a future to believe in

zvezda je zivot wrote:

Yes, how odd. https://t.co/sOQWJ512vh

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 4, 2020

sta je forumski konsenzus o voren? kazite sta mislite. ako jos cekate da formirate misljenje, to je isto okej.

This is the stupidest thing that has ever aired on television. Congratulations to all involved. pic.twitter.com/vARi9yQ0Bv

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 6, 2020

Gargantua wrote:

This is the stupidest thing that has ever aired on television. Congratulations to all involved. pic.twitter.com/vARi9yQ0Bv

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 6, 2020

I'm a 29-year-old black woman who cares about m4a, education, childcare, and stronger safety nets for every American. I support Bernie Sanders in getting us there. I ALSO think he's fumbled the bag a bit. I'm bored, so here's a thread of things I think he needs to improve upon.

— Ashley Reese (@offbeatorbit) March 6, 2020

VOX - Bernie Sanders promised to bring in younger voters. It’s not happening so far.

When Sen. Bernie Sanders talks about his presidential campaign, he emphasizes that it’s a movement — the start of a “political revolution,” which he says will drive typically apathetic voters, particularly the young, to turn out and vote.

But if Super Tuesday was anything to go by, Sanders’s political revolution isn’t happening — and it’s former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, or perhaps general opposition to President Donald Trump, that seems to be driving turnout.

Consider Texas: According to NBC News’s exit polls, the Democratic electorate actually skewed older in Tuesday’s primary compared to past primaries. In 2008 and 2016, 13 and 18 percent of the electorate, respectively, was 65 and older. In 2020, it was 24 percent.

Texas is getting older, but not at a rapid enough rate for that increase to be tied solely to state demographic trends. In fact, the share of the population that’s 65 and older is just 12.6 percent. Given Biden’s strength with this group of Texas voters — 46 percent support Biden, while just 16 percent support Sanders — that surge in older voters helps explain Biden’s narrow victory in the state.
It seems like Texas wasn’t an outlier. Domenico Montanaro at NPR found that, from the start of the primary elections to Super Tuesday, we just haven’t seen a surge in younger voters:

Before Tuesday, voters younger than 30 were not keeping pace with the overall increase in voter turnout. In fact, young voters’ share of the electorate went down in three of the first four states compared with 2016.

On Tuesday night, not a single state saw an increase in young voters’ share of the electorate, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research and sponsored by several of the television networks.

It’s really hard to overstate how bad this is for Sanders. It’s not just that his campaign relies on these voters, although it does. It’s that a core driving philosophy of his campaign is that he will inspire a political revolution, one led, in particular, by a surge in young voters. That’s how he has envisioned defeating Trump in November. If that’s not happening, then how is the Sanders campaign a movement at all?

Political analyst Dave Wasserman put it in blunt terms on Tuesday: “Sanders’s pledge to bring new voters into his movement seems fairly empty in the results we’re seeing so far. His coalition has shrunk since 2016, not grown. That’s not to say it’s all bad. On Tuesday, Sanders did win in Vermont, Colorado, and Utah, and, as of Wednesday morning, he has a significant lead in California. He has made inroads with Latin voters, who fondly call Sanders “Tío Bernie.”

But just winning a few states isn’t enough here. Sanders has promised that his campaign would bring all sorts of new voters into the Democratic Party. And so far it seems to be struggling to do so.

CNN

Super Tuesday was not so super for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. He lost most of the states up for grabs, and it's quite possible that he'll end up with fewer delegates on the evening than chief rival former Vice President Joe Biden.

Sanders' struggles reflect an inability to connect with older voters, while at the same time failing to generate large youth turnout.
We saw a very familiar age gap across the Super Tuesday states. Sanders crushed it with younger voters. Looking across all the contests with an exit poll, Sanders won an astounding 61% to Biden's 17% among voters under 30 years old. He even beat Biden by 20 points (43% to 23%) among those between 30 years old and 44 years old.

Sanders, however, struggled mightily with older voters. Biden won by 22 points (42% to 20%) with voters 45 years old to 64 years old. With senior citizens (those 65 years and older), Sanders managed to come in third with 15% (behind Biden's 48% and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's 19%). Now you might be tempted to look at those numbers and see that Sanders won those under 45 years old by more than he lost those 45 years and older.

The problem for Sanders is the under 45 group make up a smaller piece of the pie. In no Super Tuesday state with an exit poll did those under 45 years old make up more than 42% of voters. Those under 45 years old were just 35% of the electorate in the median state.

The lack of younger voters in the electorate is, of course, usually the case. Those under 45 years old make up the minority of Democratic primary voters in 2016 as well. Sanders' theory of the case, though, is his that candidacy can generate youth turnout.

The lack of strong youth turnout didn't stop Sanders from his big win Nevada earlier this month. Unfortunately for Sanders, he did 4 points, 6 points and 7 points worse on Super Tuesday compared to Nevada among those 18-29 years old, 30-44 years old and 45-64 years old respectively. He actually did 3 points better among seniors on Super Tuesday than in Nevada, but Biden more than compensated for that by doing 19 points better with those 65 years and older.

Indeed, Biden did better in every age category on Tuesday compared to Nevada as he became the clear alternative to Sanders.
Going forward, the math is simple enough for Sanders. He's either gotta win more votes from those voters who regularly turn out, or he'll need to bring more young people to the polls. Failure to do so will result in a Biden nomination.