Bernie Sanders, who won his 21st primary last night in Oregon, and barely missed #22 in Kentucky (if he missed at all), has accomplished more than just showing what a remarkably weak candidate Hillary Clinton is. He has also shown how weak Hillary Clinton is in Midwestern swing states.
How do I mean this? Well, Paul Sperry, writing in today’s New York Post, has got it just about perfectly right. Read this excerpt and see:
Exit polls in West Virginia and Indiana show Democratic voters see jobs and the economy as the top issues facing the country, and they think global trade is hurting American workers. Growing anxiety over the economy, which is softening in President Obama’s final year, propelled Sanders over Clinton in these and other states — and it’s an issue perfectly tailored for Trump’s blue-collar billionaire populism.
A whopping nine in 10 voters in the West Virginia primary said they’re worried about the economy, and 52 percent of them went for Sanders. Only 34 percent favored Clinton on that issue. More than half say trade with other countries costs US jobs, and 54 percent of them voted for Sanders.Likewise, 84 percent of those who voted in Indiana’s Democratic primary said they’re worried about the direction of the economy. Most of them favored Sanders over Clinton (57 percent to 43 percent). Nearly half say trade robs US workers of jobs, and 54 percent of them voted for Sanders.
Exit polling found similar results in Sanders’ Michigan and Wisconsin upsets. And though Clinton won Pennsylvania, she lost 47 percent to 52 percent to Sanders among Keystone State voters who say they’re “very worried about the direction of the economy over the next few years.”
Pennsylvania is a must-win for Clinton in the general. Democrats held it in the last two elections. But Trump is increasingly popular there. In a new Quinnipiac poll, Pennsylvania voters by 51 percent to 42 percent said that Trump would do a better job than Clinton handling the economy. In a head-to-head match-up overall, the two virtually tied.
In another critical Rust Belt state — Ohio — Trump edges Clinton 43 percent to 39 percent, thanks to Trump crushing Clinton on jobs and the economy (52 percent to 40 percent). A win there would be pivotal for Republicans, who lost Ohio in 2008 and 2012.
Donald Trump loses to Hillary Clinton on a number of key issues. But one issue where he wins is jobs/the economy.
And in most elections – barring some unforeseen circumstance this will be one of them – jobs/the economy is the key issue.
How does Ms. Clinton’s “climate change policy over jobs” stance (which she will desperately try to gloss over, but few will believe her) play to states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana, among others?
Plus, there is the generic reality that if Ms. Clinton can’t seal the deal against a 74 year old Jewish socialist from a small state whom no one heard of a year ago and who was not even a registered Democrat until last year, why is it at all implausible that she can lose against a bombastic loudmouth with no political experience bugt major business successes like Donald Trump?
On December 23, 1776, Thomas Paine started his essay, titled “The Crisis”, by writing “These are the times that try men’s souls”. Trust me when I tell you that Hillary Clinton may find times just as trying if she runs against Donald Trump….and the rest of us may find them even more trying because we would then have to pick between the two of them.
I think the funniest part of the article is…
Growing anxiety over the economy, which is softening in President Obama’s final year,
LOL, It is doing the same as the other years.