Trump, Johnson Try to Attract Sanders Supporters

By Lydia Goerner Published on July 13, 2016

Presidential candidates Gary Johnson and Donald Trump are trying to catch Bernie Sanders’ scattered supporters after the senator endorsed Hillary Clinton for president Tuesday.

In his speech endorsing Clinton, Sanders said the future “will be shaped more by what happens on November 8 in voting booths across our nation than by any other event in the world.” He said he would “make certain” that Clinton will be the next president of the United States.

Shortly after Sanders’ announcement, Libertarian candidate Johnson released an ad saying that he had the highest American Civil Liberties Union rating in presidential politics. His ad also targeted Clinton. “You know as well as I do that Hillary Clinton voted for the war in Iraq,” Johnson said. “She regularly boasts about the decision to bomb Libya, and ISIS rushed in to fill the void those conflicts left behind.”

Johnson also said he will be on the ballot in all 50 states. A Morning Consult poll shows Johnson at 12 percent.

Trump is also trying to win over as many Sanders supporters as he can. He said Sanders has “abandoned his supporters” and his tweets detailed his disapproval of Sanders’ endorsement.

The Guardian polled its readers on who they plan to vote for in November. They received 375 responses from Sanders supporters. Of those, 171 said they would vote for Green party nominee Jill Stein, which was more than double the number who said they would support Clinton. Others said they would write in Sanders, while 20 respondents said they would switch their support to Trump. However, these findings are not consistent with overall polls. A study released by Pew Research Center found that 85 percent of Sanders supporters planned to vote for Clinton.

Five Thirty Eight reported that Clinton beats Trump by 57 percentage points on average among Sanders supporters when third-party candidates are options, but Clinton wins by 69 percentage points when these voters make a choice between Clinton and Trump.

There were over 13 million people who voted for Sanders in the primary, so, according to Five Thirty Eight, “Clinton could net somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.6 million votes if the Sanders supporters currently backing third-party options all voted for either Clinton or Trump.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Like the article? Share it with your friends! And use our social media pages to join or start the conversation! Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MeWe and Gab.

Inspiration
Military Photo of the Day: Trench Training
Tom Sileo
More from The Stream
Connect with Us