We have all heard it before — the talking point of the Hillary 2016 campaign, that Hillary is the only candidate that can beat the Republican candidate in the upcoming 2016 general election, who at the current course, is projected to be Donald Trump.

The competitor in the Democratic primary — the Sanders 2016 campaign often retorted that argument with match-up poll numbers showing wider gaps between Sanders and the Republican candidates than between Hillary and the Republican candidates. You have also heard this before, you can check out the numbers for yourself, I have no comment regarding this argument.

What I’m writing here is to address something that nobody is bringing up when it comes to the electability discussion. Forget the match-up poll numbers, let’s talk reality.

Let’s first reframe the situation. What do you think “beating” somebody in the field of politics means? It’s not about how loud you are in a shouting match. It’s not about how you much money you can raise for your campaign either. What it ultimately is about is convincing the population of voters to vote for you.

And what voters want from a politician can be boiled down to 2 pretty simple questions:

Are you promising what they want?

Can you be trusted to commit to your promises once elected?

These 2 questions comprise 2 halves of the electability of a candidate.

With that established, I’d like to draw your attention to the Hillary electability that nobody is talking about:

The former Republicans that switched party registration to vote in the Democratic primary.

(There are people from other parties and independents that did the same thing as well, but mostly Republicans)

This was such a rare phenomenon. There might have been a few cases of this happening in previous elections, but none on the scale of the 2016 election. I could not believe it when I heard about this, but it’s true. And the reason I’m saying this is a Hillary electability problem is because these former Republicans? Can you guess which candidate they switched party to Democrat to vote for?

It’s not Hillary Clinton.

Look at what they have to say about her competitor Bernard Sanders:

And it manifested:

Now come back to the Democratic base, or more specifically, the Democratic voter pool. With the above phenomenon established, do you now know what that means? The current Democratic base includes these former Republicans. What then, is the basis of the Hillary 2016 campaign’s argument that Hillary Clinton can beat Donald Trump in a general election? A sizable chunk of the Democratic base is former Republicans. These people registered as Democrats only to vote for Sanders. Hillary Clinton would instantly lose their votes the moment she enters a general election.

The truth of the matter is the Clintons just carry too much baggage with them for Republican voters. Republicans hate the Clintons with a passion. On top of that, the Hillary 2016 campaign’s central message is to be the successor of Barack Obama. She has portrayed herself as the protector of Obama’s legacy and essentially running as Obama’s third term.

This stuff won’t fly well in the general election. People across the political wings and outside of them (independent voters) are in general, upset with the establishment, and right now, Obama is that establishment. What does it say to voters when your message is to continue that legacy, essentially maintaining the status quo? And especially when your main competitor is Donald Trump?

The one big issue this year

I have a theory to explain the Republicans For Sanders phenomenon: I think these people are one-issue voters.

You might hear that and scoff them off because of the stigma associated with the term “one-issue voter”, which is understandable. One-issue voters often vote for politicians who they agree with on exactly one issue just so said politicians prey on them, get their votes, get elected and vote against their interests on 10+ other issues. The result is a net loss in the interest of voters themselves.

However, this one issue was different. It’s different because ironically, it deals with the very same problem of politicians misrepresenting their constituents that one-issue voting often creates.

That issue is campaign finance reform.

More to the point, campaign finance reform is not a partisan issue. It is a bi-partisan issue. There was a recent public opinion poll from New York Times/CBS News on this issue, here is what it found:

84% of the respondents think that money in politics has too much influence.

98% of the respondents think that there is a need for campaign finance reform (at various degrees between “Only minor changes”, “Fundamental changes” and “Completely rebuild”).

This poll was published right around the time the election campaigns started. It makes sense that this is such a hot button issue that there would be one-issue voters based entirely on it, right? The usual process of a democracy is that for any particular voter, you want the law to be this way or that way, and you want your representative in the government to vote in your favor. Agree or disagree, we bring that to a vote. The popular vote will win and the elected politician votes on behalf of as many voters as possible. The majority opinions win out. That’s what we call a democracy, right?

That is unlikely to happen with the current campaign finance system. Politicians currently feel like they got the current job not because the majority of his voters voted for them, but because a minority of donors funded their campaigns toward success through PACs. Guess who they will feel indebted to? That is what we call the influence of money in politics. Before you want any law to be implemented, you have to make politicians answer to you first. The reason 98% of public respondents to this issue wanted campaign finance reform is because this one issue impact just about every other issues.

Which brings us back to this election. Currently, the 3 major front-runners, Sanders, Hillary and Trump all have their own plan to reform campaign finance system, with overturning the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court as a top priority. Sounds like they are more or less the same on this issue, right?

Well, they are the same in what they promise, which is only one half of their electability. The other half is the one that makes a difference: Can you be trusted to commit to your promises once elected?

This is the Hillary electability problem. I believe that former Republicans vote for Sanders because they trust Sanders the most when it comes to reforming the campaign finance system. Put Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, and the former Republicans that are currently in the Democratic base will vote Trump for the same reason they are currently voting for Sanders — a candidate that is not influenced by a big donors’ super PAC. This is a trust issue.

Sanders might be Mr. Nice Guy, he avoids direct smears but Donald Trump is a straight-shooter. In a debate, he can knee-cap Hillary Clinton with this one argument: Hillary is bought, he isn’t, Hillary is influenced by the Priorities USA Action PAC (which as of the end of January 2016, has received $50 million USD from big donors) and he is not. Hell, Trump can use the argument that Hillary was bought by nobody other than himself. A straight-shooter can and would say that.

This is the Hillary electability problem. Right now, the Hillary 2016 is getting a firm voterbase from 2 loyalist bases. One is the feminist base, who will vote for their candidate just because of her gender, because of the ideal scenario of making history with the first female US President. The other is the Obama loyalists, who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 mainly for his race, and are now flocking to the successor of Obama, the one who is running for Obama’s 3rd term. These 2 bases may give Hillary a win within the pool of Democratic voters. Expand the pool of voters to the entire country? I doubt it.

Forget the poll numbers. This is the Hillary electability problem. The problem of losing a chunk of her own voterbase right out of the gate at the moment she enters the general election. The problem of losing the former Republican votes.

As an independent, I can’t wait to vote for Jill Stein in the general election.