State Of The Democratic Nomination Heading Into Xmas

The B-Team

Every Monday, Morning Consult posts the results of its daily polling of Democratic primary votes. Their data goes beyond just the horse race, which is basically that Status Quo Joe (31%), Bernie (21%), Elizabeth (15%) and Mayo Pete (9%) are the top tier candidates, with Bloomberg (6%), Yang (5%), Booker (3%), Klobuchar (3%) and Steyer (3%) drawing some attention.

I found it more interesting, for example, to see who the second choices was among voters who preferred the top candidates. Among Status Quo Joe backers, Bernie is the second choice with 27% of his voters. I know… makes no sense, except that most Biden backers are politically unsophisticated primarily operating on name recognition. Bernie supporters picked someone who make some sense— Elizabeth Warren (the choice of 30% of his backers). And 31% of her supporters picked Bernie as their second choice. Among Mayo Pete backers— looking for a candidate who won’t change anything— 22% picked Status Quo Joe. And among Bloomberg’s supporters, 36% said Status Quo Joe is their second choice. Best ticket would be Bernie and Elizabeth, right?

These are the candidates with the highest favorables (second number is unfavorables)

• Bernie- 74% (19%)
• Status Quo Joe- 71% (22%)
• Elizabeth- 63% (19%)
• Mayo- 50% (17%)
• Yang- 47% (13%)
• Booker- 46% (18%)
• Bloomberg- 44% (27%)
• Klobuchar- 40% (14%)
• Castro- 37% (18%)
• Steyer- 35% (16%)

It’s also worth noting who Democrats really don’t like. These are candidates who too many voters find unlikable:

• Tulsi- 30%
• Bloomberg- 27%
• Marianne- 23%
• Status Quo Joe- 22%

This week Neil Abercombrombie, a former congressman and then governor of Hawaii, called on Tulsi to resign from Congress immediately and also the week Dennis Kucinich endorsed her. She voted “present” on impeaching Trump and has generally continued pissing off Democrats who are increasingly realizing she’s not really running for president, just building name recognition and a donor base for a run for Hawaii’s gubernatorial election in 2022.

There are also more than a few candidates who are still not well-known among Democratic voters. Virtually everyone knows Status Quo Joe and Bernie. But way too unknown to run for president:

• Deval Patrick- 47%
• Michael Bennet- 37%
• Marianne- 34%
• Tulsi- 31%
• Delaney- 30%
• Steyer- 27%
• Klobuchar- 24%

Among the frontrunners, only Mayo is still unknown by a significant number of Democratic voters: 18%.

And these were my own polls of twitter this week. First was how Democratic voters responded to Yang's announcement that he might pardon Trump (information that wasn't available for the Morning Consult polling:

And the other was an earlier poll asking if there is a candidate who participants just would not vote for, even if abstaining would make it easier for Trump to win a second term. The comment under the poll, represents the winning choice and it comes from progressive Pennsylvania state Senator Daylin Leach.