An image of a man who is in fact, not actually that polarizing.
So in his recent Diary, Kos said, that people either love or hate Sanders and that he is easily the most polarizing candidate. And on this site, among us political nerds, that may be true. We here tend to identify probably a lot more with our chosen candidate than the average voter, so we take any push back much more personal. And even though I have only recently returned to this site, the idea, that Bernie is especially polarizing among the electorate is a view I have read numerous times. And it is also one I have heard in the media before as well. But I have been wondering, just how true it really is. So i will be looking into that claim in this Diary.
The main sources I will be using are The Morning Consult from Jan 27-Feb 2 as well as the economist/yougov poll, from feb 2-feb 4 . These are not the very newest polls, though hardly very old either, but they are the newest ones I could find that were specifically about how favorable democratic primary viewers see the candidates. There may be some newer ones somewhere, but I haven’t seen them. But since I am not looking into some kind of horse race stuff, I think the numbers especially concerning Bernie, since he was well known before Iowa, are unlikely to have changed wildly. And anyways, I’ve been hearing this sort of claim well before Iowa.
So lets start with the Morning Consult. They asked about favorability and name recognition for each candidate, among Democratic Primary Voters.
Unsurprisingly 100% of that demographic knew Sanders, and 73% judged him favorable, while 20% judged him unfavorable.6% had no opinion. That is +53% favorable.Now to my ears, those are not numbers that sound very polarizing, but who knows, maybe they are bad for voters within a primary. So how did other Candidates do?
Well Biden was the only other candidate to also have 100% name recognition. His numbers were 70% fav, 23% unfav and also 6% no opinion. So he was actually worse than Bernie and only had +47% favorable.
Now are Biden and Bernie just both surprisingly polarizing figures and the other candidates have much better fav ratings? No.
Warren had 64% favorable and 21% unfavorable.11% had no opinion, 5% didn’t know her. +42% favorable rating.
Buttigieg had 50% favorable and 17% unfavorable.18% had no opinion, 15% didn’t know him. +37% favorable rating.
Klobuchar had 40% favorable and 17% unfavorable. 22% had no opinion, 21% didn’t know her. +23% favorable rating.
Now this was right before Iowa, so I expect, that most candidates (especially Buttigieg) will be much better known now, and more of the people who had no opinion, will have formed an opinion. But that is not important for the point of the diary.
I am not suggesting that everyone who has a favorable view of Sanders, is just looking to vote for him. But this widespread idea, just today proudly proclaimed as fact by the owner of the site on the frontpage, that you either hate or love Sanders is false. If that were the case, he would be polling at 73% nationally right now, instead of in the 20-30% range he is in right now. Clearly there are many people that like him, but who are not yet voting for him. Just as is the case for all of the candidates. Sanders is not nearly as polarizing as he is made out to be on this site.
While I think I have already made my case, I will now also quickly go over the poll from the economist/yougov, just to show, that this one wasn’t some wild abnormality and on other polls he is like 50-50. Though I won’t go quite as in detail on every candidate, because the diary is already getting to long. the numbers are in the link above.
On this poll I will combine the numbers of people who saw a candidate very and somewhat favorable and the same for the unfavorable flipside. If you want the exact numbers for everything its in the link at the top, the diary is already getting long as it is. I will however do the numbers for 3 different sets of demographics who answered the question as well as the total favorability. I am also only doing Warren, Biden and Sanders,because its a lot of work for each candidate and this poll was on the eve of Iowa, so Buttigieg and Klobachar had a much higher number of “don’t know” responses, thus making their numbers much less likely to be as telling. In future polls I expect more and more people to have an opinion on them.
First I will show Democratic Primary voters. Then I will do people with a democratic party ID and Independents. Lastly i will do the total favorability rating. I will leave out republicans, because I think the amount of people who are still republicans now, that will vote for any candidate of ours will be very low.
Sanders
Primary: favorable:67% unfavorable:29% don’t know:4% sum:+38%
Democratic party: favorable:65% unfavorable:26% don’t know:9% sum:+39%
Independents: favorable:36% unfavorable:42% don’t know:23% sum:-6%
Total : favorable:40% unfavorable:47% don’t know:14% sum:-7%
Biden
Primary: favorable:69% unfavorable:29% don’t know:3% sum:+40%
Democratic party: favorable: 72% unfavorable: 20% don’t know:8% sum: +52%
Independents: favorable:28% unfavorable:48% don’t know:25% sum: -20%
Total : favorable:38% unfavorable:47% don’t know:15% sum:-9%
Warren
Primary: favorable:72% unfavorable:23% don’t know:5% sum:+51%
Democratic party: favorable:72% unfavorable:18% don’t know:11% sum:+56%
Independents: favorable:28% unfavorable:45% don’t know:27% sum:-17%
Total : favorable:37% unfavorable:45% don’t know:18% sum:-8%
Ok so that was a lot of data, what can we gain from it? well first to the main thrust of this diary, that democratic primary voters must either love or hate Sanders. Again this idea is shown to be incorrect, though in this poll his numbers are not at the best.
Now let me pivot my point a little bit. This poll shows, that Sanders is not as popular among democrats (though hardly polarizing), as the other candidates are. But it shows that Sanders has a great strength with independents. He is 10% to 13% ahead of Warren and Biden among Independents. Yes it is still a negative number, but that is to be expected with any democrat, because independents as a group lean Republican. But there are always still independents who will vote democratic, and Sanders opens up more of those. Yes Sanders will get attacked in the general election and his numbers among independents could drop. But here is the thing, so will every other candidate we run. And Sanders will have to drop 13 points to be as unliked as Biden currently is. Also more independents already have an opinion of Sanders than they do of Warren, Biden or any other democrat. And it is more difficult to change an already existing opinion, than it is to influence someone making one for the first time.
Democrats hate Trump. As can be seen here daily. 62% of Democratic Primary voters in New Hampshire would rather die by a Meteor than have another Trump presidency. So the types of voters Warren and Biden and probably the other democrats are strongest with, the ones who vote in democratic primaries, the ones who are already registered as democrats, those voters are going to come and vote against Trump. They would rather die than have him win again. Many Independents, many young voters (Bernie has +16 fav for those between 18-29, Warren has +5 fav rating and Biden a horrible -13) are not as reliable or as motivated. They will not just appear to the polls because of Trump. But Bernie can get more of them to come, because they like him more. In 2016 we tried it with a candidate, who was very well liked within the democratic party, but not so much outside of it. Let us not repeat that same mistake again.
