#Likhitha Butchireddygari

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

President Trump could be in trouble. A lot could still change between now and November, but historically, the strength of the economy is correlated with the electoral strength of the incumbent president, and right now, the economy doesn’t look especially good.

Between mid-March and the end of May, more than 38 million Americans applied for unemployment insurance. And even though the job market has shown some signs of improvement, many Americans are still out of work, and in June more of the people who lost their jobs were laid off permanently. And if the economic recovery progresses slowly — or halts and starts backsliding — it’s likely to drag down Trump’s reelection chances. At the very least, the downturn takes away what had been perhaps his strongest re-election argument.

Even in more normal election years, many voters still worry about the economy. The American National Election Studies, which has tracked public opinion since 1948, has for many years now asked voters what they think is the most important problem facing the country. And in the last three presidential election cycles, Americans have named the economy as their top concern, making it the most frequently cited issue. In 2008 (the last time we had a presidential election amid an economic crisis), 42 percent of Americans said the economy was the most important political problem. Since then, the share citing the economy as their top issue has dropped — it was 32 percent in 2012 and just 11 percent in 2016.

So far in 2020, polls show that anywhere from 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 voters rate the economy as their top concern. But let’s return to 2020 in a moment. So what do we know about these voters?

To be clear, everyone is an economic voter to some extent, according to Michael Lewis-Beck, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa who studies economic voting and comparative politics. His research has found that the economy frequently ranks as the country’s most important problem unless there’s a big war going on. “It’s always at or near the top of the average voter’s agenda,” Lewis-Beck told me. Many voters factor the state of the national economy into their vote even if it’s not the most important issue to them.

But that doesn’t mean all voters prioritize the economy equally. In fact, according to our analysis of ANES data, there are two key traits that tend to correspond with being an economy-minded voter: higher income or a college education. These voters are also more likely to identify as Republican than as Democratic and are more likely to be white or Hispanic than Black.1

First up, as the table below shows, those with household incomes of $100,000 or more have consistently said the economy is the most important problem facing the country at higher rates than those in households making less. In 2008, for instance, only 36 percent of households making less than $50,000 said the economy was the top problem, whereas 51 percent of households making $100,000 or more said the same. In 2016, when all groups were less likely to say the economy was their top concern, that pattern wasn’t as stark, but it was still there.

Wealthier voters tend to prioritize the economy

Percentage of voters who said the economy was the most important problem facing the country

Household Income 2008 2012 2016 $100,000+ 51.1% 37.4% 13.4% $50,000 to $99,999 47.0 35.9 11.3 Less than $50k 35.9 27.7 9.7

Source: American National Election Studies

Next, education. These differences are less pronounced than differences by income level — education levels produce at most an 11-point gap in the last three presidential election cycles. But as you can see in the table below, those with at least a bachelor’s degree or some college education have consistently been more likely to name the economy as their top concern than those with a high school diploma or less. The gap here also narrowed quite a bit in 2016.

More educated voters say the economy is the top problem

Percentage of voters who said the economy was the most important problem facing the country

Level of education 2008 2012 2016 At least a bachelor’s degree 47.3% 37.2% 12.5% Some college or an associate’s degree 44.0 31.3 11.7 High school graduate or less 36.6 28.0 9.1

Source: American National Election Studies

And though the pattern here is a little less consistent here than with either income or education, race and ethnicity also reveal something about which voters care most about the economy. White and Hispanic voters are consistently more likely to put the economy at the top of their list than Black voters. And in 2016, a slightly higher percentage of Hispanic voters than white voters said the economy was their No. 1 issue. Lewis-Beck has found similar trends in his own research, too, describing Hispanics as close to being single-issue voters on the economy.

More white and Hispanic voters worry about the economy

Percentage of voters who said the economy was the most important problem facing the country

Race 2008 2012 2016 White 44.1% 32.3% 11.5% Hispanic 43.1 37.6 12.3 Black 31.9 24.2 6.4

Source: American National Election Studies

There are also meaningful differences between Democrats and Republicans. Larger shares of Republicans than Democrats have rated the economy as the most important issue facing the U.S., although as you can see in the table below, partisan differences were never huge and were much less pronounced in 2012.2

Republican voters tend to put the economy first

Percentage of voters who said the economy was the most important problem facing the country

Party 2008 2012 2016 Republicans/lean Republican 45.6% 33.4% 14.5% Pure independents 35.5 29.3 10.8 Democrats/lean Democratic 40.3 31.0 8.0

Pure independents are those who didn’t lean toward either party.

Source: American National Election Studies

Ultimately, what we know is this: The group of voters who prioritize the economy tends to skew wealthier and more educated — and, often, white or Hispanic and Republican. But the group’s exact size and makeup changes from election to election. For instance, in 2016, just 11 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue, and that small group overwhelmingly broke for Trump — 60 percent backed him, while only 32 percent backed Hillary Clinton. Whereas in 2008 and 2012, more voters thought the economy was the most pressing issue (42 percent and 32 percent, respectively), but they broke for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama — 51 percent to 46 percent in 2008 and 51 percent to 47 percent in 2012.

So what do we know about these economy-minded voters and which way they may be leaning in 2020?

First, it’s hard to know exactly how many voters think the economy is the top issue this year, as we don’t have a ton of recent polls. But in three polls from June that asked people about the most important issue affecting their vote, we know that: (i) roughly a quarter of Americans are are naming the economy as the top issue, and (ii) Trump still has an advantage with these voters, leading Joe Biden by varying degrees:

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 20 percent of voters chose the economy as the most important problem facing the country, and these voters narrowly backed Trump, 44 percent to 41 percent.3

An Economist/YouGov poll found 22 percent of voters rated “the economy and jobs” as the most important issue to them, but this survey had Trump with a 44-point lead over Biden (70 percent to 26 percent) with this group.4

And in an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll, Trump had a 27-point lead over Biden (56 percent to 29 percent) among the 33 percent of adults who said that jobs and the economy mattered most to them. More respondents named the economy than any other issue.5

Trump’s advantage with this group of voters makes sense, as polls show they are more likely to be white, higher income and Republican-leaning (just as the ANES survey found in past years); they’re also far more likely to have voted for Trump in 2016, at least according to the SurveyMonkey poll. “Fully 50% of Trump voters single out jobs and the economy as the most critical set of issues right now, more than double the proportion of Biden voters so focused on these concerns,” the pollster wrote of its results. “For Trump voters, no other issue reaches into double-digits.”

But it’s not clear how much this advantage among economy-minded voters actually helps Trump. That’s because these voters are already likely to be a part of Trump’s base, according to Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University. “Voters who prioritize the economy tend to be Republicans, so they’re already inclined to support the president,” said Abramowitz.

The economy might also be a less powerful influence on people’s vote choice now than it has been in the past due to increased partisanship and the fact that opinions of Trump are pretty baked in at this point, so the state of the economy might not change many minds. All of which means that who you’re supporting may say more about whether you rate the economy as your top concern rather than the other way around.

Abramowitz was also skeptical that this “economy-minded” group of voters will expand into a broader coalition because some voters will consider other issues — like the pandemic — more pressing than the economy this year. Voters’ concern about this issue may already be reflected in the fact that health care was either the first or second most popular choice in all three of these recent polls.

As we are already seeing, current events may increase the salience of issues that weren’t on as many voters’ radar in past elections, such as racism and police brutality. As Ipsos wrote about their findings, “Similar to the first two weeks in June, the percentage of respondents who say ‘other’ remains higher than average at 17%. When asked to specify, racism, police brutality, partisanship and the current administration are common themes being reported.”

In fact, Abramowitz told me, he thinks there’s a chance that Trump could even lose some ground among economy-minded voters. For instance, voters already disinclined to support Trump likely didn’t need an economic downturn to sour on the president — the economy was just one of many factors that shaped their opinion. Take Trump’s overall job approval rating: It continues to hover in the low 40s, and his deficit against Biden in national polls is bigger than ever. So if the coronavirus pandemic worsens — cases and deaths are rising in some places right now — it’s possible that this will hurt Trump’s perceived handling of the crisis and drive away some economy-minded voters who were open to voting for him.

Bottom line: It’s not clear what role the economy might play in 2020. In the last three presidential elections, the economy has been the most commonly named top issue for voters (although the share of voters saying its the country’s biggest problem has changed from cycle to cycle). Historically, white voters and voters with higher incomes or more education have been more likely to rank the economy higher than any other issue.

But there’s no reason to think the size and makeup of the economy-minded voters group will look like it has in recent general elections. College-educated white voters have moved dramatically toward Democrats in recent years, and many Americans disapproved of Trump even when the economy was booming. Which means that while this group looks a lot like Trump’s base right now, that could be because non-Trump voters are prioritizing other issues, rather than because Trump is gaining supporters among people who are focused on the economy. So it’s still possible that Trump wins these voters but loses the general election. The questions now are: If economic conditions are still bad come November, how much does that actually hurt Trump? And, of course, how many voters will prioritize the economy over other issues, like police brutality and systemic racism, the COVID-19 pandemic or other major issues?

[protoslacker]

That apparent top-level indifference, coupled with a failure to fill key jobs at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, has resulted in a government paralyzed by inaction when it comes to protecting the next election, experts and government officials told NBC News.

Ken Dilanian, Hallie Jackson, Likhitha Butchireddygari and Gabriela Martinez at NBC News. Trump White House Has Taken Little Action To Stop Next Election Hack

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll(s) of the week

The new coronavirus is the topic on everyone’s minds these days, and pollsters are stepping up to tell us what people are thinking about it. Since the end of last week, pollsters have released over a dozen surveys that have asked about all aspects of the coronavirus — how worried people are, what precautions they’re taking, how policymakers are handling the crisis, etc. Here’s a summary of the American mindset in the age of COVID-19.

Last week in this space, my colleague Likhitha Butchireddygari noted that between 45 and 57 percent of Americans told pollsters they were concerned that they or someone around them would contract COVID-19. That number appears to have risen as the threat has begun to disrupt everyday life. After 47 percent of adults told YouGov/The Economist on March 1-3 that they were “very” or “somewhat” worried about experiencing the coronavirus, 56 percent did so in the pollster’s March 15-17 survey. And three other polls released this week found that more than three-fifths of Americans were very or somewhat concerned that they or someone in their family would get the disease: YouGov/HuffPost (61 percent), the Kaiser Family Foundation (62 percent), and SurveyMonkey/Fortune (69 percent).

Large majorities of Americans also reported being anxious about the coronavirus more broadly. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Monday and Tuesday, 79 percent of Americans were either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the “spread” of the virus, while just 19 percent said they were not very concerned or concerned at all. A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted March 13-16 found that nearly identical shares were concerned about the coronavirus “outbreak.”

Some of those respondents, though, may be more worried about the economic impacts of the pandemic than about getting sick. Already as of March 13-14, when an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll was conducted, 18 percent of working adults said that they or someone in their household had been let go or had their work hours reduced due to the virus. According to a March 13-16 Morning Consult poll, 84 percent of registered voters were very or somewhat concerned about the impact the coronavirus would have on the U.S. economy. And according to the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of Americans view the coronavirus outbreak as a major threat to the U.S. economy, while only 27 percent view it as a major threat to their personal health. (To our point above, Pew’s poll was conducted March 10-16, and the later respondents were contacted, the more likely they were to say the virus is a big threat.)

