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Sanders would have won 2016 election: Trump pollster

Tuesday, 31 October 2017 6:03 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 31 October 2017 6:05 AM ]

US President Donald Trump (left) and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders

Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders would have defeated President Donald Trump in the general election had he secured the Democratic nomination last year, according to the pollster for Trump’s election campaign.

Speaking at a Harvard University Institute of Politics event Monday, Tony Fabrizio acknowledged that Sanders could have won the 2016 presidential election, which the final Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost to Trump.

“There’s no question that if it had been anybody other than Clinton or anybody other than Trump, that race would not have been as close as it was either way,” Fabrizio said. “It would not have been.”

When asked what could have happened if Trump faced Sanders in the election, Fabrizio replied, “I think Sanders beats Trump.”

“I think Sanders would have had the ability to reach a lot of the less than college-educated, low-income white voters,” he added.

Sanders inspired a populist movement during the 2016 Democrat primaries. He ran a close race with Clinton and promised to continue the fight all the way until the Democratic National Convention in June 2016, where the party’s nominee was going to be named.

Towards the end of the race, however, Sanders changed his tone and bowed out in favor of Clinton, who went on to lose the November 8 presidential election to Trump.

Former Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton listens as rival and US Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a presidential primary debate in Flint, Michigan, March 6, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)

According to WikiLeaks, Trump won the election because Democrats rigged the system to have Clinton beat Sanders.

Sanders could have won the election but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) stopped him from doing so by pushing him out from the primary race, the whistleblowing agency suggested following the election.

In addition, various polls also suggested that Sanders would have defeated Trump in the presidential election by a large margin if he had been the Democratic presidential nominee instead of Clinton.

Numerous polls taken before the 2016 presidential election showed that Clinton and Trump were deeply unpopular politicians, while Sanders enjoyed very high popularity.

Clinton, a former first lady, US senator and secretary of state, was viewed by many voters as a corrupt member of the elite Washington establishment.

Emails released by WikiLeaks have revealed that officials from the DNC sought to undermine Sanders’s bid to win the nomination.

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