Nearly Half of Sanders Supporters Won’t Support Clinton: Poll

A June 14 Bloomberg Politics national poll of likely voters in November’s election found that barely half of those who favored Sanders ― 55 percent ― plan to vote for Clinton. Instead, 22 percent say they’ll vote for Trump, while 18 percent favor Libertarian Gary Johnson. “I’m a registered Democrat, but I cannot bring myself to vote for another establishment politician like Hillary…”

Still, for many Sanders supporters, opposition to Clinton is the basis of their political identity. Thirty minutes before the start of a June 9 Sanders rally in Washington, D.C., the crowd broke into a chant: “Bernie or bust! Bernie or bust!”

“There’s zero percent chance that Hillary Clinton could ever get my vote,” said Perry Mitchell, a 31-year-old nonprofit worker from Baltimore. “She’s a corporate candidate. I don’t vote for corporate candidates. I don’t do the lesser of two evils.”

Even if the alternative is Trump?

“You’re choosing between fascism and oligarchy,” Mitchell said. His 23-year-old brother, Brady, interjected with a more vivid analogy to the Clinton-Trump choice: “Die by quicksand, or die by bullet?”

The Mitchell brothers represent a brand of diehard Sanders voters who are causing anxiety in Clinton’s world. Like Brooks, both intend to vote for the Green Party’s Stein if Clinton secures the Democratic nomination. It could be that none of these Sanders supporters was ever truly “gettable” for Clinton, regardless of whether or not Sanders ultimately chooses to endorse her. (“She’s a war criminal,” says Brooks.)