Americans also appear to be giving President Trump higher marks for how he has handled the crisis following a week in which he has appeared to take it more seriously, giving a prime-time address to the nation and announcing strict guidelines to slow the virus’s spread. In this week’s Reuters/Ipsos poll, respondents were split 47 percent to 47 percent on whether they approved or disapproved of the way Trump was handling the coronavirus. That’s an improvement from March 2-3, when Reuters/Ipsos found that 38 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved. Similarly, the most recent YouGov/The Economist poll gave Trump a 45 percent approval rating on the coronavirus and a 46 percent disapproval rating. In the pollster’s March 1-3 survey, 37 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved. Interestingly, both polls showed little change in the number of Americans who disapproved of Trump’s performance on the issue, just more people approving of it.

That said, other polls, including some very high-quality ones, still found Trump underwater on the issue. For example, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from March 11-13 found that 45 percent of registered voters approved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, while 51 percent disapproved. And the aforementioned NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey gave Trump a 44 percent approval rating on the coronavirus and a 49 percent disapproval rating (among all adults). And Trump’s overall approval rating remains in the low 40s, where it has hovered throughout almost all of his presidency.

According to this week’s YouGov/The Economist poll, though, there is broad support for the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed this week: 60 percent of Americans approve of it and 14 percent disapprove. And when asked about the bill’s specific provisions, even more Americans are supportive. For example, free coronavirus testing has the backing of 76 percent of Americans according to Data for Progress and 89 percent according to YouGov/The Economist. And paid sick leave (which the bill provides for some, but not all, workers) enjoys 66 percent support per Data for Progress and 84 percent per YouGov/The Economist.

The YouGov/The Economist poll also gave us a glimpse into how the coronavirus is changing Americans’ behavior. While 53 percent said they were eating out less and 48 percent said they had been planning to attend an event that was canceled by the coronavirus, only 27 percent said they were working from home, and only 9 percent said they had worn a medical face mask in public. Oh, and despite the reports of people buying out all the toilet paper, just 22 percent said they had bought extra toilet paper.

Yet about half of Americans seem to think the coronavirus panic is overblown. According to the same poll, 45 percent of adults think most Americans are overreacting to the risks of contracting COVID-19, while 24 percent think most people are behaving appropriately, and another 20 percent think most Americans are not taking the risks seriously enough.

However, majorities of the country are on board with some of the preventive measures the government has taken. Respondents told YouGov/The Economist, 62 percent to 26 percent, that public officials did not overreact by closing bars and restaurants in major cities; similarly, they agreed with the decision to close colleges and universities 64 percent to 23 percent. And a whopping 77 percent approved of the travel ban between the U.S. and Europe; only 14 percent disapproved.

Many of these precautions have only been in place for a few days, yet they look like they will be with us for weeks, if not longer. Therefore, this is likely to be only the beginning of how public opinion responds to these measures. For as long as the coronavirus crisis persists, we’ll be keeping an eye on the polls to see how our fellow Americans are holding up.

Other polling bites

According to Associated Press VoteCast data from the three states that held primaries on Tuesday, large majorities of Democratic voters supported a single-payer health care system similar to that proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders: 70 percent in Illinois, 72 percent in Florida and 76 percent in Arizona. However, support for a public option — former Vice President Joe Biden’s preferred plan — was even higher: 87 percent in Illinois, 89 percent in Florida and 91 percent in Arizona.

Arizona Sen. Martha McSally already looked like one of the most vulnerable Republicans on the ballot in 2020, and two new, very high-quality polls this week delivered her more bad news. According to an NBC News/Marist poll, Democrat Mark Kelly has 48 percent support to McSally’s 45 percent, and according to Monmouth University, Kelly leads McSally 50 percent to 44 percent.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock also recently delighted Democrats when he decided to run for Senate, and a new poll from Public Policy Polling for liberal group End Citizens United suggests that he could indeed make the race competitive. The survey found Bullock and incumbent Republican Sen. Steve Daines tied at 47 percent support.

A new YouGov poll finds that 39 percent of Americans think it is very or somewhat important for a male presidential candidate to pick a female running mate, while 51 percent think it is not very important or not important at all. Among Democrats, however, 55 percent believe it is important and 37 percent believe it is not important.

In a climate-change-focused poll by St. Leo University, 57 percent of respondents nationally said they supported a ban on plastic straws, and 60 percent supported a ban on single-use plastic bags.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 43.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.6 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -9.3 points). At this time last week, 42.3 percent approved and 53.2 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -10.9 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 44.3 percent and a disapproval rating of 51.0 percent, for a net approval rating of -6.7 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7.4 percentage points (48.8 percent to 41.4 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 7.1 points (48.8 percent to 41.7 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.4 points (47.7 percent to 41.3 percent).

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The 2020 election was supposed to bring an avalanche of voters to the polls. Voter turnout in the 2018 midterm elections was the highest in a midterm election in at least 40 years. And interest in the 2020 election was at unprecedented levels as early as spring 2019. But now that voting is upon us, voter engagement so far seems pretty, well, normal. (Although, of course, the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. could affect turnout in unpredictable ways, too.)

There could still be historic turnout come November, but it hasn’t materialized so far in the primaries. In fact, in our analysis of 20 states for which we have full primary results,1 we’ve found that, while turnout has generally ticked up since 2016, it is still short of 2008, when a history-making contest between then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton electrified the Democratic electorate.

In the states that have voted so far, the 2020 turnout rate (among the voting eligible population) in the Democratic primary was a median of 3 points higher than it was in 2016 but 2 points lower than it was in 2008, according to data from the United States Elections Project (updated with the most recent 2020 election results as of March 16).2 There are a few states where turnout has been much higher, as you can see in the chart below, but that probably is due more to structural changes and differing electoral contexts than higher voter enthusiasm. Although the increases in some states, like Virginia, are big enough to still be notable, once you adjust for these factors, 2020 on the whole looks pretty unimpressive.

For instance, the state with the biggest turnout increase from 2016 to 2020 was Colorado (+19 percentage points), but that datapoint can be quickly explained away: Colorado is one of the three states we analyzed that switched from caucuses to a state-run primary. (As this data demonstrates, primaries generally have much higher voter turnout than caucuses.) The other two states that switched to state-run primaries, Minnesota (+13 points) and Idaho (+6 points), also saw big jumps in turnout from 2016.3

Colorado, Minnesota and Idaho were also among the only four states that significantly improved upon their 2008 turnout. As for the fourth state, Michigan, candidates did not bother competing in its 2008 “beauty contest” primary, in which there were no delegates awarded based on its results after the state was determined to have violated Democratic Party rules about how early it could vote. In other words, there were structural changes to the primary process in each of the four states that saw the biggest increases in voter turnout from 2008 to 2020. As a result, we can’t attribute these turnout differences to an uptick in voter enthusiasm alone.

The next several states with the biggest turnout increases over 2016 — Virginia (+8 points), Michigan (+5 points), Vermont (+4 points) and South Carolina (+4 points) — all host open primaries, meaning any registered voter could vote in the Democratic primary. The lack of a competitive Republican primary probably made a big difference in these states — compared with 2016, when hotly contested Democratic and Republican primaries were competing for voters, 2020 has just one such race.

There’s also the fact that some of these states have voted more Democratic since 2016 or 2008. The combination of this and an open primary might go a long way toward explaining why turnout increased so much in Virginia this year. Donald Trump’s presidency may have pushed some of the 40 percent of Virginia Republicans who cast ballots for Sen. Marco Rubio or former Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the 2016 primary to vote Democratic this time around. Exit polls provide some grist for this theory: The Democratic electorate in Virginia was far less liberal in 2020, when 53 percent identified as very or somewhat liberal and 39 percent identified as moderate, than in 2016, when 68 percent were very or somewhat liberal and 29 percent were moderate.

Another factor that may explain Virginia’s gains in turnout is its large college-educated white population. For instance, in the predominantly white, college-educated suburbs of Falls Church, Arlington and Fairfax, the turnout rate (as a share of the citizen voting age population)4 increased by more than 18 percentage points.

This wasn’t unique to Virginia. In a regression analysis of county-level turnout in 15 states,5 we found that counties with a larger share of white college graduates6 saw bigger increases in Democratic turnout. These areas are generally located in more urban and suburban areas of the country and played a large role in delivering the suburbs to Democrats in 2018.

For example, in Iowa, the place where Democratic turnout increased the most was in the booming, high-income exurbs of Dallas County. In Michigan, Democratic turnout was up 11 points in Washtenaw County, also the most college-educated county in the state. In Tennessee, Williamson County, one of the richest counties in the U.S., saw its Democratic turnout rate double; this suburban Nashville county was the only jurisdiction in Tennessee that didn’t support Trump in the 2016 GOP primary. And notably, in Oklahoma, the lone state where Democratic turnout decreased from 2016 to 2020, the only two counties where it increased were Oklahoma County and Tulsa County, home of the state’s two biggest cities.

Most of these places also voted for former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primaries. Sen. Bernie Sanders has claimed that he can win elections by expanding the size of the electorate, but there didn’t seem to be a relationship on the county level between increased turnout from 2016 and 2020 and increased support for Sanders. In a more granular analysis of Iowa and New Hampshire, The New York Times also found that turnout in precincts and municipalities where a majority of the population is between 18 and 24 years old — Sanders’s base — was virtually unchanged from 2016. Instead, participation spiked the most in areas won by former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Given that their voters were disproportionately college-educated white moderates, this jibes more with our theory that the places where turnout has increased the most in the 2020 Democratic primary are those where Trump-skeptical (ex-)Republicans are trying a new party on for size.

Something else the cities and counties above have in common is that all of them trended away from Republicans in 2016, compared with 2012. It’s possible that more primary voters pulling Democratic ballots in these areas is a sign that Democrats will continue to make inroads there in the 2020 general election. However, not every blue-trending area saw the same huge gains. For instance, 2020 turnout rose 3 points from 2016 in Texas; given that the Lone Star State conducts open primaries, it’s conspicuous that turnout did not increase by more. Either enthusiasm among the Democratic base is down from 2016, or fewer Republicans are crossing over than we might think. In sum, while the turnout patterns of the 2020 primaries are suggestive of how electoral coalitions could shift in the general election, the overall turnout numbers are still fairly underwhelming for Democrats.

Likhitha Butchireddygari and Laura Bronner contributed research.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Last week, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked President Trump about his role in how the coronavirus pandemic has unfolded in the U.S., where case numbers and the death toll are surging even as some other countries seem to be getting things under control. But in response, Trump diverted responsibility, saying, “It came from China. They should’ve never let it escape.”

Blaming China for the pandemic isn’t a new tactic for the president. In fact, it’s become a fairly common refrain as Trump and other Republicans have doubled down on accusing China of causing the coronavirus or exacerbating its spread. And while it’s unlikely that this gambit will solve all of Trump’s problems — approval numbers for his handling of the pandemic continue to tank — there is at least some evidence that Americans may be more receptive than in the past to seeing China as the culprit, as opinions of the nation are now the worst they’ve been than any time in recent history.

In 2005, Pew Research Center started regularly asking Americans about their views on China, and at that point, Americans had a fairly positive opinion of the country (43 percent said they had a favorable view and 35 percent said they had an unfavorable one). But in March of this year, as a number of states were issuing stay-at-home orders and millions of Americans were losing their jobs, the share of Pew respondents with a favorable view of China had fallen to 26 percent, while the share with a negative opinion sat at 66 percent. Granted, public opinion of China has long been on the decline, but this was still the lowest approval rating of the country since 2005.

And it wasn’t just Pew who found Americans’ opinions of China are deteriorating. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that ended in early June found that the majority of Americans held negative views of China, a 12-point uptick in unfavorable opinions since 2000. And an Economist/YouGov poll from late June found that 65 percent of Americans think China is unfriendly toward — or even an enemy of — the United States.

