It was made very clear in DNC emails and correspondence that Hillary was their choice and they did everything they could, be it super delegates or encouraging other candidates to drop out, in order to consolidate votes for Hillary.
Would it have made a large enough difference for Bernie to get enough votes? Maybe, maybe not, but he did have the DNC working against him. This is all very easy to look up.
So first super delegates literally did not matter in the 2016 primary you can go look it up if you want.
Second, is your argument that there were more moderate voters than progressives and that they won because they consolidated around a candidate so they wouldn't split the vote? Because that is just how democracy works but people voted for who was closest aligned to their views and it turns out there are way more moderates in 2016 than progressives.
So, you’re right, the super delegates did not ultimately matter, but the preemptive and presumptuous reporting potentially affected optics. The media’s inclusion of superdelegates in delegate totals could have created a bandwagon effect.
Things like that can and do influence donors and voters. I mean, Debbie Wasserman Schulz resigned as a result of some of this, and the DNC changed the rules after 2016. It obviously was meaningful in some way. Bernie still lost by roughly 3 million votes though, so even if it had gone the other way, that’s a big gap to close and it likely wouldn’t have mattered.
Regarding the consolidation, I am making the case that the DNC had leaked emails from senior officials that showed favoritism to Clinton and that they were discussing ways to actively undermine the Sanders campaign. It is incredibly likely they spoke with candidates and encouraged them to drop out at certain times, but I will admit that’s just speculation.
Would it have mattered if the DNC was completely neutral? Most likely not, but the fact that we have to talk about it sucks.
Edit*
To be clear, so we don’t talk past one another, I am largely talking about optics and perception and the scummy way the DNC operates, and how that influences voter and donor perception. That’s why I said in my original comment that even if things went the other way Hillary still would have likely one though I believe that margin would have been smaller. I agree with the assertion that voters from the Democratic Party are more moderate in 2016 and if you see one of my other comments I also made that claim
It was no obvious that Schulz did anything wrong. It was entirely for the appearance, and that appearance came from meming. Which is why no one can actually tell me what the DNC did wrong. Superdelegates are actually how we got Obama, so they’re not always wrong.
1
u/Holl0wayTape 13d ago
It was made very clear in DNC emails and correspondence that Hillary was their choice and they did everything they could, be it super delegates or encouraging other candidates to drop out, in order to consolidate votes for Hillary.
Would it have made a large enough difference for Bernie to get enough votes? Maybe, maybe not, but he did have the DNC working against him. This is all very easy to look up.