DU Primaries Report, January 2020: The End Of The Beginning

[EarlG]

Last edited Sat Feb 1, 2020, 08:22 AM - Edit history (1)

Welcome to the tenth 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

December 2019: Farewell To Harris
November 2019: Comings And Goings
October 2019: Ups And Downs
September 2019: So Trump Is Getting Impeached
August 2019: I'll Just Get My Coat
July 2019: Look, a Squirrel!
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

So here we are folks, just days away from the Iowa Caucuses. This is the last Primaries Report before real actual votes are cast and real actual results are tallied; the final few moments before we proud members of the Speculation-Industrial Complex upshift out of "WHAT ON EARTH COULD HAPPEN?" into "WELL THAT HAPPENED -- NOW WHAT?"

Last month I predicted that anyone still in the race at the end of December would likely be in it all the way to Iowa. How'd I do?

* FART SOUND *



A moment of silence please for Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Marianne Williamson, and John Delaney, all of whom ended their campaigns in January. (To be fair, my prediction that Castro and Booker would drop out did come a month earlier in the November Primaries Report, so maybe I'm just too good at this.)

Unfortunately none of these candidates managed to catch fire on DU, with Booker doing the best out of the four (topping out at 0.99% way back on March 23rd, finishing at 0.71% on January 13th) and Delaney -- the longest-running candidate in this entire race -- doing worst (hitting a campaign-best 0.08% on April 22nd before declining to 0% on August 5th and never recovering).

Fun fact: with these four candidates out, for the first time we now have more candidates with greater than 1% actual support:

Elizabeth Warren
Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Pete Buttigieg
Amy Klobuchar
Andrew Yang

...than candidates with less than 1% actual support:

Tulsi Gabbard
Michael Bloomberg
Tom Steyer
Michael Bennet
Deval Patrick

There's still a long way to go, but the field is narrowing as the finish line becomes visible on the horizon. Now let's check in with the main contenders.

Candidates above 1% actual support, including Undecided, January 2020



At first glance the numbers don't seem to have changed much in January, but a closer look definitely reveals some significant upward movement in both the Biden and Sanders camps. Here's the graph for the last three months:

Candidates above 1% actual support, including Undecided, November 2019-January 2020



Elizabeth Warren is still the front-running candidate on DU by a fairly sizeable margin, but that graph does indicate a potentially troubling decline. Warren has slipped from a high of 22.02% back on November 1st to exactly 20.00% today.

Meanwhile, with actual elections just around the corner it seems that supporters of both Biden and Sanders have really stepped up their game. Picking up a chunk of Kamala Harris supporters back in early December, Biden has risen steadily ever since, from 13.34% on November 1st to 15.83% today -- an increase of 2.49 percentage points to his highest level of support so far. While still in third place, Bernie Sanders' surge has been equally impressive. Sanders has risen from 7.8% on November 1st to 10.05% today -- a climb of 2.25 percentage points to his highest level of support so far. While Warren is still out in front, it appears that DUers may be gravitating towards Biden and Sanders as election season properly kicks into gear.

Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, remains on a downward trajectory. He still occupies a sort of second tier all to himself, but a slow decline from 5.72% on November 1st to 5.28% today implies that he's going to need solid results in Iowa and beyond if he's going to stay competitive.

Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang are still chugging along in the background -- and even climbing slightly -- although neither has really been able to make a serious breakthrough on DU. Klobuchar began January at 1.71% and finishes at 1.86%, while Yang started at 1.13% and finishes at 1.2%.

Finally, let's jump out to a 30,000 foot view, remove Undecideds, and take a look at the entire race with the current candidates above 1%...

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



...which really gives you a good idea of the trends in this race so far.

And since we're on the verge of the first election in this primary cycle, I decided to do a look back at every candidate who reached 1% actual support on DU, along with a timeline which indicates when each debate took place and when each candidate dropped out. This graphic is much larger than the normal ones I use in my reports so click here to see the full non-squashed image.

All candidates who ever reached 1% actual support, including Undecided, all-time



Next month's predictions

At this point I think it's safe to say that my prediction skills are so bad, I should get a job on cable news. So I think this month I'm not going to make any predictions.

I will, however, say this: at some point in the not-too-distant future we are going to have a nominee and in the fall that nominee will go up against Donald Trump. Last time around, Trump was an unknown quantity in the minds of most voters. Now, he's an impeached president -- a criminal president, so obviously guilty of massive corruption and anti-Constitutional behavior that Republicans in the Senate have had to give him a Soviet-style show trial without witnesses or documents in order to "acquit" him.

If Republicans thought that "exonerating" Trump in this manner would depress Democrats going into this year's elections, I think they may have miscalculated. So I just want to say that as the Democrats battle it out in Iowa next week, here's to all our candidates, and may the best person win. The farce in the Senate has made it clear that November's election is our only chance to save the Republic, and I don't know about you, but I'm more than fired up to do whatever I can to help send Trump and the Republican Senate into the dustbin of history this November.

The next report will take place on Friday, February 28, with the South Carolina primary looming. A lot will have changed by then. Thanks for reading!

[Iggo]

1. Thaks, EarlG.

[Iggo]

12. Oops, I forgot the N. Thnaks, EarlG.

[cp]

2. Thank you, EarlG

Very much appreciate all your work.

As to your non-prediction thoughts, I agree: FIGHT IS ON!
Will work my ass off now to November, as will all my friends.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. You do beautiful graphics, my dear EarlG! These are great.

It's always a pleasure!

Thank you so much.

[AdamGG]

4. You should get a job with Nate Silver

Nice job with the graphics. It's surprised me that Amy Klobuchar hasn't gotten more backing after strong showings in the debates. I understand that a more progressive candidate, like Elizabeth Warren, may do better here, but both here and nationally, I'm a little surprised how Klobuchar has underperformed in the polls.

Maybe it's presentation/charisma and the fact that Biden is dominating the more centrist/establishment votes, but I partially don't get why Amy hasn't caught on with more than 2%.

[marmar]

5. Love the analysis.

[JudyM]

6. Thanks, this is interesting!

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Kicked and recommended. ❤ nt

[Donkees]

8. South Carolina Primary on Feb 29

The next report will take place on Friday, February 28, with the New Hampshire primary looming.

[EarlG]

9. Derp

Thanks — I fixed it.

[Kurt V.]

10. thank you!

[Towlie]

11. You sound like Steve Kornacki. (I'm not saying whether that's good or bad.)

[Scurrilous]

13. K&R

[Bucky]

14. Thank you. You make this primaty season exciting

At some point I would like to know the raw numbers. I think it matters toward understanding how these numbers work if Warren is actually losing ground, or just not gaining support while others candidates gain new supporters just now paying attention to the race.

[Wabbajack_]

15. Does undecided include dormant accounts?

I assume it must