To understand why China is so unpopular with Americans, I spoke with Susan Shirk, a political science professor focused on U.S.-China policy at the University of California San Diego, and Michael Beckley, a political science professor at Tufts University. They suggested that, even before the pandemic, China’s own actions in recent years — including its increased military presence in the South China Sea and its alleged violations of human rights and civil liberties — have been driving down Americans’ opinion of the country.

Shirk told me she traces the changes in China’s behavior to the 2008 financial crisis, as she argued that was when perceptions really started to change. At the time, the U.S. economy was in shambles, but China’s economy emerged relatively unscathed. Shirk said this contributed to China taking a more active role internationally, which hasn’t always been well-received.

Beckley argued that Xi Jinping’s presidency has also played a significant role in creating a negative public image of China because of how he has consolidated power while in office.

Shirk told me that first and foremost, she thinks people feel increasingly negatively toward China because of “the way China’s acting.”

At the same time, though, Trump has also exacerbated tensions with China by waging a nearly two-year trade war, imposing a series of tariffs on goods U.S. imports from the country. Then, of course, the pandemic hit. “The coronavirus comes and is kind of like the final nail in the coffin,” said Beckley. And reports that China hid or downplayed severity of the pandemic in its early days are further harming the country’s global reputation. “[Unfavorability of China] has been an ongoing trend, but obviously, the current crisis makes it much, much worse,” said Beckley.

In the U.S., this has meant a rapid deterioration in public opinion toward China, with both Democrats and Republicans souring on the country. In three recent polls, all taken after the pandemic reached the U.S., about three-quarters of Republicans said they had an unfavorable opinion of China, felts negatively toward China or considered China unfriendly or an enemy. Among Democrats, the share who felt the same was anywhere from 44 percent to 62 percent.

It’s not clear, though, whether this increased negativity toward China presents a political opportunity for either Trump or presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Some have argued that a firm anti-China stance could benefit either or both parties, though Beckley and Shirk were pretty skeptical that this would be a top issue for voters.

As you can see in the table below, the polling picture on who Americans trust to handle China is pretty hazy. One poll shows Biden with a 8-point lead over Trump on this question, while two others give him a more modest lead, and one gives Trump a narrow advantage.

No strong consensus on who’d handle China better

Share of voters who think Biden or Trump would be better at handling U.S. relations with China

Pollster Polling Dates Biden Trump Morning Consult/Politico June 26-29 43% 37 Harvard CAPS/Harris June 17-18 54 46 NBC/WSJ May 28-June 2 40 43 Fox News May 17-20 43 37

Source: Polls

Additionally, given that the U.S. is dealing with a major health crisis, an economic downturn and protests across the country, Beckley and Shirk both told me they were somewhat dubious of the idea that either Republicans or Democrats would be able to rally voters around China. Shirk said that unlike some other topics in the news, U.S. relations with China just aren’t as personal to voters. And Beckley said that given each candidate’s track record with China, he didn’t think either Trump or Biden would be able to use the issue much to their advantage.

“Even though the Trump administration can claim a lot of credit for altering U.S.-China policy and taking a harder-line turn, Trump has said a lot of nice things about Xi Jinping and has been willing to look the other way on China’s human rights violations,” said Beckley. And Republicans will likely paint Biden as belonging to an administration that had a “naive” approach toward China, Beckley said, “basically coddling a rising power.”

But China might play an outsized role in the election if Trump successfully uses it as a scapegoat for the pandemic, allowing him to shift some of the blame for his response onto China. Brian Reisinger, a Republican strategist who advised Sen. Ron Johnson’s and former Governor Scott Walker’s reelection campaigns, says that “there is a lot of room to blame China” because of its actions in the early days of the pandemic, but also because it plays on an existing hostility in important electoral states like Wisconsin, where almost 12 percent of the state’s jobs are in agriculture. “Farmers in rural Wisconsin have felt for years like they’re getting ripped off, whether its milk prices or any other type of commodity. And one of the biggest offenders in the global marketplace is China,” Reisinger said.

If Trump is able to shift the blame, it could help his campaign stanch the bleeding. And it might work. A Navigator poll from late April, for instance, tested multiple narratives about who’s to blame for the pandemic, asking voters which of two statements they agreed with more even if they didn’t fully agree with either. When forced to choose between a statement that placed all the blame on Trump and one that put all the blame on China, respondents were essentially evenly divided, 49 to 51, which is well within the poll’s confidence interval. A statement that blamed both Trump and China got slightly more support, at 54 percent. This suggests that at least some voters are open to an argument that gives China a significant share of the blame for the pandemic.

For Democrats, that means the party’s messaging on China will need to focus on what they see as Trump’s flawed argument on the coronavirus — arguing that he, not China, is to blame — and setting the record straight on Trump’s previous dealings with the country, said Mike Spahn, managing director of Democratic consulting firm Precision Strategies. “I think what you’ve already seen and will continue to see is the Biden campaign poking holes,” Spahn said. For example, Biden released an ad in April that criticized the president for accepting Jinping’s word that the coronavirus was under control and failing to get more American experts into China.

Of course, a lot has changed since April. Now, more than 145,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. and a majority of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling the coronavirus. And who Americans believe is at fault has been shifting too. Morning Consult has been asking registered voters who is most to blame for the spread of the coronavirus, and in late March, a plurality of voters, 36 percent, blamed the Chinese government, compared to just 23 percent who blamed Trump. However, by late June, 35 percent of voters said they blamed Trump. Granted, 31 percent still blamed the Chinese government (and 20 percent said they didn’t know or had no opinion) but the fact that Trump led on this metric instead of China certainly doesn’t bode well for him.

In the coming months, Republicans will likely double down on efforts to convince the public that China is to blame for the devastation caused by the coronavirus — Trump is routinely doing so in his coronavirus press briefings and other public appearances — but it’s not clear that this will be a winning argument. But as long as some voters seem open to the idea, we can probably expect to keep seeing it come up as a diversionary tactic.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

For the past few weeks, President Trump has been picking a peculiar fight with his predecessor. The specifics of “Obamagate” are messy and hard to follow, but at its core, Trump alleges that former President Barack Obama was part of a deep-state effort to frame him for colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election.

Only there isn’t any evidence to support these claims.

This has led many to draw parallels with what fueled Trump’s birther movement in 2011: an obsession with delegitimizing and “othering” Obama. Then it was about questioning Obama’s citizenship and whether he was actually born in the U.S. Now it’s about assigning blame for Trump’s political problems while continuing to question the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency.

It’s also an opportunity for Trump to divert attention from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. But continuing to attack Obama is probably not a smart move, given that Obama is far more popular than Trump.

According to four recent polls that asked respondents whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of a variety of politicians, Obama consistently got higher marks than Trump. In fact, of the four recent polls we could find, there wasn’t a single one in which the majority of adults had a positive view of Trump. Obama, on the other hand, had a net positive favorability rating (the favorable rating minus the unfavorable rating) in all four polls.

Obama is far more popular than Trump

Net favorability rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) of Obama and Trump in recent polls

Net favorability Poll Obama Trump Economist/YouGov +14 -6 Harvard/Harris +22 -9 Monmouth University +23 -13 Emerson College +23 -14

The Economist/YouGov poll was conducted May 17-19, 2020; the Harvard/Harris poll was conducted May 13-14; the Monmouth poll was conducted April 30-May 4; and the Emerson poll was conducted April 26-28.

Source: Polls

This is, in large part, due to Obama’s better standing among independents. In the four polls we looked at, between 45 and 58 percent of independents said they had a favorable view of Obama, whereas only 29 to 39 percent of independents said the same of Trump. Additionally, in most of these polls, Obama enjoyed greater cross-party appeal than Trump. In that Harvard/Harris poll, for instance, 27 percent of Republicans said they had a favorable opinion of Obama compared with 14 percent of Democrats who had a favorable opinion of Trump. In that Emerson College poll, 22 percent of Republicans had a favorable opinion of Obama compared with 12 percent of Democrats who said the same of Trump. And in that Monmouth University poll, 19 percent of Republicans had a favorable opinion of Obama compared with just 5 percent of Democrats who said the same of Trump. Only in the Economist/YouGov poll was Trump’s support among Democrats about equal to — in fact, one point higher than — Obama’s support among Republicans, 15 percent to 14 percent.

For sure, some of Obama’s popularity has to do with the fact that presidents tend to have higher approval ratings once they’re out of office, which might be one reason why Republicans are more likely to give Obama higher marks than Democrats give Trump. It also might be why Obama tends to lead Trump in hypothetical matchups.

But there’s also evidence that Americans think Obama was just a better president than Trump is. Granted, this poll was conducted in May 2018, but a CNN/SRSS poll that asked whether Trump was a better president than Obama found that 55 percent of registered voters thought Obama was better compared with 39 percent who said Trump. Obama also enjoyed greater cross-party appeal than Trump in this poll. Eighteen percent of respondents who leaned Republican said Obama was the better president compared with 5 percent who leaned Democratic and said Trump was better.

Obama is also just a really popular former president. A number of recent polls have found that he is many Americans’ No. 1 president. A Jan. 2019 Public Policy Polling survey that asked voters who they thought was the best president in the past 40 years found, for instance, that 31 percent said Obama — the most support received among any of the seven presidents PPP asked about. (By contrast, only 15 percent said Trump, although he did come in third, behind Ronald Reagan, who got 26 percent.) In a June 2018 Pew Research Center poll that asked Americans for their first and second choices for the best president in their lifetimes, Obama led on this metric too. Thirty-one percent picked Obama as their first choice, which was the most support any president received. (Trump came in fourth, at 10 percent, after Reagan and Clinton, respectively). And a March 2018 Quinnipiac University poll that asked voters to name the best president since World War II found that 24 percent said Obama and just 7 percent said Trump, although in this case, it was Reagan — not Obama — who got the most support overall, at 28 percent.

Trump’s latest attacks on Obama ultimately aren’t that surprising, though. Obama has long been a target of Trump’s, and with this latest conspiracy theory, it’s clear that the president is trying to rally at least some of his supporters. But given Obama’s continued widespread popularity, Trump might want to rethink his strategy.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

With no in-person rallies or town halls, the 2020 campaign has taken a back seat to the coronavirus pandemic — and so has political fundraising. The latest Federal Election Commission filings are in for the first quarter of 2020, and they show that despite some overall impressive fundraising hauls, many campaigns saw a dip in contributions, especially in March. As campaigns reckon with the fact that 2020 races will not look like earlier iterations, fundraisers are still figuring out how to adjust to the new reality.

Take the 2020 presidential race. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden raised about $74 million in the first quarter, and President Trump raised about $34 million. As you can see in the chart below, Trump experienced a 4 percent drop in March from the month prior, while Biden nearly tripled the amount he made in February. Trump still has almost four times as much cash on hand than Biden has, but the former vice president had a particularly strong first quarter, perhaps in part because of a series of March primary wins that helped cement his position as the presumptive nominee.

Overall, federal candidates — including Trump and Biden — received more than $1.6 billion in the first quarter, and political action committees and party committees received more than $1.3 billion and $258 million, respectively.1 As you can see in the chart below, PACs were able to outpace their growth from February in March, while fundraising for candidates and party committees slowed.

This doesn’t mean everyone saw a dip in March fundraising. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for example, raised about $11 million in March, up about $2 million from what it raised in February.

Part of this might be cyclical. Operatives tell me that the days and weeks leading up to a quarterly FEC fundraising deadline are usually when campaigns kick their fundraising operations into full gear.

“Mid-to-late March would typically be prime time and when you’re holding as many events as possible,” said Don Goris, president of the conservative fundraising consulting firm Campaign Resource Group, which operates out of western Michigan. When things started to shut down in mid-March, Goris said, his reaction was “Oh boy, what is this going to do for our end of quarter push?”

