Bernie Sanders would have won running as an Independent

Pro makes two claims: that Bernie Sanders would have won the presidency on an independent ticket and that Sanders could still win as a write-in candidate. The first claim is unprovable speculation, of course. Con will concede a non-zero chance that Sanders might have won the presidency given the unpredictable mood of the 2016 season, but polling numbers and electoral history overwhelmingly suggest that an independent Sanders run would have finished a strong third while virtually guaranteeing a Trump win. To Con's advantage, Pro will have to prove significantly more than a mere non-zero chance to support his unqualified assertion. However, Pro's second claim is easily dismissed as false and ignorant of the laws governing write-in candidacies, so let's take that argument off the table first: even if every single eligible voter who has not already voted now voted for Bernie Sanders, Sanders would not be President. 1) 9 states do not permit write-in candidates, making 54 electoral unattainable by write-in. 2) 34 states allow write-ins so long as a candidate has registered as a write-in candidate in that state. The deadline for registration has now passed in all 34 states, so while Sir Cookie Zealot, Dirty Cockroach, and Uncle Touchy the Pedophile Serial Killer Clown are registered and could theoretically win some electoral votes in some states, Sanders has missed the cut-off and is ineligible. That takes 417 electoral votes out of play and effectively makes write-ins for Sanders in those states the same as not voting. [1] 3) 7 states have no registration requirement for write-ins, qualifying Sanders for a maximum attainable electoral vote count of 67. [2] So, if every eligible voter wrote-in Sanders between now and Nov. 8th, the most substantive result Sanders might accomplish is a non-decision in which no candidate achieves a 270 majority of electoral votes. By law, such a non-decision would be referred to the House of Representatives who must choose a President from the top 3 candidates with the most electoral votes. Assuming Trump is among those top 3 and current Republican commitments hold, the Republican majority would elect Trump for president. Sanders, of course, understands that a renewed candidacy at this point could only guarantee a result less favorable to his ideology and constituency, reinforcing the impossibility of such a scenario. With Pro's second assertion refuted, let's return to Pro's less impossible but nevertheless profoundly unlikely assertion, Sanders would have won on an independent ticket. Pro needs to clarify whether we're talking about an independent run without having ever run as a Democrat or after Sander's defeat on the ticket, although either scenario weakens Pro case. Keep in mind that in early 2015, Sanders had a relatively low national profile. One PPP poll from January 2015 had Sanders support among likely Democratic voters at 2% [3] and scant name recognition by non-white and non-democratic voters. Elizabeth Warren had 5 times as much support in that same poll. What launched Sanders as a political force was his viability as an anti-Hillary vote beginning in the summer of 2015. As a second-place democrat, Sanders enjoyed tremendous media coverage that a third party independent candidate could not have hoped for. As Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson noted in August, "70% of Americans still don't know who I am." Sanders himself acknowledged in March that he had to run as Democrat to become famous: "In terms of media coverage, you have to run within the Democratic Party." He then took a dig at MNSBC, telling [Chuck] Todd, the network "would not have me on his program" if he ran as an independent. Money also played a role in his decision to run as a Democrat. "To run as an independent, you need " you could be a billionaire," he said. "If you're a billionaire, you can do that. I'm not a billionaire. So the structure of American politics today is such that I thought the right ethic was to run within the Democratic Party." [4] As an independent candidate, Sanders would not have enjoyed the narrative of the surging underdog throughout the primary season. There would have been no weekly election nights, no caucus victories and upsets, no TV speeches after each vote, no Sunday morning talk shows. If Pro wants to make the case that Sanders could have won without first running as a Democrat, he must show evidence that the media would have offered Sanders far more visibility than the typical third party candidate, certainly better than Gary Johnson who, currently polling at 7% nationally, is considered an unusually successful 3rd party candidate. Certainly, Pro must show that an independent Sanders, minus the media and momentum of last Spring would still have garnered the 15% of the vote by September necessary to earn a place on the debate stage and then establish that Sanders could have done much better than his primary debates vs Clinton, which were generally seen as ties or Clinton wins. On the other hand, if Pro asserts that Sanders could have successfully switched to an independent run after failing to win the Democratic nod, Pro must demonstrate how he could overcome the anti-spoiler backlash and the consolidation of the anti-Trump vote. Remember that by convention time 90% of Sanders supporters were voting for Clinton and well-known Sanders supporter Sarah Silverman publicly scolded the Bernie-or-die movement, "You're being ridiculous," to general applause, demonstrating a significant shift in support. [5] Keep in mind that Sander's polls were already trending downward in the last month of the campaign indicating an increasing disapproval of Sanders as a distractionfor the general campaign. [6]. While it's difficult to predict how many supporters Sanders could have retained, we can be confident that his negative numbers would have increased significantly at the very time he needed to make his appeal to the more general electorate this summer. Con speculates that Sanders' popularity in his role as Naderesque spoiler might have dropped even lower than his potential popularity as third party outsider. In short, Pro's case can't present the Sanders of today as a potential candidate because such a candidate would not exist: he would either be a lesser known outsider representing the left-wing of the left-wing or well-known sore loser with significant resistance from the Democratic core. Either way, Pro must demonstrate that he could have overcome to achieve 15% support in time for the debates and near 50% by voting time, garnering a minimum 270 electoral votes. Con doesn't argue such an achievement would be impossible but certainly nearly impossible and with no precedent in American History. There is at least one more important argument which Con can address in the second round: Sanders' success in the Spring was predicated on anti-establishment and anti-Hillary sentiment, which freed Sanders from having to sell his own platform or face heavy opposition research. Con will contend that by both these measures, Sanders' support in the General election would be significantly diminished. I look forward to Pro's more detailed argument in the second round. [1] http://presidentials.mytimetovote.com... [2] https://ballotpedia.org... [3] http://www.publicpolicypolling.com... [4] http://www.politico.com... [5] https://www.google.com... [6]http://www.realclearpolitics.com...