Atlantic: There's little evidence that many Democrats would join Sarandon.
Setting aside the polemic, however, is Sarandon especially representative? Polls consistently show Clinton leading Sanders nationally, and more votes have been cast for her in the primary so far. In a tight election, though, a bloc of Democrats who refused to vote for Clinton or crossed over could cost her a win. Are there really “a lot” of people who support Sanders now but who, given a choice between Clinton and Trump, would either sit on their hands or pull the lever for Trump?
The answer is almost certainly no.
For example, take a Quinnipiac poll released last week. In that poll, 78 percent of Democrats said they had a favorable view of Sanders. But 80 percent had a favorable view of Clinton. Now, more had an unfavorable view of Clinton than of Sanders—15 to 9—but that doesn’t suggest there’s a huge groundswell of anti-Clinton Democrats.
The latest CBS News/New York Times poll suggests something similar. There’s a definite enthusiasm gap between Clinton and Sanders. Forty percent of Democrats said they were “enthusiastic” about a Sanders candidacy, versus just 34 percent who felt the same way about Clinton. But add in the number who say they’d be satisfied with Clinton and the gap shrinks to almost nothing: 81 percent would be enthusiastic or satisfied with Sanders, while 79 percent feel the same way about Clinton. (And that’s with a +/-4.5 percent sampling error.)
The Republican Party is encountering a parallel dynamic with the #NeverTrump movement, but it looks far more real. In the same CBS/NYT poll, a full 20 percent of Republicans said they’d be actively dissatisfied with a Trump candidacy, and 35 percent said they’d want a Republican to run as a third-party candidate against him in a general election. Other surveys have found even higher totals. Some political scientists maintain, based on past experience, that many of these people will rally around the eventual nominee even if it’s Trump, thanks to the polarized partisan climate.
In any case, there’s no polling to suggest any such groundswell on the Democratic side. Of course, you don’t have to go very far back to remember something akin to what Sarandon is describing in the Democratic Party—but last time around, it was in support of Clinton, not against her. The PUMAs (“People United Means Action” or, by some accounts, “Party Unity My Ass”) were such diehard Clinton supporters that they flatly refused to support the upstart Barack Obama eight years ago. So how did that turn out in 2008? Obama cruised to victory with the highest popular vote total in U.S. history, and a nearly 10 million vote lead over Senator John McCain. Sarandon is feeling the Bern, but perhaps there’s more heat than light to her claims about Sandersistas sitting 2016 out.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/susan-sarandon-bernie-sanders/475875/
= new reply since forum marked as read