The shift away from physical events, in addition to the state of the economy, has stressed political fundraising, and campaigns now must figure out ways to raise money that don’t involve groups of people gathering in one place.

Still, it’s a sensitive time to be asking Americans for money, as the economy faces a recession and at least 22 million Americans are unemployed. But dramatically pulling back fundraising efforts could lead to greater costs down the road, said Catherine Algeri, chief strategy officer at Democratic fundraising firm Chapman Cubine and Hussey. In 2008, her firm saw that candidates who spent less on acquiring donors and growing their email lists during the financial crisis struggled the most afterwards trying to build back up that infrastructure.

Some campaigns are now relying more on virtual tools and platforms to meet their fundraising goals.The last in-person event that Shari Yost Gold, a veteran fundraiser whose consulting firm worked with Sen. Kamala Harris and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaigns, helped organize was on March 10 in New York. Now, Yost Gold is helping her clients fundraise over video conferencing software like Zoom.

Yost Gold said Zoom works really well for small, targeted groups, but she’s found that larger virtual events are harder. Those larger events are also often critical in raising money, particularly from big, hundred-dollar donors. Connecting with those donors remains a priority, Yost Gold said, because she’s not sure if the small-dollar donors on whom Democrats have relied will continue to increase in number or will taper off.

Of course, not all campaigns are set up to fundraise successfully online. For instance, many leaner campaigns in smaller House districts often get by with “more old-school campaign methodologies like knocking on doors, and in-person gatherings,” Goris told me, adding that often digital fundraising is just less of a priority. But ramping up digital efforts in the coming weeks may be the only option available.

Yost Gold told me she was really pushing her clients to embrace digital outreach, as she doesn’t think Democrats will “have even 30 people in somebody’s house doing a fundraiser before the end of this election cycle.”

Of course, other fundraisers are more hopeful that in-person events can still take place at some point.

“If things start to normalize and improve, we have things we would like to plan. I guess, we are planning to plan, is the way to put it,” said Elizabeth Williams, an Alabama fundraiser working with mostly federal candidates. “As you get in later in the summer and fall, we would hope there can be more in-person events.”

Like everyone else, political fundraisers are trying to adapt to what each week (or day) brings in this global pandemic. But some fundraisers are hopeful because, as Williams puts it, this situation has made the importance of good government clear. “I think donors will want to support candidates who are capable of handling situations like this,” she said.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll(s) of the Week

Earlier this week, President Trump said he is considering taking steps to roll back restrictions that businesses and state governments have put in place to contain the coronavirus. Citing the economic impact of measures like social distancing, Trump floated Easter Sunday as the date he’d like the nation back at work.

Already, 9 percent of Americans say they’ve been laid off from work due to the coronavirus and another 20 percent say a family member has been laid off in a recent Economist/YouGov poll. And a record-breaking 3.3 million unemployment insurance claims were filed last week. Many economists now fear a full-fledged recession. But at the same time, public health officials caution that social distancing is crucial to stopping the spread of the coronavirus, and if we move too quickly to relax restrictions, the economic consequences could be even more devastating.

An overwhelming majority of Americans are really concerned about the economy. Last week, Nathaniel Rakich found signs that concern was growing — in one poll, as many as 84 percent of Americans said they were concerned about the impact the coronavirus would have on the economy. And concern has continued to grow. A Morning Consult poll conducted between March 20 and March 22 found that 90 percent of Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that the coronavirus would impact the economy, marking a 6-point increase from the week before. Americans are also worried about job security — 49 percent said they were worried about losing their job, according to an Economist/YouGov survey conducted between March 22 and March 24.

There doesn’t seem to be evidence of a partisan split in concern over the economy, as most polls show similar shares of Republicans and Democrats are concerned. In fact, that March 20-22 Morning Consult poll found that 90 percent of Republicans were concerned about the economy compared to 93 percent of Democrats.

This is different from the partisan split we found earlier in March between the share of Democrats and Republicans who said they were worried that they or someone they know will contract COVID-19. However, as you can see in the chart below, the gap between Republicans and Democrats has narrowed as more Americans report that they are concerned.

For instance, a March 22-24 Economist/YouGov poll found that 64 percent of Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat” worried about personally experiencing the coronavirus. This marked an 8-point jump from the March 15-17 Economist/YouGov survey. The share of Republicans who said they are concerned rose 11 points, from 45 percent to 56 percent. The share of Democrats who said they are concerned increased 3 points, from 71 percent to 74 percent.

Four other polls released this week found that more than three-fifths of Americans were either very or somewhat concerned that they or someone close to them would get or be exposed to the disease: Harris Poll (76 percent), SurveyMonkey/Fortune (76 percent), CBS/YouGov (71 percent) and Global Strategy Group/GBAO/Navigator (79 percent).

The fact that more Americans are worried about the effect of the coronavirus on the economy than about their own health may put pressure on politicians to kickstart the economy, making it harder for public health officials to push for preventive measures like social distancing.

But Dr. Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, warned that the response to the coronavirus is complicated by the level of uncertainty that still exists around the virus’ spread.

“We are hampered because the data we are using to track this pandemic right now is still incomplete. It’s better than it was several weeks ago, but we’re still not in a place where everyone agrees,” said Koh.

The U.S. was late to ramp up testing, only starting at the beginning of March, which means we don’t yet have complete information on who is infected or the rate at which the virus is spreading. According to a weekly survey of infectious disease researchers across the U.S., many experts agree the situation has worsened in the last few days, but there is still a wide range in the projected number of expected cases and deaths.

Koh said that we have to reach the point where we better understand the spread of the coronavirus before we can send people back into the workforce. Otherwise, we risk overwhelming hospitals and the health care workforce capacity, perhaps leading to even more economic hardship.

Other polling bites

57 percent of Americans estimate they have lost at least some money as a result of the coronavirus, whether that’s from stock market losses, lost wages, money spent on nonrefundable travel or events, or something else, according to a YouGov poll conducted March 25. A plurality of people who lost money said they lost more than $1,500 — 27 percent of all respondents fell into this group. However, 28 percent reported that they hadn’t lost any money.

According to a March 21-24 Global Strategy Group/GBAO/Navigator poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans think the worst is yet to come when it comes to the coronavirus.

In a recent Business Insider/SurveyMonkey survey, respondents were asked when they thought the coronavirus situation would be over (i.e., when schools, restaurants and businesses would be reopened). Overall, 72 percent said sometime between April 1 and July 1, with the median response falling on June 2, 67 days from now. The median response among Democrats was 91 days from the time the poll was taken (June 24), while Republicans were a bit more optimistic, with a median response of 62 days (May 26).

Last week, it was reported that Sens. Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler sold stocks worth millions of dollars after receiving information about the coronavirus epidemic. In an Economist/YouGov poll conducted between March 22 and March 24, 69 percent of registered voters, including 68 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Republicans, said senators who sold stocks after receiving briefings on the coronavirus should resign.

In the most recent Democratic presidential primary debate, former Vice President Joe Biden said he’d choose a female running mate if he won the Democratic nomination. In that same Economist/YouGov survey, 80 percent of Democratic primary voters said they approve of Biden’s decision. The pollster also asked those voters who they think should be selected as Biden’s running mate: 27 percent said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 18 percent said Sen. Kamala Harris, 13 percent said Sen. Bernie Sanders and 10 percent said Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 45.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 50.5 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -5.2 points). At this time last week, 43.3 percent approved and 52.6 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -9.3 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 43.2 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.2 percent, for a net approval rating of -9 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7.5 percentage points (48.7 percent to 41.2 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 7.4 points (48.8 percent to 41.4 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points (47.8 percent to 41.3 percent).

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

There’s been a lot of finger pointing in the past few days over who isn’t taking the coronavirus seriously. Some have pointed to millennials out at bars or brunch, saying they are not taking recommendations to stay home and avoid crowds to prevent the spread of the virus. Others have gotten frustrated with baby boomers stubbornly carrying on with their weekly gatherings and travel plans. (President Trump asked Americans to avoid unnecessary travel in new national guidelines Monday.)

But when you look at recent polls, there just isn’t any evidence that one age group is more concerned than another about the spread of the disease. And furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be an age gap in people’s willingness to adopt preventive measures.

We looked at five polls conducted in the past eight days that asked Americans whether they were concerned that they or someone they knew (including a family member) would contract the virus, and in every age group, a majority said they were concerned.1

That doesn’t mean there weren’t some differences among age groups. There were, they just didn’t add up to a clear trend. Of the five polls we looked at, two found an 11-point gap between the share of people in the oldest age group who said they were worried that they or someone in their family would catch the virus and the share of people in the youngest age group who said the same.2 (Around 65 percent of the oldest group in both surveys said they were “somewhat” or “very” concerned, while that number was just under 55 percent for the youngest group.) One poll found a 10-point gap in the opposite direction: 68 percent of the youngest age group said they were worried, while 58 percent of the oldest age group said the same.3 And two polls found smaller variations — one found that older respondents were about 7 points more likely to be worried, while the other found essentially no difference between the oldest and youngest groups.4

We do have a little bit of evidence that younger people are more concerned about spreading the coronavirus than older Americans. In an Elon University poll conducted March 16-17, about two-thirds of 18-to-24-year-olds and 24-to-44-year-olds said they were worried about spreading the coronavirus to others, while only 48 percent of those 65 and older said the same.

This is important because, according to experts like Gillian SteelFisher, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who has studied public response to pandemics, people are motivated to take preventive action based on how much risk they believe they personally face and how they think their actions might affect others.

SteelFisher told me that people can be motivated to change their behavior when they feel their actions will be effective in helping reduce the spread of a disease.

“Social distancing is hard, and so, when we can see other countries where case counts are coming down [after social distancing started] …, it can really be motivating for people to see that those things are having an effect. Otherwise, it’s like, gosh, is this worth it?” SteelFisher said.

But right now, at least, three polls show that both young and old Americans are adopting preventive measures like social distancing at similar rates:

Almost half of baby boomers (ages 55-73) and members of the silent generation (age 73 and up) said they had canceled plans to avoid crowds, as did 54 percent of millennials and Generation Z (ages 18 to 38), according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted March 13-14.5

And in a YouGov poll conducted Tuesday, while the youngest age group was less likely to say they were avoiding mass gatherings and maintaining distance of approximately 6 feet from others when possible, other age groups all said they were adopting social distancing practices at similar rates. About two-thirds of 18-to-24-year-olds said they were doing so, while the other age groups ranged from 73 percent (among respondents 25-34 and 35-44) to 79 percent (among those older than 55).

Finally, 45 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they were now less likely to go to restaurants or cafes, per a Morning Consult poll conducted March 13-16. Among those 65 years and older, 49 percent said the same.

The attitudes and behaviors among younger and older people during this pandemic are not set in stone, though. In fact, they could change very quickly, particularly since so much about the coronavirus is still unknown, and maybe an age gap will appear as we get more data. But right now, there just isn’t a sign of one.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll(s) of the week

Depending on what data you look at, more than 1,500 Americans have been diagnosed with coronavirus — or close to 1,200 — although neither count reflects how many people might be infected. It’s a hard disease to track, because there’s still so much we don’t know.

At this point, though, Americans have started to form opinions about the seriousness of the threat of coronavirus, and overall, they’re concerned. In six polls conducted between Feb. 25 and March 11, anywhere from 45 to 57 percent of Americans said they were either very or somewhat concerned about themselves, their family members or members of their community contracting the disease.

