Hillary Clinton is winning among voters who don’t want Sanders’s revolution

Hillary Clinton is winning among voters who don’t want Sanders’s revolution

Courtesy: Greg Sargent- The Washington Post

In Nevada, more voters wanted to “generally continue Barack Obama’s policies” than wanted to “change to more liberal policies” by a 50-41 margin. Hillary Clinton won among that former group, by 75-22, while Sanders won among the latter group by 77-21.

A pattern is emerging: In Iowa, New Hampshire, and now Nevada, the data suggest that Clinton won overwhelmingly among those voters who want to continue Obama’s policies, while Sanders won overwhelmingly among those who want a decisive break from them in a more liberal direction.

As I and others have argued, Sanders’s candidacy is premised on a serious critique of the Obama years. In his telling, Barack Obama failed to deliver reforms commensurate with the epic scale of our challenges, because he failed to mobilize the grassroots to break oligarchic control of Congress and because establishment Democratic politicians continue to acquiesce in that oligarchic paralysis of our political system in any case, by accepting Wall Street and corporate contributions (and in Clinton’s case, Wall Street speaking fees).

 

Hillary Clinton agrees there is still a great deal of work to be done — wages are still stagnant; universal health care is unrealized; there still isn’t sufficient oversight and accountability for Wall Street; and so on. 

 As Vox’s Jeff Stein and Steve Benen both document, another key tell to emerge from the Nevada caucuses is that turnout among Democrats was down from 2008, just as it was in Iowa and New Hampshire. This casts some doubt on .

It should not be seen as radical, crazy, or beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse to run for president on the idea that a country as rich and great as this one should guarantee to everyone a minimally decent standard of living and a reasonable measure of opportunity — in the form of guaranteed quality health care, a guaranteed college education, and a guaranteed retirement with dignity.

But we are now entering a string of contests in which nonwhite voters will be decisive, and polling has shown that nonwhites think Clinton, not Sanders, is the candidate best equipped to bring “needed change” to Washington.