Comments

1

This opinion is dangerous and undemocratic. You should be careful how you use your platform. I will not return to the Stranger. Goodbye.

2

On the other hand, if you've already decided you prefer a candidate, then maybe you should go ahead and vote for that candidate instead of waiting a while to possibly not vote for your preferred candidate.

3

OMG! dude you are advocating strategy which is great, but this is voting. People are supposed to support the person they want whether that fits into your strategy or not. If you don't like that there are 50 democrats trying to be the "one" that starts elsewhere not here, not now..now too late. Like 6 years ago when Obama was still going to be President. You change the pool of potential people then, not now. And just because you think she is "going to lose" does not mean a vote for her is for Bernie. Need I remind you that WA state already selected Bernie once and well somehow .......that didn't happen.(democratic convention cough cough) I agree with the first poster. If you tell people to vote for anyone other than who they like...just because the other person is more popular ...well that is wrong or right ....like way, way right .....as in pretty f'ing RED.

4

No.

5

Well I won’t vote for Trump or Sanders. I’d rather stick forks in my eyes.

6

I don't think there's anything unethical about strategic voting. Or in advocating strategic voting to others. But I think its a doubtful proposition on its own terms because it always hinges on one's supposed ability to anticipate the actions of others. Like, for example, presuming the "Democratic Establishment' would torpedo Bernie Sanders given the chance.

Anyhow, four years ago people were gaming out a brokered Republican convention and that didn't happen. Nobody was taking Trump seriously at all at this point. So much is going to change over the next few weeks and months, plotting that far ahead is a mugs game.

7

I already voted for Warren because I think she's the best potential president out of the people who are running.

If Bernie can't win a majority, I want Warren being a key player in deciding who the convention chooses, whether it's him, her, or someone else. And if she doesn't get any delegates from Washington, it doesn't really matter to me whether it's Bernie (who is right on policy but doesn't have the temperament or political skills to be a good president) or one of the moderates (who are worse on policy but aren't Trump and can actually get something done). I'm voting blue no matter who.

8

@7 Cascadian: Thank you and bless you! Right spot on for the WIN!! Agreed and seconded.

9

Reasons to vote RIGHT NOW: 1) Less likely you forget or lose your ballot 2) You save the campaigns time and money because once your ballot arrives at King Co Elections you get taken off the mailing and canvass lists 3) more early votes means more ballots counted on election night, shortening the wait for finding out who wins.

Really, holding onto your ballot only helps Bloomberg who doesn't have to worry about things like money or staff efficiency.

10

@7 The risk you run is that if Warren has a poor showing on Super Tuesday she may either drop out or lose enough popularity that she will no longer be able to get to the 15% viability threshold in Washington state, either way your vote would be for naught. The race could change with regards to Bernie as well, another health event for example could cause his support to collapse. In an evolving race like this, it is probably strategic for every Washington voter to wait and see how things are playing out before casting your vote.

11

I support Warren not Bernie, hence I'm not going to vote for Bernie. And, after the DNC walkout and BS last cycle... I'm not supporting Bernie in the primary even if Warren drops out.

12

I mostly agree with @7. I like Warren best out of the candidates currently still in the race. I'll vote blue no matter who in November.

I will, however wait for the results of Super Tuesday before I mail my primary ballot in. It seems like a strong possibility that one or more of the candidates could drop out if they get a poor showing. That could change the race significantly. Bernie is not my second choice, or 3rd. I honestly don't think he can win, and voting for him in the primary guarantees Cheetolini a 2nd term, especially now that he's handed Florida's delegates to Trump. I'm still not sure who I'll vote for if Warren tanks or drops out after Super Tuesday, but it won't be Bernie.

13

My nightmare scenario: A November election campaign between two angry old white men, sputtering loudly with arms waving and fingers jabbing. Surely America deserves better. Surely the Democratic Party can choose to not contribute to such a depressing exchange.

14

I do recommend waiting for Super Tuesday regardless of who you’re voting for. I can see Warren dropping out and you Anybody But Bernie Democrats (fka Clinton Cultists) who want Warren would probably want your vote to go toward somebody who matters, right?

In my opinion, Bernie and Warren are the only ones who can win. Pete is young, inexperienced and a terrible human being. Biden is plummeting like a stone. Klobuchar has no traction. Bloomberg and Steyer will alienate 50% of the party and independents.

Warren is going to have to do some major course correction given current standing and polling to stand a chance.