However, there are some pretty stark differences in how Democrats and Republicans view the threat of coronavirus. Some polls, like a recent Quinnipiac University survey, show just one-third of Republicans expressing concern, compared with 68 percent of Democrats. Other pollsters have found a narrower gap — in a recent Public Policy Polling survey, for instance, 44 percent of Republicans said they were concerned versus 67 percent of Democrats. But as you can see in the table below, a partisan split is emerging:

Democrats are more concerned about coronavirus

Share of respondents who said that they were either very or somewhat concerned* about themselves, their family members or community members of their community contracting coronavirus

Pollster Overall Democrats Republicans USA Today/Ipsos 54% 62% 48% Quinnipiac 54 68 35 NYT/Survey Monkey 49 62 38 Economist/YouGov 47 63 33 Civiqs 45 67 24 Public Policy Polling 57 67 44

* For USA Today/Ipsos, we combined those who said they were concerned “a great deal” and “a fair amount.”

The USA Today/Ipsos poll was conducted from March 10-11, Quinnipiac from March 5–8, NYT/Survey Monkey from March 2–8, Economist/YouGov from March 1–3, Civiqs from Feb. 25–March 10 and Public Policy Polling from March 2–3.

Source: Polls

This party-line split isn’t that surprising, though: According to experts, many public health issues — which are seemingly nonpartisan — have become increasingly polarizing.

Sarah Gollust, professor of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota, said that a similar rift emerged in 2009 during the swine flu outbreak and in 2014 during the Ebola virus outbreak. Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to think former President Barack Obama handled those epidemics well.

In April 2009, for instance, a Gallup poll found that 83 percent of Democrats approved of the Obama administration’s handling of the swine flu caused by the H1N1 virus, while just 47 percent of Republicans approved. Similarly in October 2014, a CBS News poll found that 71 percent of Democrats approved of Obama’s handling of the Ebola virus, while just 23 percent of Republicans approved.

“People are more likely to believe the team in charge is doing a good job if they’re on their team,” Gollust said.

This partisan loyalty is somewhat reflected in Americans’ approval of how President Trump is handling the coronavirus. Overall, between 37 and 47 percent said they approve of the way Trump has handled coronavirus, according to six polls conducted between March 1 and March 8. But as you can see in the table, there is a sharp partisan split.

Big partisan splits on Trump’s handling of coronavirus

Share of respondents who said they approve* of the way Trump is handling coronavirus

Pollster Overall Democrats Republicans Quinnipac 43% 10% 87% NYT/Survey Monkey 47 16 86 CNN/SSRS 41 10 79 Public Policy Polling 42 12 79 Reuters/Ipsos 37 15 75 Economist/YouGov 37 11 85

* For Economist/YouGov and NYT/Survey Monkey, we combined those who strongly and somewhat approved. For Reuter/Ipsos, we included those who leaned towards approval as well.

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted from March 5-8, NYT/Survey Monkey from March 2-8, CNN/SSRS from March 4-7, Public Policy Polling from March 2-3, Reuters/Ipsos from March 2-3 and Economist/YouGov from March 1–3.

Source: Polls

Melina Platas, professor of political science at New York University Abu Dhabi, said how much Republicans and Democrats trust the president could also impact how serious they think the virus is, especially given Trump has been at odds with other government agencies in messaging about coronavirus. In fact, a late-February YouGov poll found that Republicans are roughly split on whether to believe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which warned that coronavirus outbreaks are likely to hit the U.S, or the president who said that coronavirus is “very well under control in our country.” Twenty-eight percent of Republicans said they believed the CDC, compared with 27 percent who said they believed the president. Another 28 percent said they believe both the CDC and Trump equally. Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority of Democrats (83 percent) said they believe the CDC over the president.

“The fact that the president has been downplaying the public health threat, for example, comparing it favorably to the flu, which he tweeted about [Monday], or saying that the media is exaggerating the threat might explain with Republicans are less worried about coronavirus than Democrats,” Platas said.

And Gollust said that not taking the threat of the virus seriously can reduce the likelihood of people taking preventive action, too. “From a public health perspective, it’s most concerning to see that partisan differences emerge around how big a threat [it is] and how serious to take those risks of COVID-19,” she said.

Recent polling already highlights some differences in how seriously Democrats and Republicans are approaching preventative actions they can take. For example, even though the CDC recommends avoiding large events to avoid spreading the virus, an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll released Tuesday found that 67 percent of Democrats said they were at least somewhat likely to avoid large events, while only 49 percent of Republicans said the same. Similarly, 53 percent of Democrats in that same poll said they were avoiding public spaces like restaurants or theaters, compared with 37 percent of Republicans.

It’s important to remember though that some of the partisan split we’re currently seeing might change, especially if the virus continues to spread. And at this point, much of the polling we have is in the wake of relatively few public cases, concentrated largely in a few states — Washington, New York and California. Platas told me that this could mean that some of the policy and personal guidelines have been entirely hypothetical for some people. But, she added, as the virus spreads and hits people closer to home, the threat may become more real and perhaps the partisan divide will narrow.

Other polling bites

On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 had its worst drop since the 1987 market crash, known as Black Monday, because of fears of coronavirus. There’s reason to believe that Americans are concerned about the stock market right now, too. In a YouGov poll conducted on Tuesday, 62 percent of Americans, including 64 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans, said what happens in the stock market matters a great deal or somewhat to them. Overall, 30 percent say it doesn’t matter that much or at all.

According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, just 13 percent of Americans think it’s definitely or probably true that coronavirus is a hoax. There’s a pretty stark age gap, as just 6 percent of Americans over 65 say it’s a hoax compared with 19 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 and 20 percent of Americans between the ages of 30 to 44.

In that same Economist/YouGov poll, slightly more than half of Americans, including 77 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Republicans, think the federal government should increase the amount of money it spends on preventing the spread of infectious diseases.

Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that presidential candidates are “responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really dangerous, threatening things to other candidates.” But Americans are split on the issue. Forty-five percent of Americans said they thought presidential candidates should be held responsible for the actions of their supporters, while 32 percent think they should not be held responsible, according to a recent YouGov poll.

According to a recent Morning Consult poll, 41 percent of Americans said their employer has made hand sanitizer available as a precautionary measure protecting the workplace from coronavirus. Separately, 16 percent said their employer recommended employees not shake hands and 13 percent said their employee allowed employees to work from home.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 53.2 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -10.9 points). At this time last week, 42.9 percent approved and 52.9 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -10 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 43.3 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.2 percent, for a net approval rating of -8.9 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 6.1 percentage points (48.8 percent to 41.7 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 6.9 points (48.0 percent to 41.1 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 5.6 points (47.3 percent to 41.7 percent).

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Polls of the week

Understanding the political preferences of Asian Americans is tricky. They make up a little less than 7 percent of the total U.S. population, which means pollsters often don’t sample enough of them to draw robust conclusions. And the demographic category lumps together people from a huge range of backgrounds, with roots in a large and diverse group of countries, which means political opinions can vary dramatically within the group.

But one thing we do know is that this group has increasingly leaned toward the Democratic Party over the past two decades. In 2017, 65 percent of Asian Americans were Democrats or leaned Democratic, up from 53 percent in 1994, according to annual totals of Pew Research Center study data.

And in California, which votes on Super Tuesday, Asian Americans make up 16 percent of the population, the largest percentage of any state except Hawaii. The state’s Asian American voters account for 12 percent of likely voters who are registered Democrats, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which released a study of California voters last August. And that same research showed that 36 percent of Asian American likely voters in California are independents, compared to 43 percent who are Democrats, which means that if independents choose to cast a Democratic ballot, Asian Americans’ share of the primary electorate could be even higher.

Heading into Super Tuesday, we have four recent California polls with crosstab information on who Asian American are leaning toward voting for, and Sen. Bernie Sanders seems to have an edge, earning the most support in three of the four surveys we looked at. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also did well across the board.

Sanders leads with Asian American voters in California

Top Democratic candidates’ support among poll respondents who identified as Asian American, in four polls conducted since Feb. 6

Poll Sanders Warren Bloomberg Biden Buttigieg Point Blank Political 29% 9% 19% 6% 6% Change Research 40 17 9 14 0 SurveyUsa 19 9 28 11 16 Capitol Weekly 28 22 11 12 12

Point Blank Political poll was conducted Feb. 23-25, Change Research poll was conducted Feb. 20-23, SurveyUSA poll was conducted Feb. 13-16, and Capitol Weekly poll was conducted Feb. 6-9.

Source: Polls

Sanders’s focus on “working class” issues might be helping him with this group, because almost a quarter of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California say they are struggling with poverty, according to a PRRI report published last November. The survey found that most AAPIs reported coming from a middle, working or lower-class family and described their economic situations as largely unchanged from the one in which they grew up. Sanders’s proposals to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, strengthen unions, invest in affordable housing and provide health care for all could appeal to economically insecure Asian Americans.

But, of course, not all Asian voters are struggling economically. The median household income for Asian Americans in California is about $97,000, according to 2018 data from the Census Bureau, higher than the roughly $75,000 median for Californians of all races. This could help explain some of the support we see for Bloomberg, as he tends to do better with older, wealthier and more moderate Democratic voters whereas Sanders tends to do worse with voters whose household income is over $100,000.

In addition, some older Asian Americans may be less willing to back Sanders because they may be wary of politicians who label themselves socialists. Varun Nikore, president of the AAPI Victory Fund, a super PAC that aims to mobilize Asian American voters in support of Democratic candidates, told me that many older Asian Americans came to the U.S. after fleeing socialist or communist regimes in Vietnam, Korea or China and are therefore more apprehensive of socialism than younger, U.S.-born generations are.

So the fact that both Sanders and Bloomberg are doing reasonably well in the polls we have could reflect a divide within the California Asian American community, where older voters tend to prefer a more moderate candidate and younger voters tend to prefer a more progressive candidate like Sanders.

Of course, this is just four polls, so we should be cautious about reading too much into them. And some of these candidates’ support can probably be chalked up to the same forces that are influencing Americans of all races this election cycle. For instance, it’s hard to escape the Bloomberg ad machine, which has helped him build support in multiple Super Tuesday states, and Sanders, Warren and Bloomberg are all polling pretty highly in California, according to our polling average. Former Vice President Joe Biden, on the other hand, should maybe be a bit concerned he doesn’t have more support among Asian Americans in California, given that he ranks third in our polling average of the state, ahead of Bloomberg, but is trailing the former New York mayor among Asian American voters.

Other polling bites

In a Public Policy Polling survey of likely Texas Democratic primary voters released this week, 32 percent of Asian Americans supported Sanders, 29 percent supported Bloomberg, 20 percent supported former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and 9 percent supported Biden. If Bloomberg wasn’t on the ballot, 53 percent would support Sanders, 17 percent would support Biden and 16 percent would support Buttigieg.

A plurality of Democrats think the Democratic candidate with a plurality of delegates should be the nominee. In other words, Democrats are split on what constitutes a win. In a YouGov poll conducted after the Nevada caucuses, 36 percent of Democrats said the candidate with the most delegates should be the nominee while 33 percent said they shouldn’t. A separate Economist/YouGov poll found that in a open convention scenario, 36 percent want the candidate who won the most votes to receive the nomination, 20 percent of likely primary voters want the candidate who won the most delegates, 10 percent want the candidate who won the most states and 16 percent want the candidate who the polls say will do better in the general election.

4 in 10 Americans are worried about personally experiencing coronavirus, while 2 in 10 are not worried at all, per a Economist/YouGov poll released Feb. 26. The remaining 40 percent said they are not too worried. Concern is pretty uniform across party, but diverges by race: While 51 percent of black Americans reported being worried, just 35 percent of white Americans reported the same.

