Question as a non-American: why did these candidates (virtually) win the primaries? Were the other candidates of the end-run liked even less? Are the voters that vote in the primaries not representative for the general population?
But, if you look at Clinton/Bernie he underperformed in States with "closed primaries" meaning people had to declare party affiliation months in advance. (New York was almost a year ago) independents and swing-voters weren't allowed to say "hey, I actually like this Bernie guy."
Bernie did overwhelmingly well in places with open primaries. On two occasions he "beat the polls" (IIRC -Indiana and one other had Clinton's chances of winning at ~99% and he came out with victory) open primaries are being credited with contributing to that phenomenon. People who have never voted are coming into the mix for Bernie
If you look closely you will also see a couple States where there has been either "gross incompetence" or voter suppression / electoral fraud.
People's part affiliation swapped without their knowledge, budget cuts forcing extremely long lines, running out of ballots.
In some areas around electronic voting machines, the disparity between voter counts and exit polls are higher than the ones seen at the Ukrainian election which was declared fraudulent.
In Chicago for example there was an "audit" where the observers saw the clerks alter their tallies to match the expected number.
I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of places where the disparity is highly suspect.
Edit: (Apologies, I started pasting in references for my outlandish claims and it got wiped because of a mobile-page-reload and have now got to decide whether or not to throw my phone out the bleeping window :))
Here's one reference covering a few points about the electoral fraud thing: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9...
The examples have gotten more egregious since it was written though.
It is tinfoil hat sounding because it is tinfoil hat territory.
I'm sorry, but the internet has made Sanders supporters lose touch with reality; Hillary Clinton, even at the very end, still beat Sanders by double digits (source: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-d...). The Obama vs Clinton matchup was much, much closer. We're only talking a few point difference.
I saw this same thing happen back in 2008 with Ron Paul. Paul supporters had a hard time believing that Paul didn't stand a chance.
The reason Clinton trounced Sanders is multifaceted; First off, Sanders is old and he's Jewish. Unfortunately, that puts some people off right away (bigotry and prejudice is still alive and well in America). Secondly, he embraced the term Socialist. While people under 40 may be aware of what that term entails (we think of European/democratic socialism, not Russian/Chinese socialism) the older generation & boomers still thinks of the commies and pinkos. America is still 10-30 years away from using that word without the stigma & negative connotations. And that kind of sums up Sanders; he's espousing an ideology that America isn't quite ready for.
We need to move further to the left a bit. Kind of like how the GOP has kept moving this country to the right over the last 35 years, we need to move it back to the center, and ultimately to the left. I'm a democratic socialist myself but even I knew Sanders didn't stand a chance. That's because I'm aware that it's going to take some time. Perhaps a couple decades. It starts with small steps, electing moderates who lean left, then finally left candidates like Sanders.
You're right that Overwhelmingly well was a massive oversimplification and exaggeration.
More accurate would be "appears to perform worse in closed primaries"
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11528764/closed-primaries-berni...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/04/19/bernie-...
I can't see anything in your link that clearly indicates your position WRT clinton overwhelmingly winning open ones.
Wiki does not list open primaries, her win proportion of those, or the 'goal difference' in terms of awarded delegates. So - I'm not sure your statement is entirely true either.
The facts are, in open primaries Clinton has won 10-4. If you include semi-open it's 11-4. In closed primaries Clinton has won 8-1. If you include semi closed its 10-3. There is no meaningful difference. Sanders underperforms in all primary types.
The only contest type Sanders has performed better in are caucuses, winning 11-4. These are the least democratic type of contest of them all.
I think this is a huge problem with the current system, as the lack of candidates they agree with make people get disillusioned and stop voting.
> The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system
I understand it that in Canada it's first-past-the-post per "riding", so I'd expect each riding to have a maximum of two viable parties. I'm sure it's messier than that in the real world, but I still think you'd be better off with something else than FPTP.
For instance, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canad..., is the Green Party accomplishing anything else than diverting votes from other parties?
On the Democrat side, the Clintons just have such deep roots in the Democrat party institutions. Whatever you think of her personally she's a very experienced heavy hitter and her husband is still very popular in his own right. Many people on the Democrat side that dislike Hillary personally still like Bill.
https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151
On the Republican side, Trump did something I don't think people quite get yet. He basically became a gaffe machine and didn't walk it back. Everyday was 2 or 3 gaffes that kept him in the news. He covered one gaffe with another.
Using ballpark numbers to present the idea:
You have country with 220 million Americans eligible to vote. 16 percent of all age-eligible citizens voted in the 2012 presidential primaries. That's 35 million. If those voters are equally divided between the two parties, and winning party candidate gets roughly half of the votes, they get their party nomination with 9 million votes each.
Checked the numbers and they check out. George W. Bush, with his 10.8 million votes in 2000 is the record holder in the GOP side. Trump will likely break this record.
We have some problems in this area in Europe as well, but US numbers are ridiculous. How can candidates say that they represent "the whole country" with a straight face?
Those who vote in primaries represent different demographics than Americans in general. There are differences in age, race and ethnicity, education, income, religious and political views.
I'm not American either, but my understanding is that the answer to this question is a big yes.