15

@13 has a point.
The Presidential election boils down to two candidates who are in the high-risk cohort for COVID-19.
God help us all!

16

I’ve been an Elizabeth Warren supporter. She’s one of the very few political candidates that I’ve ever donated money to.

But the reality here is that she’s not going to win. I hope she plays a big role in a future Democratic presidency no matter who that president is. So when I cast my absentee ballot for my state, I decided it was important to choose the candidate who is progressive and who has the best chance of winning the nomination. That candidate is Sanders.

Yeah, he’s got his flaws, but he’s in the best position to deliver real change. He’s not going to negotiate himself down before even negotiating with Congress like Obama did. His recent comments on Cuba tell me he has a far more realistic view of the world than most in Washington do (contrary to popular opinion, the world is not conveniently divided into good guys and bad guys).

I’m concerned about his age. His VP choice will be extremely important for that reason. But, recent heart problems aside, he seems in good health and mentally sharp, and has the kind of authenticity that can stand up to Trump.

So when I mailed my ballot back, I voted for Sanders, not Warren. With a little regret perhaps. But it’s a vote I can stand by. Especially to the degree it denies Bloomberg the nomination.

17

@16 -- Danke.

@13 -- "My nightmare scenario: A November election campaign between two angry old white men, sputtering loudly with arms waving and fingers jabbing. Surely America deserves better." --RDP

Two choices:
the Sociopath
or the Democratic socialist.

I Voted! And I sent him $4.20
more than once.

18

aka - if you don’t vote for my candidate, stay home. Nope. I do what I want!

19

No.
Already voted proudly for Warren.
Let people vote. Count the votes. Let the chips fall.
Quit multidimensional chessplaying with this horse race stuff.

20

This is an incredibly irresponsible and undemocratic thing to post. WOW.

21

@20 -- and nearly as bad as the gerrymandering and voter suppression etc ad vomitas on the opposing side? (that's 'sposed to be rhetorical)

Pardon my ignorance, but would you mind showing the harm?
Thanks!

22

I mean, I think people are taking this the wrong way. If you want Warren and don't have a preference beyond her, then by all means vote for her now. But if you want Warren but have a second choice for someone else (Bernie or not) then it makes sense to wait until after Super Tuesday since otherwise you are basically throwing your vote away if Warren drops out on Super Tues.

As vocal a Bernie supporter as I am, I still think it's premature to declare him the expected nominee. He's a frontrunner, but it will depend a lot on what happens in South Carolina (where he is not expected to win though fingers crossed) and Super Tuesday (where he is expected to do very well but also there are some wild cards including Bloomberg on the ballot and also the possibility that Steyer will be a main player after South Carolina).

So yea, I think it's a good idea to wait until after Super Tuesday and see what the field looks like if you have first and second choices.

23

BTW my advice goes to the Super Tuesday states as well where we've had early voting already and I advised people who had second preferences to wait and see what happened in NV and SC so this isn't just about Warren/Sanders. For example, I know two white people- both upper class who work in nonprofits- who literally did not believe me when I told them that Pete polls at near zero with people of color. They saw what happened in NV and it surprised them. In those two cases, their second choices are Biden for one and Bernie for the other both of whom are still going to be viable by super Tuesday while Pete and Warren probably will not.

25

Mizz Liz - That seems sound for those with a second choice. Do you have any sound advice for those of us with no choice left? At the start of the year, I still had three or four possibles, but I've gone off them all for various reasons. Luckily, I live in a safe state.

26

Auntie Griz, Cascadian, those who want her to have a say at the conventino in who gets the eventual nominee at a brokered convention:

For her to have any say at the convention at all, she has to start winning enough votes to get delegates. Which she's not doing so far. She might not even get enough delegates to have a voice at the convention. It's possible she'll walk away with only a dozen or less. So yes, even if you are just voting for her to give her a voice in choosing the future nom, it still makes sense to wait.

She's only got those 8 from Iowa, none from NH and none for NV and she'll also get none in SC. So she's going to enter Super Tues with only the 8 she picked up in Iowa.

It's possible that she'll drop out BEFORE Super Tuesday, so any vote you give her now will be wasted.

It's more likely that she'll hang on through Super Tuesday to wait and see if she picks up any delegates in those state contests. She has the money to do it. But it's possible she'll still pick up no delegates then either which means your vote now would be wasted again.

If she drops out after Super Tuesday but before WA, then most people in WA will not vote for her which means she'll get no delegates in WA and therefore your vote will be wasted.

