Hillary’s Millennial Achilles’ Heel

Sen. Bernie Sanders may be foursquare in the #NeverTrump camp, but his supporters — particularly his millennial supporters — are remaining solid in their opposition to presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Clinton may be looking at an Achilles’ heel in her standing among Democratic primary voters who backed the Vermont senator. A Bloomberg Politics poll taken this month indicated that 55 percent of current Sanders supporters planned to vote for Clinton in the fall. Trump had the support of 22 percent, while Libertarian Gary Johnson picked up 18 percent.

“The YouGov poll is a … bloodbath for her. If that holds up in the battleground states, she’s toast.”

An Economist/YouGov survey conducted Friday through Monday came to similar findings: 57 percent of Sanders supporters said they would vote for Clinton, while 10 percent backed Trump, 8 percent supported Johnson, and 22 percent picked “someone else” over the named candidates.

“The YouGov poll is a … bloodbath for her,” said Harlan Hill, a Democratic strategist who supported Sanders in the primary and recently launched a pro-Trump super PAC. “If that holds up in the battleground states, she’s toast.”

Many analysts assume, based on historical norms, that disgruntled Sanders supporters will eventually come around. The unity effort, they contend, will accelerate if Sanders ultimately offers an expected endorsement of the former secretary of state.

But Sanders — while pledging to do everything possible to defeat Trump — continues to insist that he will take his progressive revolution to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. On Thursday, he invited supporters to share their thoughts about the future of the party’s platform. He indicated that he will fight to make it as left-wing as possible.

“And so the Democratic Party has a choice in the coming weeks, and that choice is whether or not to embrace a bold, fearless, progressive platform that has the potential to transform our country for generations,” he wrote. “We need to hear from you about what you think the most important issues are that should be included in the platform.”

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Hill said it makes sense for Sanders to stick around in the event that the Justice Department decides to pursue criminal charges against Clinton based on her handling of email as secretary of state. If that does not happen, he said, it seems likely that she will successfully woo Sanders supporters. The question is one of degrees, he added.

The Bloomberg poll highlights the challenges facing Clinton. Only 5 percent of voters not planning to vote for her said they would even consider it.

[lz_table title=”Hillary’s Problems With Bernie Voters” source=”Polls”]
|Surveys of Sanders supporters
|Poll,Voting for Clinton
Bloomberg,55%
Economist/YouGov,57%
[/lz_table]

“Hillary Clinton is not making any progress at all,” Hill said. “She is an incredibly damaged candidate — probably the the most damaged candidate we’ve had in a long time.”

Hill said his PAC, RebootPAC.com, will focus on helping Trump in five battleground states. He said Clinton should be performing better with the progressive base since she is in a honeymoon period where she has effectively wrapped up the nomination.

“This is in a period of time when she’s had air superiority” over the under-funded Trump, he said. “I don’t think it gets better for her. It only gets worse.”

Clinton’s White House hopes hinge largely on her ability to reassemble President Obama’s winning coalition of minorities and young voters. While polls highlight Clinton’s strength among nonwhite voters, it is an open question whether she can equal Obama’s share and turnout among millennials. Voters younger than 30 made up 19 percent of the electorate in 2012, and Obama won 60 percent of that demographic, according to exit polls.

Emily Jashinsky, a spokeswoman for the Young America’s Foundation, said there is reason to believe that millennial participation will lag the pace set in 2008 and 2012.

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“I would expect turnout to decline, because so far, we’re not hearing a thing [from any candidate] that’s important to young people,” said Jashinsky, whose organization aims to educate young adults about conservative principles.

The Economist/YouGov poll contains both good news for Clinton and an opportunity for Trump. Among voters younger than 30, 48 percent said they would vote for Clinton. That was her strongest showing among any age group. At the same time, 27 percent said they were still trying to make up their minds. That was the highest of any age group, suggesting a solid base of persuadable voters — giving Trump a shot.

At first blush, the typical Sanders voter would not seem to be a prime target for a Republican candidate. But Trump has made overt appeals to Sanders supporters, highlighting areas of common ground, such as promises to reform trade policy.

And Jashinksy said polling sponsored by her organization suggests that millennials are not as liberal as their stereotype. If true, perhaps some of Sanders’ young supporters gravitated to him for reasons other than his socialist message on economics.

Jashinksy said millennials “really support limited government, especially when it’s framed as a matter of freedom.”