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I saw this float around Facebook. It seems it originated from the Twitter account of People For Bernie,

Bernard Sanders is the only candidate in history (in a competitive primary) to win the popular vote in the first 3 states. - People For Bernie

I went looking to corroborate it and it seems only NewsWeek is repeating the claim and their source may just be the Tweet above as it's cited in the article,

BERNIE SANDERS BECOMES FIRST CANDIDATE, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN, TO WIN POPULAR VOTE IN ALL 3 THREE EARLY VOTING STATES

It goes on to explain this,

The Vermont senator garnered primary popular vote victories in Iowa on February 3, New Hampshire on February 11 and Nevada on Saturday -- a first among any Republican or Democrat in history.

Keeping the claim at the "popular vote" - is that still true?

Has no other Democrat or Republican won the first three states in the primary?

Colin
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Evan Carroll
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    Sounds wildly unlikely (and also dependent on how you define "competitive primary") – Colin Feb 23 '20 at 19:50
  • Iowa wasn't a "primary", nor was Nevada. – Daniel R Hicks Feb 23 '20 at 20:56
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    @DanielRHicks: The claims in the texts quoted is not about "primaries"; only Evan's title for the thread is. – GEdgar Feb 24 '20 at 14:25
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    So this is just my opinion, but they're probably using the term "competitive primary" to define a primary where the party is not running an incumbent president. For instance, Donald Trump in 2020 will technically win the first three states in the republican primary, but he's a sitting president so it's not really noteworthy. Similarly, Barack Obama did the same in 2012, GWB in 2004, and Clinton in 1996. – DenisS Feb 24 '20 at 16:28
  • @DenisS I believe that this interpretation is correct, as based on my limited research it makes the claim essentially true. The problem here is confusing wording. It seems like the statement should be "the first non-incumbent presidential candidate within the modern primary system", but that was probably too wordy. – Tal Feb 24 '20 at 16:37
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    @Tal the problem with that is that, if we establish an actual definition that looks like that, you only need to go back as far as the 2000 DNC primary when Al Gore swept the primary. But of course some people would say "that's not competitive" and all of a sudden we're in "No True Scotsmen" territory. – DenisS Feb 24 '20 at 16:43
  • @DenisS Yeah, good point, its an admittedly awkward claim based in too much subjectivity and definitional arguments about "competitiveness". It's not exactly true, but also not exactly wrong. It is notably different from these other cases in various ways, just not in a good '24 hour news talking point' way. And honestly, harping on it overmuch takes away from the actual achievement being discussed. – Tal Feb 24 '20 at 16:51
  • @Tal And here's the fun part. If Sanders runs away with the nomination and wins in a landslide, he no longer counts as having done what's been claimed because the contest wasn't competitive. – DenisS Feb 24 '20 at 16:51
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    @GEdgar - Then the title needs to be edited. – Daniel R Hicks Feb 24 '20 at 16:57
  • Interesting as another counterexample, 2004 DNC Primary. The first "primary" was in DC, awarded no delegates, and only had 3 people on the ballot (and Howard Dean was the only serious candidate on the ballot). Kerry then wins the first two states (Iowa and NH) and 5 of the 7 states on Mini-Tuesday, the next day with primaries, and the only two states he didn't win he came in 2nd and 3rd. By the way it's phrased, it was basically impossible for Kerry to satisfy the requirements because there were more than 3 states in the first three days where there were primaries. – DenisS Feb 26 '20 at 19:33

1 Answers1

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No, Bernie Sanders is not the first candidate to win the popular vote in the first 3 state primary elections or caucuses in a competitive year. For instance, as user Tgr points out, Jimmy Carter won the first 3 contests in 1980 despite facing stiff competition from Ted Kennedy.

Depending on the definition of "competitive primary" used (which neither source articulates), there are potentially several more examples. For instance, as the Newsweek article itself notes, Al Gore won the first 3 contests against Bill Bradley in 2000.

Colin
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  • Although this answer is useful as preliminary research, I don't think it quite qualifies as an answer. As a minimum you would need to provide a link to the Al Gore vs Bradley contests. – BobTheAverage Feb 23 '20 at 20:22
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    Still not an answer. If you think the question is not possible to answer you should flag it. – pipe Feb 23 '20 at 22:03
  • If "competitive" means there was competition, the claim is clearly false. If it means the results were close, then (besides that being a weird claim to make) Nevada does not look competitive so far. – Tgr Feb 24 '20 at 01:00
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    Jimmy Carter also won the first three contests in 1980: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Statewide_contest_by_winner Even though he was the incumbent, I'm not sure the election could be called non-competitive. – Tgr Feb 24 '20 at 01:11
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    I consider the referral to Newsweek that is part of the question as a reference. It would be nicer to quote the relative section, and even nicer to find a more primary source than Newsweek to support it. – Oddthinking Feb 24 '20 at 01:43
  • @Tgr thanks for the link to 1980. I'm editing my answer accordingly – Colin Feb 24 '20 at 04:14
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    @Tgr it shows that the claim cannot be sustained under *any* reasonable definition of contested primary. – Colin Feb 24 '20 at 04:22