Therefore, yes it's logical to wait until after Super Tuesday if you live in a state where that's possible so that you can see if she has any delegates at all.

If you prefer Warren and have no second choice, then vote now why not. But if you have a second choice, you probably should wait.

27

@25 Venn,

In the past when I've had no preference in the Dem primary I have voted for third parties (when available) or just skipped it altogether. This is totally different from the General of course where there is a pretty solid case for voting for a lesser evil. If you want to sit it out, you are under no compulsion to hold your nose until November in my opinion. Since you asked...

Though honestly with such a wide field I can't believe that any one would not have any preference AT ALL- I mean there's a huge difference between Bernie and Bloomberg and Klobuchar and I'd think surely you'd see one or more of them as a greater evil compared to another even if you disliked them all. But you do you.

28

For some of us, this is the one and only time we're voting for our candidate of choice. Stop ramming your opinions down our throats Bernie supporters. It's a bit rich that this view is coming from Bernie supporters since they supported Bernie all the way to the convention.

29

Oddly enough for those of you saying that Bernie supporters are being unreasonable,

The truth is that if you guys want to vote for Warren now then it's likely to help Bernie since your vote will either add a small handful of delegates to someone who will not win OR not count at all.

I don't believe that people who still really like Warren see Bernie as their second choice- maybe some but not most. I think most of those people have seen the writing on the wall. I think that being stubborn like this helps Bernie by continuing to split the moderate vote. So if you don't want to wait and if you want to vote now even though there's a high likelihood that you are throwing your vote away, go ahead and do it. Strategically, you are helping Bernie.

I was just giving advice because I'm a nerd and thought maybe people want their vote to count- in my experience a lot of Warren supporters have other second choices than Bernie anyway.

The article's advice assumed Warren people cared about a progressive agenda and therefore gave honest strategy advice about how to best enact that- it never told you not to vote for Warren. It just said you might want to wait to see if she's even still running by the time your state votes. Which seems like very simple reasonable advice and I'm damned that you guys are being so touchy about it.

Yeah it sucks to lose. If Bernie gets third place Saturday, I'm going to be a little cry baby for a bit too, but I'm not going to throw all strategy out the window in protest. I actually give a fuck if we get health care and stop murdering people abroad.

31

This is bizarre logic, and assumes nothing will change with regards to Bernie Sanders. What if he has another heart attack. Then all those votes for him would be wasted.

Furthermore, you are making the argument that a contested convention would be bad, but that nominating a self described socialist is just fine.

It is highly unlikely that one candidate will be a clear winner. The last two Democratic races came down to two person race, even when it was clear that the front runner was going to win (Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016). Despite being behind, and the voting demographics being relatively settled, the challenger (Hillary Clinton in 2008, Sanders in 2016) hung in there, and kept running to the very end.

I expect that to happen again, although I could see a three person race as well (especially Warren, Sanders and Biden). The point being, there is great value in being second, or even third. There is a good chance that either Sanders or Biden could stumble, given their age. It is also possible that moderate voters (the people who did not vote for Sanders -- the majority of voters so far) will choose Warren over Sanders.

32

I always wait until Election Day to vote. Anything can happen right up until then, and you should choose based on the most information possible. (Remember George W. Bush's DUI arrest revelation a week before the 2000 election? That might have been enough to sink him despite the butterfly ballots, etc., if so many people hadn't already voted absentee when the news came to light.) Hold your ballot until March 10 and then use a drop box, no matter who your favored candidate is. You never, ever know.

33

Maybe JUST MAYBE, some of us are voting for Warren BECAUSE she's a progressive who is much more likely than Bernie to actually get sh*t done. He'll lose to trump, but if somehow he managed to hang on and win I'd hate to see how disilusioned all his supporters would become once they realize he'd be incredibly inefective in the (really difficult) job of the presidency.

34

@32 Drunk driving. How quaint.

35

Once again, Rich Smith shows that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
We should vote for Sanders early because the first ballot drop will come and show his momentum and that will help him? The first ballot drop comes after the deadline for everyone in Washington to vote so..... How many votes he has at the first drop will make little difference in future voting states. Or is Bernie so weak that his position will change so drastically over a week of ballot counting?

