Poll: Nearly 1 in 4 Sanders Supporters Will Not Vote for Biden

A new USA Today/Suffolk poll indicates that 22% of Bernie Sanders supporters would not vote for Joe Biden in November’s election, despite the fact that Sanders has endorsed Biden and saying it would be "irresponsible" to not vote for Biden. To provide some context to this figure, about 20% of Sanders supporters did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while exit polls reveal that 15% of 2008 Clinton voters voted for John McCain, with some analysts estimating that around a quarter of Clinton supporters in total did not vote for Barack Obama.

Studies show that “crossover voting,” where members of one party vote for the candidate of the other party, is typically undertaken by between 5 and 10 percent of each party’s voters no matter the candidates. Contrasting that to this poll and exit polling from the last few presidential elections highlights how intra-party partisanship is on the rise this century.

Another factor that could be behind these elevated numbers is how many non-Democrats Sanders appeals to. The Independent Senator from Vermont has consistently attacked trade agreements like NAFTA that resonate with many Trump voters, and it’s likely that he garnered support from voters who were going to vote for Trump or not vote if the Democrat was anyone but Sanders.

While many Democratic operatives are quick to tie Sanders supporters to the vocal and combative online network of progressives, polls consistently show that a majority of Sanders’s support comes from the nearly 80% of Americans not on Twitter. While plenty of the online left have publicly claimed that they will not support the Democratic nominee, polling consistently shows these people are in the minority of Sanders supporters.

In fact, a March poll from Morning Consult contradicts this recent USA Today/Suffolk poll a bit, and indicates that “Sanders supporters look less likely to defect this year than in 2016.” A multitude of factors likely contribute to their findings, President Trump being one of the biggest, but a more friendly stance towards the progressive left from the establishment center than in 2016 is certain to win over a few holdouts.

Biden has extended an olive branch towards Sanders, letting him keep delegates he otherwise would have lost by dropping out, thus giving him more power over the policies that will be added to the Democratic platform during the convention. The gesture is one example of how the relationship between the two dominant wings of the party is improving, despite a similar amount of Sanders supporters seemingly maintaining their skeptical 2016 stance towards the Democratic Party.