Bernie can't possibly beat Hillary in unfavorability

[thesquanderer]

Based on the new Quinnipiac poll:

Even if absolutely EVERYONE who "hasn't heard enough" about Sanders to have a strong opinion decides they dislike him (which realistically is an impossibly bad scenario), his unfavorable would go from 35% to 54%... that's STILL less than the number of people who already have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton.

It's very hard to move favorable/unfavorable feelings once people have them, especialy in the short term. (For example, I think it's pretty apparent that, no matter what else comes their way, virtually no Hillary or Bernie supporters here will EVER look at their preferred candidate unfavorably between now and November.) Realistically, the only way these numbers move substantially between now and election day is by converting the people who haven't yet heard enough to have a strong feeling one way or the other.... so it's a safe bet that Bernie is always going to have the electability advantage of better Favorables than Hillary.

Heck, he already has more favorables than Hillary (44% to 39%), and he still has a pool of 19%-21% to try to win over, whereas Hillary only has about 3%-5% left who are potentially easily open to persuasion.

Here are the numbers:

SANDERS:
Favorable 44%
Unfavorable 35%
Hvn't hrd enough 19%
REFUSED 2%

CLINTON:
Favorable 39%
Unfavorable 56%
Hvn't hrd enough 3%
REFUSED 2%

poll at: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us02052016_Ust53w.pdf

[HooptieWagon]

1. I don't think anyone has been elected with unfavorables that high.

And 25 years in the national spotlight, she's not going to change those numbers much, except for the worse.

[roguevalley]

2. I've never seen anyone win with those negatives

[Dragonfli]

3. She can't win the general with those numbers

but she will still prosper financially if she beats Sanders in the primary. The people that have made her rich would still prosper if she loses to a Republican maybe even more so than if their sponsorship of her resulted in her winning, so she will be rewarded for keeping a threat (Sanders) out. She will continue to accrue wealth either way.

JMO

[thesquanderer]

4. She could still win in November...

...because it's possible that the Republican candidate can end up with even more unfavorables than she has. They have a very weak bunch over there.

But I'd rather be in the position of not having to count on people hating the other candidate "even more."