So, assuming that as Donald has proclaimed, Bernie is done, does the question of who will occupy the oval office next year largely come down to how his supporters will vote in November? I'm inclined to believe that it does. My bet is that after the convention, Bernie will do all that is in his power to guide his supporters towards Hillary, and that will be enough to put her over the top. Not to say that it's not a concern, I think it is. But, what I believe, what I hope, is that there are more of us who will vote for Hillary than will not.
Unfortunately, I see a problem with that.
As I said before, the narrative of late from the Sanders campaign has been that Hillary and the Democratic Party are crooked and have been unfair to Sanders and basically have stolen the nomination from him. Ordinarily, primary voters would go to the winner of the nominating contest as Hillary voters eventually went with Obama. But if you believe that your candidate deserved to win and only lost because of crooked dealings, I don't see how you could switch to the winning candidate, i.e.,Hillary.
I am quite sure that Sanders will encourage his voters to vote for Hillary, but I think an awful lot of them won't listen to him.
On the other side of the aisle, I think Donald Trump will lose less republican voters than originally was expected. Just as the GOP establishment is falling in line behind him, so will the majority of Republican voters, even if they don't like him. And whatever portion he does lose will be more than made up for by a large turnout of people who never bothered to vote before.
People who have had no interest in politics, believe politics is all crap, and who have never paid any attention will be coming out of the woodwork to vote for strongman Donald Trump. His lack of policy specifics, his gaffes, his racist and misogynist worldview -- none of will make the slightest difference to them. In fact, it will encourage even more of them to come out and vote.
I still think Hillary will win the election – but it's going to be a very close call, and I wouldn't put money on it either way.
