Which candidate has the best chance of defeating Trump?
March 4, 2020 8:22 AM Subscribe
I have a Presidential primary election coming up, and I have decided I will select the candidate that has the best chance of defeating Trump - regardless of my own personal taste/distaste for any particular candidates. What are the best polling resources to answer this question?
Mod note: Couple deleted. Sorry I know it's tempting but this isn't a general discussion of who can beat trump or about polls. Answers to this must contain links to best polling resources to answer this question; thanks.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:56 AM on March 4, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:56 AM on March 4, 2020 [11 favorites]
I think a lot of polling is currently in flux, given the state of the race since South Carolina. I would take any polling done before 3/1 or even yesterday with a huge grain of salt. Many of the exit polls from yesterday showed that Democratic voters have been very late to make up their minds this cycle.
That being said, I've been following the twitter and articles by Rachel Bitecofer (polling and data expert) like gospel this year. Here's a recent article by her in the New Republic: link.
posted by backwards compatible at 9:31 AM on March 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
That being said, I've been following the twitter and articles by Rachel Bitecofer (polling and data expert) like gospel this year. Here's a recent article by her in the New Republic: link.
posted by backwards compatible at 9:31 AM on March 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
The best polling resource for this is:
(1) Go to 538 and look at their list of polls.
(2) Be sure to select "ALL" under "State" if that isn't the default.
(3) Page down, looking for polls that interest you -- ones from good pollsters, ones in states you think are important, ones with good sample sizes (>500 or ideally >1000), whatever.
(4) Click on the link to that poll, which for whatever misbegotten reason appears as the name of the pollster. This will normally take you to the pollster's page about that poll, where you can see if that poll asked head-to-head questions. Many don't ask that.
AFAIK nobody (reputable anyway) is aggregating these questions the way that 538 aggregates vote intention, so you are gonna have to roll yer own here.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:48 AM on March 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
(1) Go to 538 and look at their list of polls.
(2) Be sure to select "ALL" under "State" if that isn't the default.
(3) Page down, looking for polls that interest you -- ones from good pollsters, ones in states you think are important, ones with good sample sizes (>500 or ideally >1000), whatever.
(4) Click on the link to that poll, which for whatever misbegotten reason appears as the name of the pollster. This will normally take you to the pollster's page about that poll, where you can see if that poll asked head-to-head questions. Many don't ask that.
AFAIK nobody (reputable anyway) is aggregating these questions the way that 538 aggregates vote intention, so you are gonna have to roll yer own here.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:48 AM on March 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
FiveThirtyEight did a nice feature on electability that might weigh into your decision:
You’ll Never Know Which Candidate Is Electable
posted by chrisamiller at 10:18 AM on March 4, 2020 [14 favorites]
You’ll Never Know Which Candidate Is Electable
posted by chrisamiller at 10:18 AM on March 4, 2020 [14 favorites]
Click on the link to that poll, which for whatever misbegotten reason appears as the name of the pollster. This will normally take you to the pollster's page about that poll, where you can see if that poll asked head-to-head questions. Many don't ask that.
FiveThirtyEight also aggregates the results of head-to-head match-ups, so clicking through to the pollster's page may not be necessary. However, they don't have a nice "polling average" for these they way they do for, say, the primary contests.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:46 PM on March 4, 2020
FiveThirtyEight also aggregates the results of head-to-head match-ups, so clicking through to the pollster's page may not be necessary. However, they don't have a nice "polling average" for these they way they do for, say, the primary contests.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:46 PM on March 4, 2020
As someone with a background in science and stastics, I would trust the polls and statistics people when they say don't try to read too much into polls at this point. Staring at those is trying to see patterns in noise. You might as well read tea leaves or entrails.
That means you've got to trust your instincts about people and about the situation. And just for the sake of disclosure here, I'm more in team Sanders than I thought considering how disappointed I was to hear that Biden did well in the elections on Tuesday. But prior to the primaries I was definitely team Kamala Harris and she didn't get that far, so I'm definitely not an oracle for electable.
But my read on the situation is this: if Sanders wins the primary, he adds the Democratic party's get out the vote machine to a base of organizers who are loyal to him and not the party. He gets a lot more manpower. The downside is that the Democrats are going to lose a lot of money from the richer folks that are scared of taxes and socialism. On the other hand if Biden wins, he might keep the support from the set of rich people who aren't ok with fascists, but he's going to have a hard time bringing in anything more from the left than getting most of them grudgingly show up on election day to cast an anti trump vote. Clinton took a left turn during the primaries to try to appeal broadly to the party both left and center. I haven't seen any signs Biden's doing that; he may well get even more of a tepid response among the left than Mrs. Clinton did.
So basically if you think fanatical supporters matter more for winning, vote Sanders, if you think financial backing matters more for winning, vote Biden. The idealistic part of me wants to say people matter, but the cynical part says money buys people. So who knows?
But if it's ok to editorialize a little: people don't vote for policies, they don't vote for electability, they vote for whoever inspires them and makes them feel good. I know everyone's kind of in their own political bubble, so I can't make any statements about who inspires the most people, but if you don't know anyone who would cry tears of joy for [i]Joe Biden[/i] winning because he's [i]Joe Biden[/i] and not because he's gone and beat Trump, then I'd be very worried about voting for him in the primary.
