Bernie Sanders could be the next president

As bizarre as it may seem, an elderly socialist might win a national election, but we should all realize that it is now perfectly plausible that Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., May be the next president.

Although the campaign takes a lot of time and twists in the next 18 months, it comes down to two questions: Could there be a scenario in which Sanders will capture the Democratic candidacy? And if he does, could there be a scenario in which he would beat President Trump face to face? If you break down these questions independently, you have to answer yes to both.

Before going any further, it is worth getting rid of the question of plausibility – the idea that Sanders simply can not win because it would be too absurd. Since almost all professional analysts have said the same thing about the possibility of winning Trump, it is good to put aside such assumptions about what is "realistic" in modern politics and simply look at the possibility of his merit.

The argument for how Sanders could win the primary is quite simple. At this point in the 2016 cycle, Sanders was 55 points behind Hillary Clinton, and had made enough progress to make what was to be a crowning event a real race. One might be tempted to dismiss his performance as an emergence from a weak field as the main choice of those who wanted to fight the Clinton machine. And yet, four years later, in a much more populated group of younger and more diverse candidates, Sanders is still among the top two.

Currently, in the average RealClearPolitics, he ranks second, at 22.8%, behind Vice President Joe Biden, who leads with an average of 28.8%. The next closest candidate is Senator Kamala Harris, who does not even stand out. He nearly tied with Biden in Iowa and conducted several polls in New Hampshire. Given that Biden has already been forced to apologize repeatedly for various aspects of his file and that he has been pushed to respond to accusations of inappropriate contacts with women, he must at a minimum be considered as a very vulnerable candidate.

Although many rivals have discussed Sanders' positions on issues such as health care and the competition for the far left is more lively, he is still loyal. His strong fundraising operation of the last time has spilled over into this campaign, since he announced he had raised $ 18 million in the first quarter. He will have a lot of money to play and unlike the last time, he will not have to spend it to try to make himself known.

Sanders' greatest vulnerability was the last time with older Democratic voters (usually more centrist) and minority groups. If he loses the candidacy again, those voters will likely be his loss. That said, there will also be more candidates running for minority voters this time, when the race will eventually be binary. This could benefit Sanders. In the 2016 primaries, Trump showed how beneficial it could be, in an overpopulated world, to bring together a group of passionate fans to run for office, even though the rest of the party was slow to warm up for someone to call. a challenge the establishment.

The bottom line is that it's hard to say, in a vast area where anything could happen, that it would be impossible for any of the main candidates to capture the candidacy .

If Sanders ran in the general election, it would be even harder to assume that he would be toasted. Even if the Republicans salivate in the face of a declared socialist, the ultimate goal is that the United States is still a two-party system and a candidate of one of the major parties. always has the chance to win. In a general election, people tend to fall mainly into party splits. It is therefore difficult to imagine that minority voters who would have preferred other candidates in the Democratic primary would stay at home if Sanders was the nominee. This is particularly true in the case of Trump, historically unpopular. In the hypothetical clashes at the general election, Sanders beat Trump by almost nine points on average.

If I had to put money in for Sanders to be the next president, would I? Probably not. But I would not feel comfortable with a large sum of money against him either.