Democrats Don't Want to Nominate a Candidate Who Looks Like Bernie or Joe

[brooklynite]

Politico

Evaluating voter attitudes is tricky. All candidates present a bundle of characteristics that are often correlated. Biden is not only a white man, he is also older with a lot of political experience. Pete Buttigieg is gay, but he is also a white man, young and religious. For this reason, it can be hard to disentangle to what extent each candidate characteristic influences vote choice. And when you survey people, respondents often provide untruthful answers they consider to be socially acceptable. For instance, a voter may dislike a black or a gay candidate but be reluctant to openly admit that for fear of looking racist or homophobic.

To address these challenges, we engineered an experiment. In a large, nationally representative survey at the end of 2018, we presented respondents with pairs of hypothetical candidates and asked them to vote for their preferred ones. In the survey, we randomized candidate gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, religion, education, age, health and political experience. Because of that randomization, we can estimate the independent effect of each candidate characteristic (for example, being gay) on vote choice while controlling for other attributes (such as being a young, white, religious, man).

What we found was that, at least in the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, candidates are likely to be viewed more favorably for being nonwhite and nonmale—but not for being nonstraight.

Looking at all the Democratic voters in our sample, we found a strong preference for women over men (plus 6.8 percentage points) and for minority candidates: Compared with whites, black candidates received an advantage of 4.2 percentage points, Latinos 2.2 percentage points, Asians 0.4 percentage points and Native Americans 4.5 percentage points. Meanwhile, despite public opinion polling showing that most Americans today would be OK with a gay president, our study showed gay candidates face a slight penalty compared with straight ones (minus 1.2 percentage points).

[True Dough]

1. I'll say this for you, brooklynite

You don't mind taking a beating. Must have a masochistic streak in ya.

[highplainsdem]

2. Some more from the article, including the graph of results, here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287131253


It's a really interesting article, and I hope you have better luck getting replies to your thread than I did, so far.

[Vidal]

3. " is a straight white man really what the party wants in this moment? "

that's what the authors ask, but it seems like they had already made up their minds.

[mr_lebowski]

4. I don't mean to speak for everyone, but as a lifelong member of the Democratic Party ...

I can most definitely say, what I WANT at this time ... is someone who can defeat Tangerine Idi Amin.

Man/Woman/Gay/Straight/White/Black/Swahili/Christian/Muslim/Atheist/Progressive/Socialist/Moderate, I don't GAF!

Yes, sure, I'd LOVE a REAL Progressive ... a black lesbian atheist progressive would be AMAZING ... but this is no time to f*** around.

This member of the Party wants 'the Democrat who can win'. Period.

[Cha]

10. Ha! I'm right there

with ya, mr_lebowski!

[Desert grandma]

17. Me too!

Winning is the priority IMO!

[Cha]

19. :)))

DG

[NYMinute]

12. That is where the electorate is

All that polling in December 2018 was just mental self-pleasuring by the authors.

Also, those differences are not statistically significant unless one combines multiple attributes and pairs them in all combinations.

e.g. How likely are you to vote for a young, lesbian, female of color vs an old, straight, white male. (and then repeating them with different combinations)

Even then, the results will not be statistically significant.

[peggysue2]

18. x1000

Losing is not an option for 2020. Not if we want a country to live in. Things are that critical.

Though the pundits and progressive left may wince at the idea:

Electability is everything this time out.

[Cha]

20. And, Joe Biden is getting the Best Team!

Link to tweet

[peggysue2]

22. There you go, Cha!

Joe Biden knows what he's doing. Which is why his poll numbers keep increasing into the stratosphere.

[Cha]

23. Joe's not playin..

as we say, Peggysue!

[George II]

5. THIS Democrat wants to nominate a candidate that looks like Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

[Skya Rhen]

24. So does this Democrat. Joe is the best one, out of the lot, for me...

[KayF]

6. i don't completely understand the methodology

it says

we presented respondents with pairs of hypothetical candidates

does this mean fictional candidates?

[AlexSFCA]

7. Mayor Pete is the heart and soul of democratic party

We are the party of progressive democratic capitalism and equality for all.

[True Dough]

9. Hear, hear!

[msongs]

8. lol at this. joe n bernie are one two in all polling. nt

[NurseJackie]

11. Does it cover things like grooming and personal appearance?

If not, I wonder if something like that makes a difference to voters.

[NYMinute]

13. Or wagging finger, yelling, pandering, having only one stump speech ... etc. nt

[NurseJackie]

14. I hadn't thought of that, but those are excellent considerations too.

[Thekaspervote]

15. Politico... a notorious pot stirring site.

[left-of-center2012]

16. hahahaha

That's whu Joe is doing so well in the polls.

[Honeycombe8]

21. This is interesting, but it leaves out the most important thing: the person.

Someone is not JUST a white, young, gay man. It's Pete Buttigieg, the person.

Someone is not just a mixed race woman. It's Kamala Harris, the person.

And so on. The demographic of the candidate is one thing to take into consideration, among many things. But the overriding factor is the person. The way he/she speaks, the brains, the savvy, the adeptness at answering gotcha questions and earnestly answering voters, the ideology, physical appearance, height, education, experience, etc. So many things.

I remember reading once that studies (or one study) showed that some voters would not vote for a black man for President. The author then said that he thought the number was actually higher, since he thought that some people wouldn't admit even to themselves that they won't vote for an Af. American. That was about Obama. I remember thinking that yeah, I could understand that, for some generic person. But Obama was...well, Obama. It was so clear that he was the one. And I disagreed with the nonsense that voters were hesitant to admit to themselves they wouldn't vote for an Af. American.

So while some voters prefer a black female, or mixed race female, does this mean they want Kamala Harris, the person? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on if they want HER, in particular, vs another specific person.

Added to the demographic thing, is the physical appearance. If you look at all the Presidents elected in the U.S., there are certain physical traits, besides being a white male. They are usually at least somewhat attractive, and tall (but there are a few exceptions for one or the other...usu. not both). Would Obama have won if he were short? I don't know, but I think being short would have been more of a hindrance than his race.