Within both parties, there was an anti-establishment candidate against one/two establishment candidates.
On the democratic side, we had Bernie Sanders (anti-establishment) vs Hillary Clinton (establishment).
On the republican side, we had Donald Trump (anti-establishment) vs primarily Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio (establishment).
Both of these primaries were competitive, especially the democratic one (Trump was dominating pretty strongly throughout in contrast to Hillary Clinton). They were divisive not just between parties, but they were also divisive within the parties.
A lot of people, particularly in the mainstream media, criticized Bernie Sanders for creating such a divisive primary on the democratic side, saying it would lead to Clinton losing, and now partially blaming him for her loss. After all, if Bernie didn't run, Hillary Clinton would have easily one the democratic primary, and maybe there wouldn't have been such opposition to her from the progressive wing of the democratic party. Maybe she would've gotten more votes.
However, I don't agree with this narrative that a competitive and divisive primary is necessarily a bad thing. This primary was actually not particularly divisive compared to 2008. In June of 2008, only 60% of Clinton supporters said they'd vote for Obama if he became the nominee in a CNN poll. In exit polls in May 2008, only half said they'd support Obama as the nominee.
In contrast, in June of 2016, a poll early in the month found 55% of Bernie supporters planned on backing Hillary. A poll later in the month found that 85% planned on backing her. The first poll was done by Bloomberg Politics and includes 750 likely voters, while the other one was done by Pew Research Center and included 2,245 adults over phone.
So, it seems like the second poll is more reputable, which would suggest that Bernie supporters were far more likely to come around to supporting the nominee than Hillary's supporters in 2008 at the same time during the election.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/06/exit-polls-half-of-clintons-supporters-wont-back-obama/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/08/clinton.voters/
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-22/nearly-half-of-sanders-supporters-won-t-support-clinton
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/12/sanders-supporters-clinton-vote-survey
In 2008, the media was also saying the democratic party was deeply divided. But in the end, the democrats still won, even though that primary was actually more divided according to polls.
Those are just polls, though. Since the election has happened, we can actually compare the amount of Bernie supporters who voted for Clinton vs Hillary supporter who voted for Barack Obama.
I can't find any statistics about that, though. Does anyone happen to have any?
Either way, I think we can establish based on that that a rough primary doesn't destroy a candidate in the general election. Even if it did hurt the candidate, is there really a solution to that? Are we supposed to never primary any candidate? If one candidate wins steadily with no competition, what leverage do we have to improve that candidate? How can the party move forward without primary competition?
The primaries aren't why Hillary Clinton lost, and neither is it because James Comey re-opened the FBI investigation. Yes, Hillary Clinton was trending ahead until then, and then Trump started to make a comeback after the investigation re-opened.
But that doesn't address the underlying issue. How the hell was this election so close in the first place?! Why did the simple re-opening of an investigation swing the election towards Donald Trump, who's absolutely horrible?
The underlying issues are core to the democratic party and the way politics is run in general. People didn't like Hillary Clinton because she represented the establishment, just like pretty much all politicians who ran did. People don't like the establishment. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are both anti-establishment, which was why the primary on the democratic side was so competitive and why Trump won on the republican side.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/02/us/politics/money-in-politics-poll.html?_r=0
66% say wealthy have more influence.poll wrote:Thinking about United States elections, do you think all Americans have an equal chance to influence the elections process, or do you think wealthy Americans have more of a chance to influence the elections process than other Americans?
84% of Americans said money has too much influence. Just like the bipartisan nature of the rise of anti-establishment candidates during the primaries, disdain with the establishment (corruption) is bipartisan.poll wrote:Thinking about the role of money in American political campaigns today, do you think money has too much influence, too little influence or is it about right?
55% say most.poll wrote:How often do you think candidates who win public office promote policies that directly help the people and groups who donated money to their campaigns — most of the time, sometimes, rarely or never?
46% of Americans said we need to COMPLETELY rebuild our system for funding political campaigns.poll wrote:Which of the following three statements comes closest to expressing your overall view of the way political campaigns are funded in the United States:
1) On the whole, the system for funding political campaigns works pretty well and only minor changes are necessary to make it work better.
2) There are some good things in the system for funding political campaigns but fundamental changes are needed.
3) The system for funding political campaigns has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it.
58% pessimistic.poll wrote:Looking ahead, are you optimistic or pessimistic that changes will be made to improve the way political campaigns are funded in the United States?
77% say limit.poll wrote:Which one of the following two positions on campaign financing do you favor more: limiting the amount of money individuals can contribute to political campaigns, or allowing individuals to contribute as much money to political campaigns as they would like?
78% say limit.poll wrote:Currently, groups not affiliated with a candidate are able to spend unlimited amounts on advertisements during a political campaign. Do you think this kind of spending should be limited by law, or should it remain unlimited?
75% say disclose.poll wrote:Do you think groups not affiliated with a candidate that spend money during political campaigns should be required to publicly disclose their contributors, or do you think it's O.K. for that information to remain private?
54% say no.poll wrote:Do you consider money given to political candidates to be a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution or not?
58% say equally. It's bipartisan.poll wrote:In general, which political party do you think benefits the most from the amount of money in politics today — the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, or do both parties benefit about equally?
The majority of people believe that the current establishment is not working, and it's completely bipartisan. The majority also are pessimistic about something changing. So when there are candidates who exist and offer change, such as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, they surge.
Bernie Sanders had barely any name recognition and little media coverage, so he didn't surge enough to win. But Trump did.
And when the general election came, with those statistics I just listed... Is anyone really shocked that Donald Trump won knowing that information?
Hillary Clinton represented the establishment, which pretty much everyone is sick of. Donald Trump was the complete opposite- he offered change in a world where most people didn't think it would happen. So it shouldn't be very surprising that he won.
If the democratic party wants to beat candidates like Donald Trump, they need to support progressives who campaign on actual change. They didn't, and that is why they lost.