A friend of mine points to some critical data about yesterday’s New York Primary, after Washington Post opinion-writer, Jonathan Capehart put out yet another hit piece in a series of hit pieces on Bernie Sanders shortly after results were announced last night. My friend Mike Miller and I both felt sick to our respective stomachs after reading it, but Mike seems to have recovered sooner than I, and his observations are so good that I thought I’d collect and post them all in one place.

“Incessant anti-Bernie nag Jonathan Capehart, writing for ultra-billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, says that primary results from New York prove Bernie’s “limited appeal.” Seriously? Some facts:

18% of registered Democrats in NY voted for Hillary.

13% of registered Democrats in NY voted for Bernie.

That’s a total of 1.8 million ballots cast from 5.8 million registered Dems

An additional 2.9 million registered NY voters were not allowed to vote in the primary because they hadn’t enrolled with a party before October 9, 2015, the earliest deadline in the country. We know that a high percentage of them would have voted for Bernie if they could have.

So, Bernie Sanders has “limited appeal” as opposed to the unlimited appeal of Hillary Clinton? He regularly has 20,000+ people coming out to hear him speak. Hillary prefers small dinners where super-rich people give her tens of thousands of dollars. Now that’s appeal! Yep, 5.3% of the population of New York state voted for the unlimited Clinton, who, if nominated, would become the Dem nominee with the lowest approval rating of all time. Why is it so hard to cheer her on to victory?”New York state has a population of 19.8 million people. About 4.6 million of those are under 18, so that leaves 15.2 million of voting age, but only 11.7 million are registered to vote. and about half of those, 5.8 million, are registered as Democrats. Of those registered as Democrats, about 1.8 million or 31% bothered to vote in the Democratic primary. New York has 475,566 people registered as Independent and 2,485,475 more who chose no party affiliation, not even “Independent.” Thus, about 2,961,000 people who might have wanted to vote in the Democratic primary were not able to do so. That’s about 25% of New York voters and about half as many people as there are registered Democrats in the state.

Sources:

Official voter registration numbers (see p. 10)
Age distribution
Population of NY state “

Days after the 2014 Election, I wrote a piece entitled “Lessons for Progressives” in which I wrote:

“Four years ago, I wondered out loud, in some of my New York Times comments whether progressives wouldn’t be better off cutting their losses and leaving the party. At the time, one could still reasonably argue that the losses resulting from such a departure just weren’t warranted and that working within the party was a sounder approach. This reasoning remained somewhat true in 2012. It wasn’t last week and I have serious doubt that it will be the case in 2016, based on current party dynamics. Election 2014 losses, in large part, stemmed from the gross under-representation of progressives in the party leadership and the steadfast refusal of neoliberal party leaders to share power with those who represent the prevailing view in the electorate.”

I hate to ask… but, how has all that worked out so far? Please scroll all the way down to leave your comments. It’s free!

More on what this all means for progressive Democrats in my next post…

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Note #1: Jonathan Capehart is an opinion writer, as such, his writings are to be taken as opinion and, therefore, subject to the reinterpretation of the facts they are based on.

Note #2: Jonathan Capehart’s partner is a State Department employee who, previously, worked for the Clinton Foundation. While Capehart claims there is no conflict of interest, readers should be reminded that those facts still have some weight.

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Message to readers: 

Thanks to your generosity, my family has averted homelessness this week. We are very grateful.

We remain in a very difficult position and we are still at-risk as we are still far from meeting our goal for the GoFundMe campaign to help save my family. Your continued support is very much needed and deeply appreciated.

Thank you.

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Related:

For a visual representation of how people voted in New York City, click here to be taken to the New York Times.

1. For a visual representation of how people voted in each of New York state’s counties, click here to be taken to the Los Angeles Times.
   

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