Mark Mellman: No peas in a pod

There’s a facile assumption abroad in the land that the two “outsider” presidential candidates in their respective parties, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are different sides of the same coin, propelled by similar sentiments and overlapping voters.

It’s a convenient story, with some surface plausibility, but it’s not really true.

Here and there one can cherry-pick some demographic parallels, but the differences far outweigh any similarities in importance.

{mosads}Republican voters are distraught with their own party and its leadership — a phenomenon I described here last October, writing, “Republican voters … are angry at a leadership they believe has betrayed them by failing to stand up for the principles on which they were elected and instead caving into ‘political realities,’ in the form of a Democratic president and powerful Senate Democrats.”

Republicans feel betrayed. Democrats don’t.

Disgruntled Republicans were in clear evidence many months ago. A Quinnipiac University Poll in August found only 23 percent of Republicans approving of the way their party’s congressional wing was doing its job.

By contrast, a clear majority — 56 percent — of Democrats approved of the way their members of Congress were performing.

Trump voters are fueled in part by this disdain. Over half the Republican primary voters in South Carolina reported they felt “betrayed” by Republican politicians. Trump won these voters by 13 points over Ted Cruz and by 17 points over Marco Rubio, who together have served a mere eight years in the Senate.

In New Hampshire, only 15 percent of Democrats perceived betrayal by politicians in their party, compared to 47 percent of Republicans who said they felt betrayed by their elected officials.

Republicans are a lot angrier in general. In New Hampshire, 39 percent of Republican voters expressed anger about the federal government, and they gave Trump his biggest margin yet. By contrast, just 12 percent of Democrats reported those same sentiments.

These very different levels of political animosity produce desires for distinct kinds of candidates. So while New Hampshire Democrats wanted a candidate with experience in politics by 2-to-1, Republicans preferred someone from outside the political
establishment by a 6-point margin. 

Trump supporters are actively searching for an outsider because they are angry with Washington generally and feel betrayed by their own political leaders.

Sanders supporters may feel the Bern, but they embrace neither the anger nor the sense of betrayal Trump voters revel in.

In addition, Trump voters express a xenophobia that Sanders supporters do not.

Three-quarters of South Carolina Republican primary voters favored a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S., as did 65 percent of New Hampshire GOP primary participants. These voters cast their ballots for Trump by large margins.

Exit pollsters didn’t even bother to ask the question of Democrats, and pre-primary polling makes clear why — Democrats, including Sanders supporters, overwhelmingly reject this un-American proposal.

A clear majority of Trump voters want to “deport illegal immigrants working in the U.S.” to their home country. Sanders supporters do not. 

Sanders and Trump voters also endorse different politics.

Sanders voters are motivated by income inequality. While, again, exit pollsters didn’t bother to ask, I’ve got to believe that is not Trump voters’ primary concern.

A CBS poll found 71 percent of Sanders voters expressing a positive view of socialism. With only 10 percent of Republican primary voters harboring that view, it’s hard to imagine Trump voters sharing the views of Sanders supporters.

Don’t be fooled by some surface demographic similarities — Trump and Sanders voters are very different people with very different attitudes and priorities.

Try this simple thought experiment to prove it to yourself. In a race between Sanders and Rubio, how many Trump supporters would end up in the Sanders column? And in a Clinton-Trump contest, how many Sanders supporters would cast their ballots for Trump?

Damn few either way. 

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic whip in the House.