Of the 77 percent of likely Democratic primary voters who think Russia is interfering in the 2020 election, 40 percent think that Sanders is being helped, according to the Economist/YouGov poll. Seventy-two percent said the same about Trump, 12 percent for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and 12 percent said Russia is not helping any specific candidates. In that same poll, 81 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they don’t think Sanders wants Russia’s help, while just 59 percent of all registered voters said the same. In comparison, 81 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they do think Trump wants Russia’s help, while 48 percent of all registered voters said the same.

A majority of Americans (55 percent) prefer creamy peanut butter to crunchy peanut butter (31 percent), per a recent YouGov poll. Preference for creamy peanut butter falls to 49 percent in the West and rises to 59 percent in the Northeast.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 43.2 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.3 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -9.1 points). At this time last week, 44.0 percent approved and 51.5 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -7.5 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.8 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.8 percent, for a net approval rating of -10 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 6.5 percentage points (47.8 percent to 41.3 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 6.4 points (47.7 percent to 41.3 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 5.8 points (46.9 percent to 41.3 percent).

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections, including the latest Democratic primary polls.

Politics Podcast: Who Won The South Carolina Debate?

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll(s) of the week

Fresh off a strong performance in Iowa, Sen. Bernie Sanders is ahead by 9 percentage points in our New Hampshire polling average and has a 74 percent chance of winning Tuesday’s primary, according to our forecast.2 That may sound like Sanders is an overwhelming favorite in the Granite State, but the race is still wide open. If the primary were held multiple times, Sanders would lose New Hampshire about 1 in 4 times, according to the forecast — about as likely as flipping a coin twice and getting heads both times.

Why is there so much uncertainty about the New Hampshire outcome, given Sanders’s lead in the polls? First of all, it’s a primary, and polling primaries is notoriously difficult: A larger share of voters in primaries are open to switching between candidates. And there will be several opportunities for New Hampshire voters to do between now and Tuesday. For one, the mess in Iowa is still sorting itself out. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who our forecast thinks has a 20 percent chance of winning the state, could potentially benefit from the victory he claimed in Iowa. Friday’s Democratic debate could also sway voters, so we’re waiting for more polling.

Just how big is this group of people that could still change their mind? Polls have found that about two-fifths of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire say they might change their mind before next Tuesday’s primary, though voters’ commitment varied by candidate.

A Suffolk University poll conducted after the Iowa caucuses found 43 percent of likely primary voters said they could change their mind. Among Sanders supporters, 6o percent said their mind is made up. Sixty-seven percent of former Vice President Joe Biden’s supporters and 59 percent of Buttigieg supporters said the same, compared to about 45 percent of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar’s supporters. (Overall, the poll reported Sanders leading the field with 25 percent support, Buttigieg second at 19 percent, Biden at 12 percent and Warren at 11. Fourteen percent of respondents also said they were undecided.)

A University of Massachusetts Lowell poll conducted in late January — before Iowa — found that 39 percent of likely New Hampshire primary voters said they could still change their mind. Sanders’s support was firmer in this poll: Of the 23 percent who picked Sanders as their first choice, 88 percent said they will definitely cast their vote for him. Sixty-eight percent of Biden’s supporters were firm, as were 62 percent of Warren’s, 42 percent of Klobuchar’s and 29 percent of Buttigieg’s.

A recent Saint Anslem College poll of New Hampshire — also conducted before Iowa — found 41 percent of respondents said their preferred candidate could change. Among respondents who said they were firm in their choice, Sanders led with 25 percent support. Twenty-two percent supported Biden, 18 percent Buttigieg, 11 percent Warren and 9 percent Klobuchar. Of those who said they could change their mind, 22 percent supported Biden, 17 percent Klobuchar, 16 percent Sanders, 14 percent Warren and 13 percent Buttigieg. (Among likely voters, this poll reported Biden and Sanders tied at 19 percent support, Buttigieg with 14 percent and Klobuchar and Warren with 11 percent.)

And a recent Monmouth University poll of New Hampshire — partially taken after Iowa — found that only 49 percent of likely primary voters are firmly decided in their choice, and 46 percent are open to a different candidate. That 46 percent includes 11 percent who said there is a “high possibility” they could change their mind, 25 percent who said there is a “moderate possibility,” and 10 percent who said there is a “low possibility.” Among respondents who make between $50,000 and $100,000, just 43 percent are firmly decided. Buttigieg and Sanders have the most support among that group, each with 21 percent support. (Overall, the poll reported Sanders with 24 percent support from likely voters, Buttigieg with 20 percent, Biden with 17 percent and Warren with 13 percent.)

Taken together, the polling suggests somewhere close to half of New Hampshire voters say they are capable of switching candidates. While a few polls show Sanders with the most loyal following, others have Biden ahead or close behind. The real question is, given the fluidity of the New Hampshire electorate, how many supporters could either pick up? Could voters shift to Buttigieg or Warren, or both, instead? Polling over the next few days will give us some clues, but don’t be surprised if there’s a lot of last-minute movement.

Oh! And there’s a three-hour debate tonight in Manchester, New Hampshire, hosted by ABC News, WMUR-TV and Apple News. This debate will be one of the candidates’ last chances to make their pitch to some of those persuadable New Hampshire voters.

Other polling bites

The notion that Iowa and New Hampshire should go first in the Democratic primary process might be popular in Iowa and New Hampshire, but nationally, not so much. In the recent UMass Lowell poll, 67 percent of likely New Hampshire voters said Iowa and New Hampshire should continue to go first in future presidential primaries. But nationally, only 20 percent of Democrats said Iowa and New Hampshire should go first, while 34 percent said other states should go first and 46 percent were not sure, according to a February Economist/YouGov poll.

In that recent UMass Lowell poll, likely New Hampshire voters were asked if they prefer President Trump win reelection on Nov. 3 or “a giant meteor strikes the earth, extinguishing all life.” Sixty-two percent said they prefer the meteor strike. When broken out by income, gender, age and ideology, the only group in which a majority of respondents chose Trump’s reelection were those making more than $100,000 per year.

Americans are feeling particularly optimistic about their personal finances. A record-breaking 59 percent of Americans said they are better off financially now than they were a year ago, according to a recent Gallup poll. That’s the highest it’s been since Gallup started asking the question in 1977. In that same poll, 74 percent also predicted they will be better off financially a year from now (again the highest since 1977). However, the breakdown is fairly partisan: While 76 percent of Republicans said they are better off now than a year ago, only 43 percent of Democrats said the same.

Pew Research Center recently looked at how popular each of the candidates polled among religious groups within the Democratic Party. Biden led among Christian and Jewish voters — 36 percent of Protestants, 34 percent of Catholics and 31 percent of Jewish voters said the former vice president was their first choice. His support was even higher among black Protestant Democratic voters (44 percent). At 28 percent, Sanders led among unaffiliated voters (atheists, agnostics and “nothing in particular”).

Trump is the most popular president among Republicans and Barack Obama is the most popular president among Democrats, according to a recent YouGov poll. Thirty percent of Republicans said Trump is the best president, followed by 22 percent who said Ronald Reagan and 10 percent who said George Washington. Among Democrats, 23 percent said Obama was the best, followed by 13 percent who said Franklin Delano Roosevelt and 11 percent who said Abraham Lincoln.

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 43.9 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 51.8 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -7.9 points). At this time last week, 42.9 percent approved and 52.7 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -9.8 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.0 percent and a disapproval rating of 53.3 percent, for a net approval rating of -11.3 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 5.7 percentage points (47.2 percent to 41.5 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 5.6 points (46.9 percent to 41.3 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.6 points (47.5 percent to 40.9 percent).

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

One candidate you likely won’t be hearing about next week, but who still has a chance to pick up some delegates in later contests? Michael Bloomberg.

The former New York City mayor entered the race late in November and has a bit of an unorthodox strategy: He is skipping the early-voting states (he won’t even be on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary) and is instead focusing on Super Tuesday and beyond. It’s unclear just how far his strategy will take him, but on Jan. 23, the billionaire jumped from fifth to fourth place in our national polling average. Bloomberg now sits at 8 percent, putting him one point above former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is now in fifth with 7 percent support.

So where exactly has Bloomberg been gaining momentum? Not surprisingly, in Super Tuesday states and beyond (meaning those states where the primary is later). According to a recent Monmouth University national poll, Bloomberg polls at 12 percent among Democratic voters whose state primary is after March 3 — Super Tuesday — but just 5 percent among respondents whose state primary is earlier.

And in many Super Tuesday states, or states with even later primaries, Bloomberg is now polling in the top four. Many of these states don’t have enough polls for us to calculate a reliable polling average, but in those that do, Bloomberg has shown signs of improvement in recent weeks. In Texas and North Carolina, for instance, Bloomberg has overtaken Buttigieg and sits in fourth with between 8 and 9 percent support. He has the third-highest polling average in Florida (ahead of Sen. Elizabeth Warren) and fourth-highest in Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, whose primaries all fall after Super Tuesday. In California, however, he remains in fifth place with 6 percent. And in states where we don’t have polling averages yet, recent polls suggest that Bloomberg could finish in the top tier. In the past week, individual polls have Bloomberg tied for second in New York and trailing only former Vice President Joe Biden in Missouri. He was also fourth in a Suffolk University poll of Utah, at 13 percent.

So what explains Bloomberg’s polling bump so far? And what do we know about Bloomberg’s base of support?

Well, the first question can probably be summed up pretty neatly.

Bloomberg has spent a lot of money on TV ads. In fact, he’s spent more than any other candidate running for president, including billionaire Tom Steyer, who’s also dropped a significant amount of money in some of these states. According to data from Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group, Bloomberg has spent an estimated $224 million on TV ad spots since entering the race, much of it concentrated in Super Tuesday states. In Texas, for instance, he has spent an estimated $24 million. And in all the Super Tuesday states combined, Bloomberg has spent about $91 million, which is four times more than what Steyer has spent (about $23 million) and more than 13 times what the rest of the Democratic candidates have spent — about $7 million.

Bloomberg is all in on Super Tuesday states

Estimated TV ad spending by Bloomberg, Steyer and the remainder of Democratic president candidates in early and Super Tuesday states

Early states Bloomberg Steyer Field Iowa $406,320 $11,472,110 $27,335,610 New Hampshire 115,510 2,867,390 3,522,280 Nevada 1,650 9,725,830 218,710 South Carolina 1,218,310 10,610,040 866,690 Super Tuesday Bloomberg Steyer Field California $29,830,340 $9,748,850 $0 Texas 24,090,200 168,970 0 North Carolina 6,244,540 44,160 0 Viriginia 2,682,220 50,730 0 Massachusetts 4,165,310 12,131,210 3,753,590 Minnesota 5,770,930 102,390 1,399,400 Colorado 4,092,850 20,250 1,640 Tennessee 3,411,500 63,030 0 Alabama 3,174,910 94,140 0 Oklahoma 1,988,050 28,530 0 Arkansas 1,527,530 39,700 0 Utah 1,846,650 16,520 0 Maine 1,424,920 22,770 788,330 Vermont 348,650 8,060 691,870

Data includes ads aired through Jan. 29. Candidates who dropped out are not included in the field.

Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group groups ad airings by state, but because media markets do not follow state boundaries, ads listed as airing in one state may have also aired in adjoining states. The data includes ads that have aired on local network television, national network television and national cable television.

Source: Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group

That money seems to be paying off in both the polls and the endorsement primary. Bloomberg is hardly the most popular candidate among party elites, but he has picked up some key endorsements in recent weeks: He now has the same number of endorsement points as Buttigieg. On Monday, Rep. Scott Peters from California voiced his support for Bloomberg, making that his fifth congressional endorsement. His endorsers are geographically diverse, too, which potentially indicates his strategy is successful in building a broad base of support.

