vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
Bernie might be the most liked and trusted politician in the U.S., but that's not the same thing as a willingness to vote for him.
that is what recent polling is measuring. what you are leaving out is the polling back during the 2016 primaries that showed sanders vs. trump better than clinton vs. trump. that is a measure not just of willingness to vote, but the specific/real voting context (that's a really big deal when measuring intended behaviour). not sure why your speculation, which i actually think is very reasonable, should take precedence over evidence. yes, of course, we don't know how everything would play out once it got down to an actual sanders/trump face-off, but we have a starting point at least.
i think some people here are discounting the rise of progressivism and the questioning of capitalism in the USA, certainly among younger people. it has taken me by surprise. on top of that, we seem to be forgetting just how hated hillary clinton was by a lot of democrats. to me, that was the only way somebody as hated as trump could win.
finally, when i say i think sanders would have won, i don't mean that i am 100% certain, more that i would estimate a 70% probability of it knowing what we now know -- that trump actually did win, which we all thought was only 5% likely the night before the election.