36

Mizz Liz - I began with about six possibles, and then gradually they all accumulated too many penalty points. In the GE, I'm almost sure to write in Sen Baldwin again (the joys of living in a safe state). In the primary, I may cast what will come as close as possible to a vote AGAINST someone. (What a shame one can't cast a negative vote, or vote +1/2 for A and -1/2 against B, which would be especially useful in a widely contested primary. There are still three Ds for whom I could stomach half a positive vote, but the rest are all either Never or at least Not This Time.)

37

I don't agree with @14 Misanthrope on a lot of things, but he's dead on here; wait until after Super Tuesday. This state went huge for Bernie in the caucuses, but then went huge for Hillary in the primaries - exposing the fact that the caucus system can't be trusted. If you're a strategic voter, Super Tuesday will be the best evidence of where the wind is blowing, and we vote the week after that.

38

Nice low key headline update, The Stranger. What a trash rag you are.

40

A vote for Bernie is a vote for Trump.

41

Unbelievable. For someone who hopes Warren smashes expectations and comes out of Super Tuesday way ahead of the moderates in the delegate race, you have a funny way of expressing it. I voted for Elizabeth because it's time for a woman in the white house, right? And she can unite the party. And she has a good heart - LITERALLY as well as figuratively.

42

Warren should drop out, but she won't. Instead she has embraced a scorched-earth policy to take Bloomberg down with her because he allegedly said something mean to someone 25 years ago. He didn't turn back to her at the debate and stoop to her level and tell her "at least I didn't pretend I was Native American to get a job at Harvard and then took a DNA test to 'prove' it" Bloomberg is the only candidate who will get the votes necessary to defeat Trump. But go ahead and vote for the revolution, vote with your heart not your head.
"21% of people planning to vote in the March 10 Democratic presidential primary said they would vote for Sanders. About 22% were undecided, 15% said they were going to vote for former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg"

43

If you have a complicated voting system, then people won't trust it.

Iowa was so manipulated to screw Sanders out of his win. The other contestants banded together to split the votes, so Sanders didn't get his majority win. Definition of a broken process. How is that fair when you can manipulate the outcome like that?

Why do Democrats tout "Get rid of the electoral college, and all votes should be counted equally", yet they have this Superdelegate system where an "Elite" group of people have more influence than the common voter? Even most of the Democratic candidates said they would not acknowledge the popular vote. LOL? They want it to be "contested" and go through this wierd complicated process. So much for the will of the people.
common voter? How is that fair? So much for the popular vote right?

Everyone knew the fix was in for the last election where Hillary would get all the Super delegates and screw Sanders out of his win. Even the Democrats have there own form of electoral college with their delegate system.

45

Why on earth should (or would) anyone listen to anyone telling them how to vote? The only thing that matters is that everyone votes!

46

I don't care what your "strategy" is, I plan to vote for whoever the democrats nominate. If it's Bernie, I sincerely doubt that he can beat Trump but so be it.

I also resent having to publicly identify myself and my political affiliation on the outside of the primary ballot envelope so the state of Washington can stick that stupid policy where the sun don't shine. Politics in this state are more toxic than they are in Texas and that's really saying something.

47

OKMuggle

48

Hilarious. All the "vote blue no matter who" folks are just LOSING IT! Warren will not win the nomination, non-Dems who are willing to vote Sanders will not vote for an undemocratically super delegate appointed candidate, so Trump is going to win a second term. Check back with me in November so I can tell you how stupid you are... again.

49

Warren is my current first choice, and I am waiting until after super Tuesday to vote, but not for Sanders, who's near the bottom of my list. I think Sanders is great as the contrarian curmudgeon, but he's just not leader material. If Warren looks unlikely I may go with my second choice, Buttigieg. progressive vs moderate matters, but it's not my only consideration.

50

If Sanders is the eventual presidential candidate, he is going to need Warren as his VP to prop him up - that's the only way I will vote for him. What a fucking miserable choice: orange slime or wacko grandpa. Christ almighty, we're doomed.

51

42, exactly. Bloomberg is the only won pragmatic enough to stand a chance of winning against the current resident of the WH. I like Warren but she cannot get elected, it's just not going to happen. This country isn't emotionally mature enough to elect a woman as president. HRC SHOULD HAVE WON.

52

Turns out this was great advice! (Unless your next choice really was Biden)

53

Aaaaaand here we are. Warren is out and all who voted for her wasted their vote. Bernie will defeat Trump, Biden doesn't know what day it is. All the same to me, I'll be fine either way, I'm fighting for other people... A strong community equals healthy society equals a better life for all. Bernie is the only choice.


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