As for who exactly makes up Bloomberg’s burgeoning base, it is mostly older, wealthier and more moderate Democratic voters. This is perhaps not that surprising, considering Bloomberg has consistently branded himself as an alternative moderate candidate. For instance, per a recent national Echelon Insights poll, Bloomberg was the second-most popular candidate for moderate or conservative likely Democratic primary voters, picking up 20 percent support. Only Biden, at 23 percent, picked up more support among these voters.

But there are also signs that Bloomberg might be able to attract more support among voters of color (who make up almost half of Democratic primary voters) and those without a college degree (about 38 percent of primary voters). In December, a national Monmouth University poll found that 3 percent of nonwhite Democratic voters said they supported Bloomberg. But that figure had grown to 8 percent in its January poll. The pollster also found Bloomberg’s support among voters without a college degree grew from 4 percent in December to 10 percent in January. Fox News and SurveyUSA polls also found signs of Bloomberg diversifying his base: Fox News’s latest poll shows a 5-point uptick in support among nonwhite Democratic primary voters (5 percent to 10 percent) and a 4-point bump (2 percent to 6 percent) among non-college educated white voters since December. SurveyUSA, meanwhile, found a 5-point gain among black voters (2 percent to 7 percent) and a 6-point gain among voters with just a high school diploma since late November.

Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Super Tuesday states and beyond has put Bloomberg on the map, but the still unanswered question is whether he can maintain his front-runner status while skipping the first four contests. If he can, some of the later states are very delegate rich, so skipping the first four could pay off for Bloomberg. But it would also be unprecedented for someone to enter the presidential race this late and win the nomination. Then again, Bloomberg’s whole strategy is kind of unprecedented, so maybe being out of sight and out of mind in the first four states won’t sink his campaign, and he can instead focus on his advantage in the states that come next. Either way, we’ll be keeping track of state and national polls to see if Bloomberg continues to gain momentum or if he hits a ceiling.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

We’re less than three weeks away from the Iowa caucuses, and the Democrats held their first presidential debate of 2020 on Tuesday night in Iowa. Just six candidates took the stage this time, the smallest grouping yet.

Much of the debate centered on foreign policy, given President Trump’s recent decision to authorize a drone strike that killed Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, which has escalated tension between the U.S. and Iran. Another topic of debate was Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s claim that Sen. Bernie Sanders told her in 2018 that a woman couldn’t win the presidential election, which led to an onstage disagreement between them. But Warren seems to have gotten the upper hand — she got the highest debate grade from viewers and she now has the highest net favorability rating, according to our poll with Ipsos, which used Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel to interview the same respondents before and after the debate.

Anyway, maybe you missed the January debate because you’re gearing up for the three debates in February (it’s a marathon, not a sprint), or maybe you just want more analysis of how this debate will affect the race. Either way, we’ve got you covered.

Warren got high marks

First up, who viewers thought had the best debate performance. To answer this, we compared candidates’ pre-debate favorability ratings1 to how well respondents who watched the debate thought the candidates performed. Candidates are graded on a four-point scale where higher numbers are better; comparing those grades to favorability ratings helps us adjust our expectations, since people may be inclined to view well-liked candidates in a positive light. Warren got the highest marks for her performance on Tuesday night, and they were strong enough to be impressive even after you account for her high favorability. That represents an improvement for her, after she fell slightly below expectations during the December debate. Sanders, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Biden didn’t do poorly per se, but because they were already well-liked, we expected a lot of voters to view their debate performance favorably.

Voters’ priorities affected candidates’ grades

Democratic voters really care about picking a nominee they think can beat Trump. Nearly two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters in our poll with Ipsos said they prefer a candidate who they think can win the general election over a candidate who shares their stance on issues — and those numbers didn’t budge after the debate.

In December, voters who prioritized winning in November thought Biden had the best performance, but this time they thought Warren performed the best — perhaps a sign that her pitch for why a woman can win the presidency resonated with viewers. Sanders, meanwhile, did best with voters who preferred a candidate whose position on the issues was similar to their own, which is consistent what we found after the last three debates.

Voters who prioritize beating Trump thought Warren did best

How debate-watchers scored candidates’ performances (on a four-point scale where higher is better) in the January Democratic debate, by which type of candidate they prefer

voter Prefers a candidate who … candidate shares stance on issues can beat trump Warren 3.0 3.4 Biden 2.6 3.1 Buttigieg 2.7 3.1 Sanders 3.1 3.1 Klobuchar 2.6 3.0 Steyer 2.7 3.0

From a survey of 3,057 likely Democratic primary voters who were surveyed between Jan. 10 to Jan. 13. The same people were surveyed again from Jan. 14 to Jan. 15; 659 responded to the second wave and said they watched the debate. The average ratings are out of 4 points, where 4 is best and 1 is worst.

Source: Ipsos/FiveThirtyEight

Voters warmed to Klobuchar

Most of the candidates on the stage made good impressions with voters Tuesday night, according to changes in their net favorability ratings (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating). But perhaps unsurprisingly, the candidates who gained most were those who many voters didn’t already have an opinion on. For instance, around 40 percent of voters had neither a favorable nor an unfavorable view of Sen. Amy Klobuchar and billionaire activist Tom Steyer before the debate — easily the highest percentages of anyone on stage — and they also saw the biggest gains in net favorability, racking up 5 points or more on this measure. The other candidates saw more modest gains (Buttigieg and Warren) or lost some ground (Sanders and Biden).

In fact, thanks to Warren’s gains and leading candidates’ stumbles, Warren now has the highest net favorability rating overall.

Some voters soured on Sanders

Change in net favorability for candidates in a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll taken before and after the January Democratic primary debate

Net favorability candidate before debate after debate change Klobuchar +12.3 +18.1 +5.8 Steyer +9.9 +14.9 +5.0 Buttigieg +26.5 +31.2 +4.7 Warren +43.3 +47.2 +3.9 Biden +45.3 +43.7 -1.6 Sanders +47.8 +44.3 -3.6

From a survey of 3,057 likely Democratic primary voters who were surveyed between Jan. 10 to Jan. 13. The same people were surveyed again from Jan. 14 to Jan. 15; 1,743 responded to the second wave.

Women grabbed the mic

In the last three Democratic debates, a female candidate has led the group in number of words spoken, and the same was true again Tuesday night. Warren topped the list by speaking 3,428 words in total, just 134 more than Klobuchar. On the other end of the spectrum, Steyer spoke the least with only 2,285 words, though that’s still more than he’s said in past debates. In contrast to the other candidates, however, when he was talking, Steyer was often agreeing with his opponents. Of the 11 times he was able to give a substantive response,2 he spent at least part of five of them agreeing with another candidate.

Who held the floor?

Number of words spoken by candidates in the January Democratic debate

Candidate Words Spoken Elizabeth Warren 3,428

–

Amy Klobuchar 3,294

–

Joe Biden 3,178

–

Pete Buttigieg 3,088

–

Bernie Sanders 2,824

–

Tom Steyer 2,285

–

Transcript is preliminary and may contain errors that affect word count.

Source: Debate Transcript via ABC News

But Steyer speaking the least isn’t all that surprising given that lower-polling candidates tend to get less air time. However, both Klobuchar and Buttigieg managed to buck that trend, speaking just about as much as higher-polling candidates like Biden and Warren, which was similar to what we saw in the December debate. Overall, the relationship between a candidate’s polling average3 and the number of words he or she spoke was not as strong as in the early debates when the stage was much more crowded.4 That said, Sanders still spoke relatively little given where he is polling nationally.

Trump came up more often

Klobuchar mentioned Trump by name more often than other candidates in Tuesday’s debate, which was consistent with her strategy in the December debate, when she also mentioned him the most. But the president’s name also came up more often in general than it did last time — candidates mentioned him an average of about eight times each on Tuesday, compared with about six times each in December.

Who talked about Trump?

How often each candidate mentioned Trump’s name in the January Democratic debate

Candidate Trump Mentions Amy Klobuchar 12

–

Bernie Sanders 10

–

Elizabeth Warren 8

–

Pete Buttigieg 7

–

Tom Steyer 7

–

Joe Biden 6

–

Transcript is preliminary and may contain errors that affect word count.

Source: Debate Transcript via ABC News

Warren, for instance, only mentioned Trump once in the December debate, but this time she called him out on eight occasions. Biden talked about Trump six times in both the January and December debates, but while that put him in third last time, he was the candidate to mention Trump the least this time around.

Do you want even more debate coverage?

Cool graphics from other sites:

The New York Times tracked how much time each candidate spent speaking about various issues, finding that Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar spent more time on health care than other topics. Biden, on the other hand, spent a lot of time talking about the military.

And despite the Warren-Sanders clash over whether a woman can be president, it was actually Klobuchar who attacked her opponents the most, according to NBC News’s attack tracker. Warren came in a close second.

Bloomberg News compared which issues dominated this debate with previous debates and found that health care, which has taken up less time in the last two debates, was revived on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, economic inequality and social issues took a backseat compared to past debates.

And here’s more great post-debate analysis:

Rick Klein at ABC News5 broke down the debate’s focus on foreign policy and the clashes between the candidates.

The Des Moines Register covered how Iowans watched the debate and what candidates need to say to caucusgoers.

PolitiFact did a live fact-check of the debate.

Of course, we think our debate coverage is pretty good too:

The politics crew chatted after the debate.

Nate Silver, Galen Druke and Clare Malone stayed up late to bring you a podcast.

We partnered with Ipsos to poll the same group of voters before and after the debate.

And you can re-create all the action by scrolling through our live blog.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

PUBLISHED Mar. 13, 2020, at 11:56 AM

Who Will Win The Biden-Sanders Debate?We’re partnering with Ipsos to poll voters before and after the candidates take the stage.

By Aaron Bycoffe, Sarah Frostenson and Julia Wolfe

It’s been a long slog, but Sunday night’s debate, hosted by CNN in Washington, D.C., might mark the last debate of the primary. This time around, just former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders will take the stage, and there will be no live audience to help limit the spread of the new coronavirus. But one thing is staying the same: We’ve once again partnered with Ipsos to track how the debate affects likely primary voters’ feelings about the candidates. The FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, conducted using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, interviews the same group of voters twice, once on either side of the debate, to capture both the “before” and “after” picture.

The before picture

Who voters are considering

Share of respondents who are considering voting for each candidate

0%20406080Joe Biden63.2%Bernie Sanders38.7%

Respondents could pick multiple candidates or ‘someone else.’

After the last debate, Sanders had the largest share of respondents considering backing him, but things have changed dramatically in a little over two weeks. After a string of strong finishes on Super Tuesday and last Tuesday, Biden now leads on this metric, with 63 percent of respondents considering him. Biden is also in a strong position headed into Tuesday primaries, according to our forecast. A misstep from Biden, though, could shake up the picture moving forward, so we’ll be tracking how this list of voters’ maybes changes after the debate.

The popularity contest

Candidates’ favorable and unfavorable ratings among likely primary voters

Unfavorable

Favorable

Before debate

After debate

Joe Biden

73.4%

23.7%

Bernie Sanders

65.4%

31.3%

Respondents are also being asked whether they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the candidates, and while both Biden and Sanders are pretty well-liked among Democrats, Biden does lead on this measure. His net favorability rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) is +50 points, while Sanders’s is +34.

Our latest coverage

7 hours agoCan You Guess How Popular Bernie Sanders’s Policies Are?

By Yutong Yuan and Nathaniel Rakich

7 hours agoHow Concerned Are Americans About Coronavirus So Far?

By Likhitha Butchireddygari

22 hours agoWhy Are Women Less Likely Than Men To Support Sanders?

