Everybody says ‘Bernie would have won’ or ‘Bernie wouldn’t have won,’ but I won’t really believe either until I see some polling data.
I think the DNC as a whole is partially to blame. The very fact that there is a superdelegate system, disproportionally and undemocratically favoring the voice of the elite, allowed Hillary to grab the nomination when the more likable Bernie Sanders might have defeated Trump.
While there is no way to prove that he would have won, I feel he easily could have better united the Democrat Party and that his supporters were far more passionate than Clinton’s. Heck, Jeebus here protest voted against Hillary. I doubt there would have been much of that against Bernie, even among Hillary supporters. I’ve no doubt most would have gone ahead and voted for Bernie as their number two pick.
I think the unification problem had more to do with Bernie’s supports (and to some extent Bernie himself) than Clinton herself.
As documented earlier, Bernie’s supporters notably moved to support Hillary at higher rates and faster than Hillary’s supporters moved to support Obama eight years earlier. While there are always some holdouts in any primary race, the 2016 Democratic Party was notable for its lack of a unification problem, at least when compared to prior years.