I got some flack from @SenSanders Bernie world over the course of the primary when I appeared on some progressive pods like @SamSeder's & @MMFlint's & discussed the improbability that Sanders would win the nomination due to his lack of appeal among black voters.

I told those audiences that as an expert in presidential nominations who wrote a doctoral dissertation in presidential nominations, it is simply a mathematical fact that in the D primary, black voters are the center of gravity. Of course, Sanders still had a small chance of

pulling off a win end but it would have been via an unprecedented path: him winning a plurality of delegates + brokered convention bc the mainstream of the field did something we've not seen since the 72 reforms: fail to coalesce around 1 candidate. At least, that's where things

were headed until @PeteButtigieg & @amyklobuchar also made history by quitting the race the night BEFORE Super Tuesday (another 1 for the record books in '20). This, combined w the fact that @Bloomberg's unprecedented 1/2 billion Super Tuesday campaign flopped allowed that 1

frontrunner to emerge, and reinstated the king maker power of black voters in the democratic party's nominating process. Now, its imp for Sanders supporters to understand, the Sanders campaign understood this constraint, and although they hoped to offset some of it by outreach to

Latino voters, they knew they HAD TO to increase the senator's support with black voters for him to win in '20. They worked hard to do so. They made strong gains among younger black voters but primaries, like all elections, are predominately populated by voters over 40, not under

It can be hard for supporters of a candidate, esp a two-cycle candidate, to let go of their dream of seeing their candidate win. It will be even harder this cycle because starting today, Bernie supporters are going to be targets of the GOPs multimillion propaganda campaign aimed

at getting these voters to either stay home in Nov or cast "protest ballots." The @JoeBiden team can mitigate a large part of the risk from the GOP's sabotage campaign by balancing the ticket w liberal running mate, a major mistake the @HillaryClinton made in '16.

Progressive influencers/media personalities will also be instrumental to the success or failure of the GOP's plan. Somewhere in RNC headquarters lies a playbook & in that playbook a chapter on how to weaponize the progressive communities alt media universe against itself.

For the past year I have been trying to highlight the basic math problem the Trump campaign faces trying to reelect Trump. The media talks about Trump's victories in the Midwest as stories of him carrying those states, but the data tell a more complex story, and reveal Trump's

Ws there were via pluralities aside from IA and OH. The reason pluralities were good enough to carry these states in 2016 was due to the unusually high %s of voters who cast protest ballots. For ex, in WI, a state that Trump carried by just .7 more than 6% of voters cast protest

ballots in 2016. This compares to about 1.5% in the 2012 election. The story is the same throughout all the swing states. In his presidency, Trump is stuck between 43 & 46% approval, and tends to come in around 47% on the head to heads. How can you hope to elect a guy that can't

crack 50%? There is only one way- you must do everything you can to prevent there being a two-person race. In so doing, the winning vote margin can be reduced below 50%. This is a INTEGRAL part of Trump's reelection plan. If you are a progressive, this means the GOP is planning

on using you to reelect Trump. And they are finding willing partners within the progressive movement. I expect more than 20+ million to be spent on convincing progressives to defect to help elect Trump & GOP senators. https://nbcmontana.com/news/beyond-the-podium/montana-republicans-bankrolled-green-party-ballot-access