Sanders had more universal appeal and seems like he would have likely garnered more electoral votes.
It’s possible, but there’s no way to know how much damage would have been done to his reputation once he was a target of the right. SOCIALIST!!! may have still been an extremely potent attack in 2016.
True. But ultimately, a general election is more of a test of ideological enthusiasm than actual national representation. Democrats outnumber Republicans, and yet general elections tend to be rather evenly split in terms of sheer wins and losses. Romney was a far better Republican candidate than Trump, and I’ll bet you the majority of the nation today would agree with that. Unfortunately, he was unable to turn out the vote. I think even many Republicans think Hillary was a better candidate than The Donald (I sure do; I was actually disappointed for the first time in my life that a Republican won the presidency!). Nevertheless, she was unable to turn out the vote, at least in the key states.
My point is that I believe those who wouldn’t vote for Bernie because of his self-identified socialism probably wouldn’t have turned out for Hillary anyway. I just think he could have gotten Left-leaners out of the woodwork better than Hillary could have.