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Meredith Conroy

Who voters think can beat Trump

Respondents’ estimates of the likelihood, from 0 percent (impossible) to 100 percent (certain), that each candidate would beat Trump if they were the Democratic nominee

Joe Biden

200%100%

66.7%Average

Absolutely certainto lose to Trump

Absolutely certainto beat Trump

Bernie Sanders

200%100%

54.4%

Finally, we’re asking respondents to estimate each Democrat’s chances of defeating President Trump — from 0 percent to 100 percent. And as in the other metrics, Biden leads on this front as well, with respondents estimating that he has a 67 percent chance, on average, of defeating Trump in the general election, compared to Sanders’s 54 percent chance.

All the data presented here comes from polling done by Ipsos for FiveThirtyEight, using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, a probability-based online panel that is recruited to be representative of the U.S. population. For this study, the same group of respondents is interviewed before and after the debate to track whether and how their answers changed. An initial wave of polling was conducted before the debates began, with a follow-up wave after the debate. The first wave of the poll was conducted from March 9 to March 13 among a general population sample of adults, with 2,601 respondents who say they are likely to vote in their state’s Democratic primary or caucus. For the likely Democratic primary voter subset of respondents, the poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.1 percentage points.

All Wave 1 respondents were weighted according to general population benchmarks from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey March 2019 Supplement. This provides the appropriate demographic distributions for the subset of likely Democratic primary voters, which serve as the weighting benchmarks for Wave 2 respondents. Likely Democratic primary voters are the respondent base for all charts except where otherwise noted. The respondent pool is subject to some amount of attrition from Wave 1 to Wave 2, which our weights account for.

Additional contributions by Laura Bronner.

Related Stories

Can You Guess How Popular Bernie Sanders’s Policies Are?How Concerned Are Americans About Coronavirus So Far?Why Are Women Less Likely Than Men To Support Sanders?Election Update: Sanders Needs Something Extraordinary To HappenSanders Shouldn’t Expect A Big Delegate Boost From Candidates Who Dropped Out

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Additional contributions by Likhitha Butchireddygari

Graphics by Anna Wiederkehr

Before last year, Willa Engel, 65, had never thought of herself as an especially political person. But the impeachment process changed that. As the House Democrats’ investigation rolled forward through the late fall, she found herself glued to the television, watching witness after witness testify about President Trump’s behavior. “I got a little addicted to it,” she said. “I believe I watched about 90 percent of it.”

But there were moments in the hearings when Engel, a Democratic-leaning independent, got so upset she had to turn away. “Sometimes when the White House counsel or the Republicans were on TV, I had to mute it. It was too much,” she said. The hearings did convince Engel that Trump had committed an impeachable offense, but now that it’s over, she tries not to think about it. “I get so angry,” she said. “I try to block it out of my mind.”

For a little over three months, we tracked over 1,100 Americans on how they felt about the impeachment process, surveying respondents like Engel every few weeks via Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel to find out whether their views on impeachment were changing.1 But there was remarkably little movement. The share of Americans who thought Trump committed an impeachable offense hovered between 55 and 58 percent in six separate surveys.

Respondent after respondent told us that their belief of Trump’s innocence or guilt was just reinforced by the process. “The Democrats put up a flimsy case,” said Alan Satow, 60, a Republican. “They had all these witnesses, but they weren’t presenting facts. It was just a lot of hearsay.”

The impeachment process might not have shifted anyone’s view about Trump, but it did drive Americans further into their partisan camps — and in the process, unraveled their already frayed sense of trust in the political system. When we spoke to them after the Senate trial had concluded, our respondents had few kind words for either party. Instead, they saw impeachment as a stark and painful example of the country’s partisan stalemate.

“The way I see it is, we seem to be in a place where our politicians don’t really make decisions for themselves — they just say, ‘Well I belong to this party and so that’s how I’m going to vote,’” said Emily Underwood, 29, a Republican-leaning independent. “We’re divided. We’re stuck. I knew that before impeachment, but it’s even clearer to me now.”

Democrats worry impeachment will backfire

When news of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit the headlines in late September, Richard Scruggs, 31, had an inkling that the allegations against Trump were grave enough to be impeachable. But as the Democrats began to present their case against the president in a series of televised hearings in November, he grew even more certain that Trump had done something seriously wrong. (Scruggs said in our survey that he leans toward the Democrats.)

“The Trump presidency does a number on what seems normal,” said Scruggs. He wasn’t sure what to make of the allegations until he started to read about the lengths to which Trump’s allies had gone to strong-arm the Ukrainian government into probing the Bidens, including efforts to push out the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the discussion of investigations in high-level meetings with Ukrainian and American diplomats. “The idea of putting pressure on foreign governments to investigate your rival seems kind of definitionally a high crime or misdemeanor,” said Scruggs.

Scruggs wasn’t alone. By November, when we fielded the first wave of our survey, 88 percent of Democrats said they were already convinced that Trump had committed an impeachable offense. That means many Democrats may already have had a change of heart on impeachment by the time our survey began, since according to our tracker of impeachment polls, the biggest shift among Democrats happened in late September, around the release of a call summary of Trump and Zelensky’s conversation.

John Stokes, 73, wasn’t fully on board with impeachment at first. But he said he was convinced by the Democrats’ argument that it was their responsibility to hold Trump accountable. And by the end of the process, he said it was clear to him that Trump had committed an impeachable offense. “[Trump] was trying to bribe a foreign country,” he said.

But even as Democrats in our survey became more convinced that Trump’s actions were impeachable, some also started to have nagging concerns that the impeachment process might have inadvertently helped Trump. Throughout the process, a small but substantial chunk of Democrats (around 13 percent) told us that even though they thought Trump had committed an impeachable offense, the voters — not Congress — should decide his fate in the 2020 election. The share of Democrats who thought impeachment was a bad use of Congress’s time rose, too, from 23 percent at the beginning of the Senate trial to 37 percent when it was over. After the trial, a smaller sharer of Democrats said that senators were impartial jurors than the share that thought senators would be impartial. And perhaps most crucially, 30 percent of Democrats thought in the last wave of our survey that impeachment was likely to help Trump win reelection — up from 12 percent just three weeks earlier.

Some panelists told us they thought impeachment was necessary, but they were also worried it might backfire at the polls in November. “I never felt impeachment was the right way to go because it wasn’t going to pass the Senate,” said Alan Simsovic, 62. “My biggest concern was that this was going to galvanize Trump supporters, and I do believe that’s what has happened.”

Others, like Maria Alleyne, 53, said they were alarmed that this could further embolden Trump. “This is not a man whose personality is to learn things and regret his actions,” she said. Instead, Alleyne told us, she thought he’d continue to act in the same way. And she also feared he would “be very vindictive” against the people who were part of the process and “just go after them as hard as he can.”

Republicans became more supportive of Trump

Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters like Simsovic weren’t wrong to worry that impeachment may have knit Trump’s Republican base more tightly to him. Our surveys showed that as impeachment wore on, rank-and-file Republicans did become more supportive of the president and of Republicans more broadly. And that’s saying something, because Republicans had a pretty high opinion of Trump going into the impeachment process. But by the end of the trial, 63 percent of Republicans approved of the way Trump was handling the impeachment process, compared with 51 percent back in November. Ordinary Republican voters also increasingly approved of the way Republicans in Congress handled impeachment as it played out.

Why did Republicans rally around Trump? Part of it may be that relatively few Republicans were ever convinced that Trump had committed an impeachable offense, and the impeachment process did little to change their minds. For instance, over the course of our survey, a majority of Republicans agreed that Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, but only about 25 to 30 percent said that they thought Trump had conditioned aid on those investigations or had tried to cover up his actions.

Glenn Bossmeyer, 71, thought the request to Zelensky had been handled clumsily, but he didn’t see a problem with Trump asking for a probe into Hunter Biden’s business relationships in Ukraine while his father was vice president. “It was a stupid thing to do, because it gave the Democrats more fodder to go after him,” Bossmeyer said. “But whether Hunter Biden ended up in his position because of his father’s influence — I thought it was a fair question to ask.”

Republicans growing more comfortable with Trump’s behavior wasn’t an obvious outcome — at least during the first couple of waves of our survey, when the Democrats publicly presented evidence against the president. For instance, the share of Republicans who believed Trump tied Ukraine’s aid to the investigations rose slightly after former EU ambassador Gordon Sondland explicitly linked Trump to a quid pro quo in public testimony in late November.

But ultimately, many Republicans accepted the argument that this kind of behavior was simply politics as usual and didn’t condemn Trump’s actions. The share of Republicans who said that it was inappropriate to condition aid on an investigation into the Bidens actually went down between November and February, as did the share of Republicans who said a cover-up would be inappropriate.

“It just didn’t come to much,” said Esra Sander, 46. She didn’t like the idea of heads of state trading favors for political leverage, she told us — but she saw it as a part of the dirty underbelly of politics that Trump, with his bull-in-a-china-shop tendencies, had simply exposed. “Has it happened before? Will it happen again? The answer to both is yes,” she said. “Under Trump it’s just more visible.”

People were left angered and disillusioned

There was one thing in our surveys that united ordinary Republicans and Democrats: a sense of anger that for four months, their elected leaders had relentlessly jabbed at the country’s gaping partisan wound. For some, it became exhausting to pick up their newspapers or turn on the TV each day. Very few of the respondents we talked with felt triumphant about how impeachment ended. Instead, they mostly thought the two parties had fought to a messy draw.

“The Democrats were bullies, but the Republicans were just as bad,” said Megon Burkit, 43, who identifies as a Republican. “They didn’t have a strong defense. I think everyone is blowing smoke up our butts.”

The price of this anger and disillusionment appears to have been a loss of trust in public institutions — Congress, the news media, the presidency, you name it. A majority (65 percent) of Americans said their level of trust in the American political system had decreased because of the impeachment process. “Democrats, Republicans — it’s starting to feel like nobody has ordinary working people’s interests at heart,” said Alleyne. (She said in our survey that she leans toward the Democrats.) “They’re not trying to help us. They’re just fighting. Nothing seems to be coming together.”

People say their trust in political institutions has decreased

Share of respondents in the sixth wave of a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll who said their trust in the American political system had increased, decreased, or remained the same, by party

Political system Decreased Increased No change All 65.4%

–

5.1%

–

26.5%

–

Democratic 72.6

–

4.7

–

20.7

–

Republican 59.0

–

4.8

–

34.5

–

1,104 people responded to all six waves of the survey; this wave was fielded Feb. 5 to Feb. 9.

It also left both Republicans and Democrats with an even more bitter impression of their political rivals. By the time the trial was over, 71 percent of Republicans strongly disapproved of how Democrats in Congress were handling impeachment (approximately the same percentage as in November). Sixty-five percent of Democrats felt the same way about congressional Republicans, up from 49 percent in November.

People who identified as Republican or leaned Republican told us they thought the Democrats were mainly looking for a chance to score political points at Trump’s expense. “I just thought it was a publicity play by the Democrats, trying to grab the limelight,” said Robert Wehner, 70. Democrats, for their part, saw the Republicans as equally mercenary. “The way they lied, how their story kept changing — it’s disturbing,” said Evan Smith, 46. “I don’t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.”

But there were also respondents who told us they felt lost in the increasingly vast no-man’s-land between the two parties. “It’s like there’s a war in Washington, one side against the other, and everyone has to toe the party line,” said Eric Boggis, 61, an independent who said he doesn’t lean toward either party. He doesn’t like Trump and said he didn’t vote for him in 2016. But he thought the Democrats’ efforts were a “long shot” and a waste of time, especially with the presidential election looming on the horizon. “[The Democrats] were never going to get rid of him through impeachment,” Boggis said. “Let the voters have their say, and he’ll probably be gone in a year anyway.”