Bernie Sanders Destroys The Media Myth That Democrats Have An Enthusiasm Problem

Bernie Sanders destroyed the media myth that Democrats have an enthusiasm problem during an interview on CNN’s State Of The Union.

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Transcript via CNN’s State Of The Union:

BASH: You just speculated that you’re going to win those contests, but I’ll — I’ll let you go on that one.

You have talked about the enthusiasm behind your campaign. And we certainly see it in your rallies. But this year it is Republicans who are seeing record turnout.

On Super Tuesday, more than 2.5 million more votes were cast in Republican contests than the Democratic side. So should Democrats be concerned about an enthusiasm gap heading into November?

SANDERS: No, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so.

I think just yesterday in Kansas, there was a record-breaking turnout. I believe in Colorado on Tuesday, Super Tuesday, there was a record- breaking turnout. Massachusetts, the turnout was very, very high. In Iowa, the turnout was high.

I think one of the goals of our campaign is to revitalize American democracy, to make sure that working people and young people know that when they participate in the political process, they have real power that, in fact, we can take on and defeat the billionaire class. So I don’t agree with you.

I think within the Democratic primaries, not in every instance, but in many of the states, we are seeing our numbers higher than in 2008 when Barack Obama ran an unbelievable campaign, and his numbers were off the charts. In some states, we’re actually seeing higher turnouts than in 2008

The reality is that the record Republican turnout is being driven by panic over stopping Donald Trump. Republicans aren’t turning out in big numbers to support Trump. Sen. Sanders nailed it. New young voters are coming into the process to support Sen. Sanders.

As Philip Bump of The Washington Post reported, “We can also estimate how many of those people came out because of Bernie Sanders, the unexpected candidate who’s doing well with new voters on the Democratic side. In states where there were enough new voters for their vote preferences to be statistically significant, about 563,000 of those new voters backed Sanders. It’s safe to assume that he got about another 100,000 from the states where there were too few new voters to break out this measure separately. So, figure that Sanders spurred about 650,000 people go to the polls. That’s out of 6.2 million total voters. Impressive.”

The media also pushed the “Democratic enthusiasm gap” in 2012 when they were predicting doom for President Obama, but Democrats have a history of not voting in large numbers in the primaries. 2008 was the exception, not the norm, in the Democratic Party. The media is mistaking the civil war in the Republican Party for enthusiasm for electing a Republican president.

By sometime in the early fall of 2016, the numbers will shift, and media will be talking about the rising enthusiasm of Democratic voters. The corporate media is trying to craft storylines to justify their Trump addiction, but the truth doesn’t match the wishful thinking of the mainstream press.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association