Would Bernie have performed better had he actually competed in the South?

[Adam Griffin]

In TN, NC & AR: yes. Elsewhere, probably not (or at least not enough to make it worth the effort).

PPP released a national poll in February of likely primary voters that showed 46% of black voters had "no opinion" of Sanders. Now, there are multiple potential reasons why individuals might not have an opinion of a particular candidate, but when you consider that a) that same number was in the single-digits for white and Latino voters, and b) since Sanders announced, polls had shown him lagging among blacks by 20-30 points in terms of opinion and name recognition when compared to other groups, then it's fairly obvious that said number was so high because very large numbers of black voters didn't really know anything about the guy. "Name recognition" and "opinion of" polling tend to track well with one another.

It's one thing for that to be the case in the summer of 2015, but quite another for that to be the case after several months of media coverage, periods in which Sanders appeared to be pulling even nationally with Clinton, and the then-recent hype over the fact that the first primary contests were about to begin or had already occurred. Honestly, given that, I don't think there's anything else he could have done to break through. There was just a total disconnect here that didn't exist elsewhere; short of showing up at each house in America, what else could have been done? Again, likely primary voters.

It is actually eye-opening, however, when you consider those numbers: if roughly half of black voters didn't know enough about Sanders to have an opinion, then what percentage of those voters do you think went for Clinton? Probably damn near 100%. Sanders seems to be winning around 20% of the black vote nationally, so that means of the half who did have an opinion on him in February, around 40% voted for him. There would have been no guarantee that Sanders would have won the nomination had things been different, but the actual situation definitely guaranteed that Sanders would never be able to win the nomination.