Dan Lipka Web Log

Four years ago, Trump ran for President as a radical, pushing his message as far right as possible. All of the mainstream Republican politicians and newspapers said he would never make it, said they would never support him, and that he would get crushed in the general election. However, he steamrolled the nomination, beating out a terrible array of mainstream Republicans (Seriously, Ted Cruz was a top opponent). During the primaries, all of the candidates attacked each other, but once Trump was selected, they all supported their party's candidate. Now, Bernie Sanders is doing the exact same thing on the left. He is pushing radical progressive policies, some of which don't make any sense (the odds of passing medicare-for-all (and eliminating all private insurance), is just as likely as Mexico paying for the wall).  But Bernie's message (and personality) is connecting with democratic voters in a big way.  It looks like he will easily win the most delegates from the states, al

The traditionally political theory has been that a politician wants to maintain their base and get as many undecided/independent voters as possible, but perhaps this is missing a much larger potential block of voters. Roughly 43 percent of eligible voters didn't bother filling out a ballot in 2016, according to turnout estimates from the U.S. Elections Project. The overall number doesn't really matter given the electoral college (I understand why people don't bother to vote in states that lean heavily one way or the other). But even in swing states, like Florida, 25% of eligible voters don't show up to vote. If Hillary Clinton would have gotten just 5% of non-voters to vote for her, she would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and North Carolina (more than enough to win the election). So who doesn't vote? The largest segment are young people (18-29), followed by minorities .  These potential voters might not care about policy, but what type of