Trump did well in a lot of traditionally democratic states simply because he wasn’t a ‘regular’ republican or democrat. Sanders may have performed similarly in traditionally republican states, given how far away from the ‘traditional democrat’ template he is.
However, Trump is a pretty strong data point that a deeper right policy slant WILL. Anyway, in a country with optional voting. winning general elections is all about getting voters from your side enthused about getting to the polls, rather than scraping off a few swinging voters from the middle.
On a related matter - the accepted ‘democrats must be moderate, polite, and bipartisan or wish alienating swinging voters’ wisdom seems bizarre in a country that just elected a guy who ran on a platform as far from moderate, polite, or bipartisan as you can get. If there’s one thing I think politicians on all sides and in all countries are starting to learn right now, it’s that the electoral price for ignorance, lies, authoritarianism, racism, and disdain for democracy is much, much lower than they had assumed. The rightwing parties to me seem to be in the vanguard of this movement right now, but I suspect all across the world, polite and conventional campaign strategic plans are increasingly lining the bins of left-wing political offices too.
There’s a bit of a concensus that Trump’s “I’m an outsider and will drain the swamp and you poor people are getting ripped and I’ll be your saviour” theme got him over the line.
Sanders had a lower-key version of that and might have actually done some of it.
That’s the consensus by people who don’t want to say “blaming all the immigrants and making the USA white again” was what got him over. Plus Comey and the Russians.
I share that wish, but it will never happen.
Americans always vote for the least boring candidate.
Which I guess means that Dukakis and Ford must have been Very boring indeed.
Remember the tiny voting difference in the key states that gave Trump the electoral college. The votes given to the greens was greater than the margin Hillary lost by. There is an argument the never Hillary voters who voted green lost her the election. Bernie gets those votes in the Midwest and he wins.
The vote was so close that there are any number of factors that if switched could have won her the election.
But switching Bernie for Hillary and assuming everything else stays the same except the green vote is pretty unlikely. Whether guys like @dingus above or myself are correct, there would be an awful lot more changing when you switch those two than a few people who voted green in some key states switching votes.
Bernie an outsider. Trump an outsider. Obama relative to McCain was the outside agent of change choice. That at least a small subset could move between these very different candidates. No more than that.