DU Primaries Report, April 2019: Let's Get This Party Started!

[EarlG]

We've been keeping a log of the candidates' support on DU since March 22. The numbers are logged on Mondays and Fridays, and we plan to provide an update on the last Monday or Friday of the month. That's today! So here's the first update.

How the Candidate Rankings board works

First, since we haven't actually explained the inner workings of the Candidate Rankings board, here's a quick primer:

• Displayed percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number, so a candidate displayed at (for example) 10% will have an actual percentage in the range of 9.50% to 10.49%.


• The exception to this is candidates below 0.5% -- they are still displayed at 1% (to indicate that they have at least some support on DU). FWIW, there are currently no candidates with zero supporters.


• If two candidates' whole number percentages are equal, the one with the higher actual percentage will be displayed first.

How the rankings have changed over time

By logging the candidates' support twice a week, we can create graphs of how their support has changed over time. Although we are logging and graphing all the candidates, for clarity in this report we've decided to only include candidates who are polling at more than 1% actual support. Currently, there are eight candidates who fit that criteria. They are (in alphabetical order): Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.


Candidates above 1% actual support, including Undecided



Here you can see how Undecided supporters are slowly coming off the fence over the month of April. Undecided started at 48.42% on March 22, and has declined to 40.69% by today. Of note is that whenever candidates have experienced a bump in support for whatever reason, the bump has mostly drawn from Undecideds coming off the fence, as opposed to DUers switching support from one candidate to another.


Candidates above 1% actual support, excluding Undecided



By removing Undecided from the graph, we get a clearer picture of how the top candidates have moved over time.

Inslee, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, and Sanders have remained quite stable over the month of April. Inslee began the month at 2.48% and ends it at 2.00%. Klobuchar began at 1.15% and ends at 1.00%. O'Rourke began at 3.51% and ends at 2.78%, and Sanders began at 7.8% and ends at 7.96%.

Of those four candidates, O'Rourke has suffered the largest decline in support, starting strong when he announced his candidacy, but his share of support has been slowly bleeding week after week since then as new supporters have not been flocking to his cause. Meanwhile Sanders is the only candidate of the four to have increased his percentage over the month of April.

The other four candidates have seen a lot more movement. Harris was the number one candidate on DU for a long time, but her percentage of support has steadily declined since day one, as other candidates have come into the mix. She began April at 13.97%, and has now declined to 10.59%, although it's worth noting that she held onto the number one spot all the way up until last week, when she was finally overtaken by Joe Biden.

The current number one candidate, Joe Biden, has seen two significant bumps in support. The first came near the beginning of April as the media focused on stories alleging that he touched people inappropriately. The backlash to this reporting gave Biden a boost on DU and he increased his support from 8.32% on April 1 to 10.21% on April 8. His second, larger bump came over the past week when he officially announced his candidacy. That has pushed Biden up into first place with a significant jump from 9.54% on April 21 to 13.25% on April 29.

Pete Buttigieg saw the greatest overall increase in support since March 22, beginning at 3.82% and rocketing all the way up to 11.57% on April 19 as he began to garner national attention. (Buttigieg did draw some support from Biden between April 12 and April 19 as Biden's "backlash bump" faded slightly.) But does Mayor Pete have staying power? Since topping out at 11.57% and reaching second place in the rankings, Buttigieg has declined to 9.44% today and could be overtaken by Elizabeth Warren for third place at any moment.

Speaking of Warren, she appeared to be trending along the same lines as Inslee, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, and Sanders, only climbing from 5.83% on March 22 to 6.29% on April 19. But she has seen a spectacular rise since then, climbing three points to 9.29% today. We suspect that this increase in support on DU was due to her becoming the first candidate to officially call for Trump's impeachment following the Mueller report.

So that's where we stand so far. Obviously none of this is particularly scientific and it's not meant to replace or compete with actual real polls being done out there in the real world, but we do think it's been really interesting to track how DUers' preferences are changing over time. We'll be doing this again at the end of each month as long as the primaries are going on. Thanks for reading!

[seaglass]

1. Thanks for sharing this, quite interesting! n/t

[hlthe2b]

2. This is fun and I think everyone appreciates your doing so. Could we also get the Total N?

ie., the total number DUers registering a preference (including undecided)?

[Quackers]

43. +1 nt

[Laelth]

3. Very interesting and nicely done. Thank you. n/t

-Laelth

[stonecutter357]

4. K&R

[Scurrilous]

5. Good job!

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. Veeery interesting.

Thanks!

[MineralMan]

7. Thanks for the numbers and charts!

That will help people visualize what's going on better.

[LakeArenal]

8. Very nice to know. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. Would be interesting to see this against all Dem #s. Looks

Like we are finally getting closer to the whole party. This is actually a very good sign.

[ismnotwasm]

10. I love Harris, but I was little surprised at Warrens numbers

Glad to see her rise.

