-ballot races. The fact that Republicans will mostly find themselves defending Trump is a Democratic advantage that is neutered if Democratic candidates find themselves having to defend Sanders. At the moment, Democrats are favored to keep the House and Republicans are favored to keep the Senate. A Sanders-led ticket makes the House a much tighter picture and puts the Senate completely out of reach. And, of course, there are tons of state and local races that would be similarly impacted.
Yes, it’s possible that Trump’s base would be slightly diminished given Trump’s many ethical lapses. It’s possible that Democrats would come together to fully support a Sanders candidacy. It’s possible that Sanders’ VP selection wouldn’t repeat McGovern’s Eagleton/Shriver disaster. It’s possible that the Democratic base would be motivated to turn out to vote against Trump even if they’re not thrilled with Sanders. It’s possible that Sanders’ enthusiastic base would bring out enough new Democratic voters in the key states to overcome Trump’s enthusiastic base. It’s possible that I just bought a $70M lottery ticket.
It’s still too early in the primary season to panic. Despite the media’s attempt to crown Sanders as the nominee, only 2.5% of the Democratic delegates have been selected to-date. However, if history continues to repeat itself, Sanders could win the nomination. If so, my best guess is that Sanders would lose the Electoral College by a much smaller margin than McGovern did – but he’d still lose. And he’d take a whole lot of people with him.
“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
– Winston Churchill, 1948