There’s been a ton of talk lately about the “electability” of the various candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential field. Pundits have weighed in on who’s electable, who isn’t, and why this is a difficult concept to examine. Others have argued the concept itself is basically a dodge, an attempt to get people to give up on the candidates they care about. …
One reason “electability” is hard to measure is because we never get to really test many of these electability beliefs. Yes, Bernie Sanders had much higher favorables than Hillary Clinton did at the end of 2016, but that’s because the entire GOP and Fox News weren’t devoted to destroying his reputation that year since he was not the Democratic nominee. No doubt his favorables would look different after running a campaign like Clinton did. Similarly, Joe Biden is polling well right now against Trump, but we don’t know what those numbers would look like in the midst of a general election campaign. And, more importantly, we don’t get to re-run an election to see how a different nominee might have done. CONT.
Seth Masket (U. of Denver), Pacific Standard