Favorability Ratings of Dem Candidates and Head to Head Competition vs. Rep Candidates
Our national news media has tried very hard to pass off the idea on the American public that Bernie Sanders would be “unelectable” in a general election against the Republican nominee, and that Hillary Clinton is the inevitable Democratic nominee anyhow.
But the data say otherwise.
First there are the favorability polling ratings of the two major Democratic candidates:
Favorability ratings of Democratic candidates
Clinton -13.2
Sanders +7.4
Then there is polling data on how they stack up in head to head competition against the leading Republican candidates:
Vs. Trump
Sanders +17.5% -- average of 6 latest polls, worst poll for Sanders +14 over Trump
Clinton +11.2
Vs. Cruz
Sanders +8.4
Clinton +2.9
Vs. Kasich
Sanders +1.0
Clinton -6.5
So why does Clinton continue to lead Sanders in national polls of Democratic voters?
Since announcing his candidacy, Bernie Sanders has made great inroads in closing the gap between him and Clinton in national polls of Democratic voters. Beginning at 56.8% behind in February 2015, Sanders has now closed that gap (See graph) to about 8.3%. But given the difference in favorability ratings, why is he still behind her at all?
I see two main reasons for that: One is that those polls that show Sanders behind Clinton include only Democratic voters, which constitute a minority of the total voting population of our country. Bernie has much wider appeal among independents, who may actually be more liberal that most Democratic Party members today (I really don’t know, but it is an interesting and significant question).
The other major reason is that there are many Democratic voters who would prefer Sanders to Clinton as President, but would not vote for him in the primaries because they are afraid that he is unelectable. The data above should put that argument to rest.
What about arguments that polling data this far away from the general election has no importance?
Some at DU have espoused this argument in response to my using similar data to show that Bernie is electable. But that argument is grossly overstated. It is of course true that polling data several months away from the general election is substantially less accurate in predicting the Presidential winner than is polling taken on the eve of the election. The major reason for that is that a lot can happen between now and then. Scandals can occur that affect the electability of a candidate. Public debates can change voters’ opinions. And many other things can happen to change voters’ opinions.
But what the polling data does tell us is who is likely to win if the election was held today. And this particular polling data tells us that Bernie Sanders would stand a much better chance of beating the Republican nominee in a general election than would Hillary Clinton if the election was held today. So to say that Bernie Sanders is unelectable is not only baseless but is the opposite of what current polling data tell us.
On Sanders’ chances of winning the Democratic nomination
I don’t know what Sanders’ chances are of winning the Democratic nomination. I do know that there are a lot of states that haven’t voted yet, and most of them seem to be favorable to Sanders. It is also important to consider the fact that polling data has consistently and widely underestimated Bernie’s performance in most states, except for some such as Arizona, where voter suppression on Election Day was so severe that early voting probably made up the majority of total votes cast.
After the Michigan primary, in which Nate Silver wrongly predicted that Clinton would win, with a greater than 99% probability, he decided to develop an entirely new model to predict primary results. But even this new model substantially underestimated Bernie’s performance in Idaho, Utah, Alaska, and Washington (I haven’t yet seen results from Hawaii). Only in Arizona, where voter suppression prevented so many voters from voting on Election Day did his new model not underestimate Bernie’s performance.
Concluding remarks
It is of utmost importance that Democratic voters who have not yet voted in their states’ primaries understand that there is no basis for the frequently heard statement that Sanders is unelectable, because if they think that he is unelectable even though they prefer him to Clinton as President, they will vote for the wrong person, and the wrong person will be the Democratic nominee. It is also of utmost importance that Super-Delegates who have previously declared themselves for Clinton consider the polling data very carefully if it persists to the Democratic Convention, before casting their vote.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Nice to see you reporting again.
