This seemingly obvious statement has been disreputed by two groups of political loyalists - Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters. Trump's supporters, who view Donald as some sort of God who has never put a foot wrong, find it laughable that a 'communist' Independent politician could defeat their dear leader. As for people who would bow down at the feet of Hillary Clinton - you'll be able to find them by the use of their #StillWithHer Twitter hashtag - prefer to use the rather childish defence of "WE WON! YOU LOST!"(although Hillary has now lost twice during a major election) in order to suggest Sanders would have suffered the same fate as Clinton during the 2016 General Election.
The pollster in question, Tony Fabrizio, made the claim while speaking at a Harvard University Institute of Politics event, "There's no question that if it had been anybody other than Clinton or anybody other than Trump, that the race wouldn't be as close as it was either way," Fabrizio claimed. "It would not have been."
Mr. Fabrizio went on further to suggest what would happen in the event of a Sanders-Trump election, claiming, "I think Sanders beats Trump." Fabrizio continued, "I think Sanders would have had the ability to reach a lot of the less than college-educated, low-income white voters."
Now, this is where the aforementioned Hillary Clinton supporters interject to claim "see, Bernie is only popular among white males and low minority support would lead to him losing", this is categorically false in a number of ways.
Firstly, Bernie Sanders has a 73% approval rating among African-Americans, a 68% approval rating within the Hispanic community and a 62% within the Asian-American community, so his approval rating among white people must be above 73%, right? Well, no. Sanders' approval rating among white people sits at just 52%, which shows that Hillary supporters are wrong in this instance as they use Race as a political token.
Here's where the goalposts are moved with regards to Bernie Sanders popularity, it is no longer simply 'white people' he is only popular among, but solely white males. This, however, just like the Race talking point, does not hold any ground as Sanders has an approval rating of 58% among women and 55% among men. Not much of a difference I know but it still exposes this flawed argument.
Another extremely important reason as to why Bernie Sanders would have beaten Donald Trump is the vast dislike of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama within former towns and cities which lost large numbers of jobs due to the outsourcing that occurred as Former President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) into law. NAFTA is one of the main reasons that Middle America is hurting and largely voted for, what they thought, was the populist candidate who would bring their jobs back and improve their States - Donald Trump.
To further emphasise Fabrizio's and progressives claim that Sanders would have emerged victorious in 2016, RealClearPolitics conducted polls on this very subject. RCP found that Sanders would not only defeat Trump, but destroy him by an average of ten points and 49.7% of the vote compared to Trump's 39.4%. I mean, even Fox News projected that Sanders would be victorious by a margin of four points.. FOX NEWS! Sanders had even reached 54.8% of the vote a few months before and has been seen as America's most popular politician ever since.
Progressives and supporters of Bernie Sanders have been making this claimed ever since Trump emerged victorious last year and now have the evidence to back up their claims. Venture over to Centrist Social Media and you'll be met with "Bernie isn't even a Democrat!" or "If he would have won, why did he lose to Clinton?" The funny thing being, this is said as if it even matters. Whether or not Sanders has a (D) next to his name or he lost the primary to the candidate the DNC favoured the most, he is still the most popular politician in America and would have been Donald Trump, it isn't even debatable.
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