[JudyM]

37. Same here.

[Initech]

11. Trying to figure out current poll numbers and candidates like:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. Thanks for all your work! It's fascinating.

I look forward to seeing how the totals change over time.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for sharing EarlG.

[Crowman2009]

14. Can anyone send me a link showing each candidates platforms?

I want some details about everybodys policy goals.

[Hekate]

21. You'd have to visit each candidate's site individually, I think. I doubt there is just one...

...at this time. I am prepared to be corrected, however.

[Honeycombe8]

15. Very interesting! nt

[PatrickforO]

16. Thanks! Quite interesting.

I'm interested to see Mayor Pete's staying power, as well.

[spicysista]

17. Thanks for putting all of this together!

[WheelWalker]

19. Love data! Great job.

[Hekate]

20. Thanks for the hard work, EarlG!

[USALiberal]

22. Any chance of getting the count by candidate? Nt

[BigmanPigman]

23. Man, you beat Steve Kornacki's graphs no contest.

Very interesting that Biden went up AFTER it was reported that he touched people inappropriately....

"near the beginning of April as the media focused on stories alleging that he touched people inappropriately. The backlash to this reporting gave Biden a boost on DU and he increased his support from 8.32% on April 1 to 10.21% on April 8."

[CTyankee]

46. Sadly, I can't believe Kornacki any more. He used to be more believable, now I think he is being

a bit "funny" with his charts...something about him lately bothers me...

[alfredo]

24. Thank you for this graph.

I was surprised that Sanders support is flat. Is he not gathering people to his cause?

Warren surprised me. She’s tough and smart.

Hated to see Harris’s numbers dropping. I guess if we win, and Harris isn’t pres or veep, I want her as AG.

[cstanleytech]

26. I suspect the biggest thing holding Sanders back was his going back to an independent

after he failed to secure the nomination in the last election.
Had he not done that then his support would probably be greater among more Democrats.

[oldsoftie]

28. True; makes it look like "Democrat for convenience only"

I didnt realize he had gone back to "I"

[cstanleytech]

31. "makes it look like "Democrat for convenience only"" Well it was his decision as it's not like he

was forced to leave by the party.
Now he has to deal with the consequences.

[oldsoftie]

34. Yep.

[George II]

36. He had already registered his 2018 re-election campaign committee with the FEC....

....as an Independent even before the Convention.

[oldsoftie]

39. Wow. So you can just come & go as you please depending on your needs?

The party cant say "thanks but no thanks"?

[alfredo]

52. We're not very good at recycling candidates.

[cstanleytech]

25. Wierd how Buttigieg and Harris became almost parallel.

[True Dough]

32. Maybe their fates are intertwined

because they're destined to form a ticket???

[cstanleytech]

35. Certainly possible as we have a long way to go to see how this all plays out but regardless

who wins I intend to fully support the winner and vote for them because just about any Democrat is better than Trump.

[oldsoftie]

27. Still surprised how many are still "undecided". Seems like they'd at least lean to ONE.

After all, you can always change later if you want

[GemDigger]

29. When you are in the last group of states to vote, it doesn't pay to get too worked

up over something you have absolutely no control over. Pay close attention, absolutely. Have a favorite, most likely. Get the hopes up, very cautiously.

[oldsoftie]

40. Well, yes, but it does say; if i were to vote in a primary TODAY.

Seems like everyone would pick SOMEONE if the primary was really held today!

[GemDigger]

41. Good point, I had to laugh at myself and did a

[cstanleytech]

53. I am undecided simply because all our candidates are good in their own way and have already

earned my vote thus the only thing that really matters is kicking the asshole that is defecating all over the oval office to the curb.

[chia]

30. Thank you for this.

Very interesting reading!

[True Dough]

33. I guess one message here is

if you're looking for the picture of consistency, vote Amy Klobuchar!

[Quackers]

44. Lol

[True Dough]

45. I glad that brought someone a laugh!

Always aiming to Quackers you up!

[JudyM]

38. Way to spin the party tunes, Dr Earl.

Thanks for the concise, informative rundown.

[Skittles]

42. excellent analysis

[NYMinute]

47. Can we exclude the undecideds

and recalculate the percentages?

[EarlG]

49. I do have those numbers

This was the top 8 with Undecideds completely excluded and percentages recalculated, as of Monday:

1) Joe Biden: 22.35%
2) Kamala Harris: 17.85%
3) Pete Buttigieg: 15.92%
4) Elizabeth Warren: 15.67%
5) Bernie Sanders: 13.42%
6) Beto O'Rourke: 4.68%
7) Jay Inslee: 3.37%
8) Amy Klobuchar: 1.62%

[NYMinute]

50. Thank you!

This is helpful.

[Demsrule86]

48. I love seeing it on a graph. Thanks!

[Bradshaw3]

51. Thanks for the explanations and info n/t

I was wondering how the poll worked, so appreciate it.