Hopefully both parties collapse, they're both a bunch of rich ,Washington politicians who don't give a damn about the working people and love bombing places and sending soldiers to die.

... umm couldn't that be all countries? (if you change Washington)

I'm pretty sure you can write in votes for the Primaries. Even if Rand Paul dropped out his supporters could still write in his name as their pick.

Plus in NH independents (those not part of the Republicans or Democrats) can vote in either part's race (but not both), so that creates a whole big problem when predicting the outcome.

Edited 2/9/2016 23:13:46

You underestimate bernie and the progressive wave in the US. If he beats clinton, he's got a win. The republicans can't win with cruz or trump.

pls. Trump would destroy him with states like NY and Ohio. Trump can bring over moderate Democrats; Bernie isn't getting any Republican votes.

You underestimate bernie and the progressive wave in the US. If he beats clinton, he's got a win.

You underestimate anti-socialist sentiment in the U.S. If Bernie Sanders becomes the Democrat pick the Republican attack ads will practically write themselves. We'll see the red scare all over again as the Republicans build up Sanders as an evil or naive socialist.

To be clear, I'm not actually against Socialism, but you can't ignore that most Americans have a very negative reaction to even the word itself.

@general PE
that was funny joke

Edited 2/10/2016 00:08:12

The word socialism has never been seen as favorably as now in the US. I guess sanders played a role on this... He's educating people in politics and has a lead of 10+ points against trump on national match-ups.

@General PE
NY will never vote for Trump, and sanders has a better apeal to independents then every other candidate. If Democrats and Republicans vote for their nominee, he has a win.

i just found this: presidential candidates wealth list
http://www3.forbes.com/lists/forbes-2016-presidential-candidate-wealth-list/

Neither Trump or Sanders has a very high chance of winning. They're both too far out on their respective ends of the political spectrum.

Sanders could only win if Trump was his opponent, against any other Republican he'd end up losing due to the still present fear of Socialism (Yes, it's not as bad as it once was, but it's still not something the majority of Americans like. Sanders isn't even full Socialist, but what matters is that he'll be painted as one and that image will damage his campaign).

Trump and Sanders are the favorites to win NH, actually... (not much else, though)

Sanders have won *almost* every match up poll against a Republican candidate, and by a lot. A lot more than Hillary actually. Just saying...

Edited 2/10/2016 00:25:00

Trump was also favored to win Iowa, but that didn't happen.

The polls before Iowa were so off it's almost funny. I don't doubt that Bernie will likely take New Hampshire though.

@Hitchslap: Polls are not nearly as accurate as people credit them for. As Iowa and other past elections shown.

Edited 2/10/2016 00:21:52

@Eklipse: Iowa was a toss-up with Trump slightly more likely than his opponents to win, but it was too close to call. Trump has a 75% chance of winning NH and a 15% lead going in.

@Hitchslap: Yes, because Bernie hasn't been targeted by the Republicans yet. He's been more or less spared from most of the scrutiny that Clinton faces, because the GOP candidates are already treating Clinton as their general election opponent.

Sure, but saying Bernie Sanders can't win the general election when some polls give him a 19 point lead in a general election matchup against Trump...come on

Polls don't mean much, especially that long before the election, but still you seem way too quick to dismiss him. This is what the media have been saying since the beginning of the election and Bernie Sanders have been rising ever since.

watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naby6bj3kJ8

Yeah, these are super-early polls. We're still 9 months away from the actual election and 7-8 away from finding out who the general election candidates are.

I'm not quick to dismiss him; I'm literally only interested in the data this election, and he doesn't perform as well as you think he does. Sanders supporters have a very bad tendency to overreport their candidate's odds of winning- one told me after Iowa that Hillary's primary lead had dissipated (when it's 15-20% in most states).

The hypothetical general election polls right now are just junk data because most voters haven't thought that far yet and don't have enough information to know what they're going for. Feel free to build your Internet spam campaign around them, though

I hope you realize that a lot of the news you're getting exposed to comes from a certain /r/atheism-flavored chunk of the Internet that consistently over-reports the predominance of socialism, liberalism, atheism, conservative fundamentalism, etc., since that's the sort of news that gets attention in those parts.

Socialism is still wildly unpopular in all generations except for the Millennials (where it's still got a really high unfavorability rating hampering it); economically, the generations are also consistently on the middle when it comes to Bernie economics (wealth redistribution), so he's not even really able to ride a Millennial wave there.

We go through this every election cycle, man. It's kind of sad when people don't realize how badly their niche on the Internet skews their perception.

Edited 2/10/2016 00:36:44

I agree that he is not likely to win the primaries, but if he was to win the primaries, i think he would do better against any republican than Hillary

It won't matter who comes in first in NH.

Things to look out for:
1) How badly does Hillary get beat (if its 5% or less she'll actually be a winner considering how far back she was predicted a few weeks ago)?
2) Which establishment candidate competes with Trump (if Rubio doesn't make top 3 it could hurt his chances in South Carolina)?
3) Do Jeb, Christie, and Bush get enough support to continue in the race (Those that don't make it into the top 4 of NH may have to leave, although Bush has enough SuperPac money to continue for at least a month if he's smart with it)?
4) Does Ted Cruz keep himself relevant (he'll need at least 10-12% to keep his momentum from Iowa and not be completely forgotten, but NH does not bode well for him)?

^

Basically, this (read the headlines on the simulations)

http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/306571/embed/?width=900&height=350&border=true

Candidate-by-candidate:

GOP

Trump
+ wins with >35%
- narrowly wins with two other GOP candidates in the 20% range

Rubio
+ places in the top 3
- outdone by Bush or Christie

Cruz
+ gets more than 15% of the vote
- gets less than 10% of the vote

Christie
+ beat Rubio or Bush
- outdone by Rubio and Bush

Bush
+ places in the top 3
- gets less than 10% of the vote

Kasich
+ places in the top 5
- gets less than 10% of the vote

Fiorina
+ places in the top 5
- gets less than 8% of the vote

Carson
+ places in the top 5
- gets less than 8% of the vote

(All others)
+ place in top 5
- get less than 5% of the vote

Dems

Hillary:
+ able to poll above 45%
- polling below 42%

Sanders
+ wins with over 60%
- wins with less than 53%

Edited 2/10/2016 00:50:57

Here is the closest roll i could get according to what i think will happen
http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/714275prediction.png

Edited 2/10/2016 01:01:17