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:36 PM on March 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
That means you've got to trust your instincts about people and about the situation. And just for the sake of disclosure here, I'm more in team Sanders than I thought considering how disappointed I was to hear that Biden did well in the elections on Tuesday. But prior to the primaries I was definitely team Kamala Harris and she didn't get that far, so I'm definitely not an oracle for electable.
But my read on the situation is this: if Sanders wins the primary, he adds the Democratic party's get out the vote machine to a base of organizers who are loyal to him and not the party. He gets a lot more manpower. The downside is that the Democrats are going to lose a lot of money from the richer folks that are scared of taxes and socialism. On the other hand if Biden wins, he might keep the support from the set of rich people who aren't ok with fascists, but he's going to have a hard time bringing in anything more from the left than getting most of them grudgingly show up on election day to cast an anti trump vote. Clinton took a left turn during the primaries to try to appeal broadly to the party both left and center. I haven't seen any signs Biden's doing that; he may well get even more of a tepid response among the left than Mrs. Clinton did.
So basically if you think fanatical supporters matter more for winning, vote Sanders, if you think financial backing matters more for winning, vote Biden. The idealistic part of me wants to say people matter, but the cynical part says money buys people. So who knows?
But if it's ok to editorialize a little: people don't vote for policies, they don't vote for electability, they vote for whoever inspires them and makes them feel good. I know everyone's kind of in their own political bubble, so I can't make any statements about who inspires the most people, but if you don't know anyone who would cry tears of joy for [i]Joe Biden[/i] winning because he's [i]Joe Biden[/i] and not because he's gone and beat Trump, then I'd be very worried about voting for him in the primary.
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:36 PM on March 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm a Warren voter who's long had Sanders as my #2, so Super Tuesday was dismaying for plenty of reasons, but what's really given me pause is the absolutely anemic showing from young voters. Youth turnout underperformed in many states, and even in California's early voting the under-30s only made up 9% of the total. Meanwhile, in the places where turnout surged -- like Virginia, which doubled 2016's primary vote -- Biden crushed Sanders by running up the score with older voters and African-Americans.
I really want Sanders' theory of the case to be right, that an unapologetic left-wing populist with bold ideas can spark an unprecedented surge of new voters to transform American politics. But so far in practice it looks like young voters simply aren't showing up to support him when it counts, while at the same time he really repels the much more reliable 65+ demographic. This has been a problem for him -- despite a heavily divided field he underperformed his polls and merely eked out wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, and even his big win in Nevada was largely thanks to it being a low-turnout caucus that overrepresents the most committed supporters. And that's all without having been subjected to the kind of vicious negative campaigning other candidates have weathered. If this pattern holds in November with him as the nominee -- losing seniors, scaring moderates, and weak turnout from young and black voters -- I genuinely fear we'll have another McGovern-style wipeout at the worst possible time.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:49 PM on March 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
I really want Sanders' theory of the case to be right, that an unapologetic left-wing populist with bold ideas can spark an unprecedented surge of new voters to transform American politics. But so far in practice it looks like young voters simply aren't showing up to support him when it counts, while at the same time he really repels the much more reliable 65+ demographic. This has been a problem for him -- despite a heavily divided field he underperformed his polls and merely eked out wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, and even his big win in Nevada was largely thanks to it being a low-turnout caucus that overrepresents the most committed supporters. And that's all without having been subjected to the kind of vicious negative campaigning other candidates have weathered. If this pattern holds in November with him as the nominee -- losing seniors, scaring moderates, and weak turnout from young and black voters -- I genuinely fear we'll have another McGovern-style wipeout at the worst possible time.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:49 PM on March 4, 2020 [7 favorites]
This article from Newsweek made me rethink the idea that Bernie could beat Trump, no matter what the polls say.
posted by jabes at 12:19 PM on March 5, 2020
posted by jabes at 12:19 PM on March 5, 2020
The downside is that the Democrats are going to lose a lot of money from the richer folks that are scared of taxes and socialism.
And a lot of votes from the nonrich folks who are scared of socialism. Some polling: Most people (55 percent) have a negative opinion of socialism, and 76 percent say they would not vote for a socialist.
The median voter theorem says you win by running a middle-of-the-road candidate. Yes, it's not that simple: turnout matters; political opinion isn't one-dimensional; the specific candidate matters, and when asked about specific policies, polls find people to often be more liberal than the politicians they vote for, suggesting that some people can be persuaded to change their vote. But it's a good starting point: A more moderate candidate is going to be better positioned to draw swing voters away from his opponent - like the roughly 10 percent who voted for both Obama and Trump. I think fundraising and turnout are likely to be much smaller factors than a more moderate ideology.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:42 PM on March 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
And a lot of votes from the nonrich folks who are scared of socialism. Some polling: Most people (55 percent) have a negative opinion of socialism, and 76 percent say they would not vote for a socialist.
The median voter theorem says you win by running a middle-of-the-road candidate. Yes, it's not that simple: turnout matters; political opinion isn't one-dimensional; the specific candidate matters, and when asked about specific policies, polls find people to often be more liberal than the politicians they vote for, suggesting that some people can be persuaded to change their vote. But it's a good starting point: A more moderate candidate is going to be better positioned to draw swing voters away from his opponent - like the roughly 10 percent who voted for both Obama and Trump. I think fundraising and turnout are likely to be much smaller factors than a more moderate ideology.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:42 PM on March 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:46 AM on March 4, 2020 [3 favorites]