DU Primaries Report, July 2019: Look, a Squirrel!

[EarlG]

Welcome to the fourth monthly DU Primaries Report, based on the ongoing candidate preferences of DU members right here in the Democratic Primaries forum!

How the Candidate Rankings board works:

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


• Candidates below 0.5% are displayed at 0%. Candidates with no supporters at all are marked with a dash.


• For the purposes of the DU Primaries Report, only candidates who have an actual percentage of at least 1% are included.

Previously on the DU Primaries Report

June 2019: Warren Takes Charge
May 2019: Steady As She Goes
April 2019: Let's Get This Party Started!

Where the candidates stand this month



The keyword for July was "distraction." With the first set of Democratic debates done by the end of June, there wasn't a lot of serious action in DU's candidate race in July as Trump sucked up all the oxygen in the room -- telling congresswomen to go back where they came from, demanding that Democrats investigate Barack Obama's book deal, and calling Baltimore an "infested" city where "no human being would want to live." And that was just in the last two weeks!

For its part, CNN attempted to juice interest in the primary campaigns by going all in on THE DRAW! for the next Democratic debates, but ended up presenting viewers with an odd spectacle that looked suspiciously like a magic trick.



Nothing up my sleeve! Nothing up my sleeve! And presto! It's Sanders vs. Warren and Biden vs. Harris vs. Booker! The fates have smiled kindly on us this night.

Anyway, all this is really just me trying to distract you from the fact that nothing much happened in the DU candidate rankings this month.

Candidates above 1% actual support, including Undecided, July 2019



Wouldya look at that thrill ride. Our top eight candidates (and in fact, all of the candidates) shifted their positions very little in our rankings as attention in July was focused on other matters, such as the Robert Mueller hearings, the first official foray into impeachment, and of course Trump's utter batshit nonsense.

Last month, I predicted that Elizabeth Warren would peak in July -- I think it's too early to tell, but she may have reached a plateau over the last couple of weeks. That said, climbing almost one percentage point from 16.59% at the start of July to 17.39% at the end is not to be sniffed at, and means that she has only strengthened her hold on DU's candidate race.

I also suggested that if Kamala Harris had exposed a weakness in Joe Biden at the last debate, we might see it reflected in our rankings this month. That does not appear to be the case, with Biden starting and ending July at 13.51%. Harris, for her part, did tick up slightly on DU immediately after the debate, but ultimately her position remains as unchanged as most other candidates. She began July at 10.24% and ends at 10.27%.

Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, remains as stable as ever, starting July at 7.56% and ending at 7.68%, while Pete Buttigieg continues his ever-so-slow slide, dropping from 7.09% to 6.8%. And Undecideds continued to decline at a slow pace, reaching 36.43% as of today, another record low.

The bigger picture

Candidates above 1% actual support, including Undecided, all-time



A look at the all-time graph shows us how stable the support for some of the candidates has become after the initial skirmishes back in March and April. Biden, Harris, and Sanders have stayed solid since the end of April, but at the same time have not grown their share of support on DU. Warren's climb from 5th place back in April to 1st place today has really impressed, indicating that as well as maintaining her own popular support, she may have also become the default candidate for those who don't want to lean too hard into either the establishment or the far left.

Meanwhile, I'm most curious about how far Google Sheets is going to stack those horizontal dates before things get weird.

Next month's predictions

Don't expect this stable trend to continue by the end of August. With the next round of Democratic debates coming up tomorrow and Wednesday, two new factors will come into play. First, the candidates all have one round of debates under their belts now and they now know what to expect -- and more importantly what the media expects. There's a good chance that someone will have a great night and someone else will drop a clanger, which will affect the numbers here on DU.

More importantly though, there's a high likelihood that lower-tier candidates will start to drop out after these debates. The entry barrier for the third round of debates is much higher, and many of the current candidates won't make it in, which, for many, will remove their incentive for running. As a reminder, once a candidate officially drops out of the race, we will remove that candidate from the DU rankings within 24 hours, and automatically reassign all of their supporters to Undecided. It will then be up to those supporters to select another candidate, or remain Undecided. So if a number of candidates drop out in August, this could have a significant impact on the numbers of the candidates who stay in.

We shall see! The next report will take place on Friday, August 30 -- thanks for reading!

[marble falls]

1. Maybe not exciting, but still very interesting.

[thesquanderer]

2. Looking at April until now, I'd say the biggest trend is...

...that undecideds seem to have gravitated toward Warren as they decided. I'm sure there have been shifts among people who had selected others too, but still...

[wyldwolf]

3. looks that way

DU hasn't changed much in 20 years. The more progressive candidate will always rise to the top (and the fact she tops Sanders is really saying something!)

[thesquanderer]

4. re: "The more progressive candidate will always rise to the top"

I don't know... there was lots of Sanders support in 2016, but I don't think he ever garnered more support on DU than HRC did.

[wyldwolf]

5. Sanders always had more support than Clinton did on DU

... at least, among the active members. There are over 120,000 members, the vast majority we never hear a peep from.

[Sparkly]

11. It's a matter of whose voices are loudest

and who gets shouted down.

There was quite a lot of antagonism against our candidates in 2003, and John Kerry once he had the nomination in 2004. Same thing in 2016. I'm hoping Democrats on Democratic Underground will support the Democratic candidate this time around and work to defeat the incumbent.

[DesertRat]

6. Interesting. Thanks, EarlG!

[Scurrilous]

7. This place has flat lined.

[BigmanPigman]

10. You're right... since July 1st not much has changed.

[blaze]

8. Thanks EarlG!

Nice summary.

[LiberalLovinLug]

9. Thanks. This is also a great breakdown showing trends etc...

https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary/


On it, there is a survey of second choices. I am somewhat perplexed that Sanders is the second choice amongst Biden supporters, and Biden is the second choice amongst Sanders supporters. WTF? These two are probably the most diametrically opposed in their positions. One is the epitome of establishment center/right corporate Democrat, and the other the usurper non-Democratic rebel, and socialist. Doesn't make sense. It couldn't be that there exists the 'old white man bro' brigade could it?

And that Warren supporters do not have Sanders as their second or even third choice. Even though they are closest in policy. (Warren is second choice for Sanders supporters) They'd rather support another woman than an old white guy with a comparable platform.

I'm surprised that gender seems to be more important than policy to most, on all sides.