Many supporters of Bernie Sanders do not like Hillary Clinton and are vowing that they will never vote for her. The more affluent of his supporters could always vote with the Green Party, though most will settle for Clinton after all. But what about the white working class voters who are victims of the current economy and who have been giving Sanders his big wins in industrial rust belt states?
They may well have common cause with Donald Trump, who also does well with this demographic and who advocates some of Sanders’ policies. Might some of those disaffected blue collar Democrats vote for Trump? And might that turn some Blue states Red and give Trump the victory? Charles Krauthammer thinks it’s a possibility.
From Charles Krauthammer, Donald Trump — Hillary Clinton Should Beware the Bernie Sanders Factor | National Review:
Donald Trump is, like Sanders, running to the left of Clinton on a host of major issues including trade, Wall Street, NATO, and interventionism. It turns out that the ultimate general-election question is not where Cruz or Rubio or Kasich supporters are going — almost all seem to be making their tortuous way to Trump — but where do Bernie Sanders’s supporters go?
Most will, of course, go to Hillary. Some will stay home. But Trump is making a not-so-subtle pitch to those Democrats and independents who gave Sanders his victories in the industrial Midwest.
The Trump and Sanders constituencies share one stark characteristic: They are both overwhelmingly white. In the Rust Belt, the appeal is to middle- and working-class voters who have suffered economic and social dislocation. The question is whether Trump can win a sufficient number of those voters, erstwhile Reagan Democrats, to flip just a few states that, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, have gone Democratic for the last six elections. . . .
That, after all, is Trump’s path to victory: Add a few industrial blue states to the traditional must-win swing states — Ohio and Florida, most obviously — and pull off an Electoral College win.
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