fivethirtyeight--2020-01-23--The Ups And Downs Of Candidate Popularity, In 4 Charts

Once more , with feeling : People are a lot more apt to change their mind in primaries than in general elections .
That ’ s because , when all the candidates in the race are members of the same party , voters often like several of them , and the 2020 presidential primary is no exception .
High favorability ratings have given some presidential candidates well-founded hope that voters may still jump on board with them in the next few weeks .
Meanwhile , others still haven ’ t made an impression on a majority of voters — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cycle , they are now virtually out of time to do so .
Now that we are ( finally ) on the verge of voters actually going to the polls , let ’ s check in one last time on the number of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters with a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the remaining presidential candidates ( based on an average of national polls conducted from the night of Dec. 19 through Jan. 15 — that is , since the December debate ) .
Three candidates — Sen. Bernie Sanders , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden — are roughly tied for the distinction of being the best-liked Democrat in the field .
About 70 percent of Democrats view each of them favorably , and about 20 percent view each of them unfavorably , giving them each a net favorability rating ( favorable rating minus unfavorable rating ) of around +50 points .
What ’ s more , these three have been the most popular candidates in the field all cycle — Biden had the highest net favorability rating at the beginning of last year , while Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On the other hand , Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is in the worst shape by this metric — more than twice as many Democrats view her unfavorably as view her favorably , making her the only candidate with a negative net favorability rating among members of her own party .
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also has a relatively poor net favorability score .
More than three-quarters of Democrats are familiar enough with Bloomberg to form an opinion of him ( as measured by his favorable rating plus his unfavorable rating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divided ( his net favorability is just +10 points ) .
That means his recent television ad blitz may have helped more Americans form an opinion of him , but it hasn ’ t really improved how positively they see him compared to one year ago .
Sen. Michael Bennet , former Massachusetts Gov .
Deval Patrick and former Rep. John Delaney have a different problem : Despite all their campaigning ( Patrick may only have been on the trail for a couple months , but Delaney has been at it for two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than 40 percent of Democrats know enough about these candidates to form an opinion .
Generally speaking , voters have to know who you are in order to vote for you , so this is a bad place to be entering primary season .
Other candidates , though , have managed to boost their brand beyond anyone ’ s wildest dreams .
Take former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang .
They each had a stretch in 2019 where large majorities of Democrats did not have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ however , more than two-thirds of Democrats do , and those opinions are overwhelmingly positive .
Their net favorabilities shot up more than 20 points each over the course of the year and now both sit at +32 .
Buttigieg is faring better in horse-race polls , averaging 7 percent support in national polls to Yang ’ s 4 percent — but it ’ s worth noting that almost all of the movement in Buttigieg ’ s net favorability rating came in between winter and spring 2019 .
Despite becoming better known over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s net favorability today is about where it was when in both May and August .
Gabbard and Sen. Amy Klobuchar , on the other hand , have seen a lot of movement in how Democrats feel about them — though not necessarily positive movement .
Both increased the share of Democrats with an opinion of them by a sizable 29 points , but their net favorability did not keep pace .
Klobuchar ’ s net favorability is up only 8 points over that time frame , and it was a rocky rise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ May , then fell in August , and now has returned to where it was in May .
Meanwhile , Gabbard ’ s net favorability was pretty steady until the end of the year , when it plunged from +7 in August to -21 today .
That ’ s quite a drop in support , but considering the biggest ways she made headlines in that period — Hillary Clinton asserted that Republicans were “ grooming ” Gabbard to run as a third-party spoiler candidate , and the congresswoman voted “ present ” when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — such a dramatic hit isn ’ t all that surprising .
Unsurprisingly , Biden , Sanders and Warren have been both very familiar to and very popular among Democratic voters all cycle long .
For example , Warren went from 71 percent of Democrats having an opinion of her with a +44 net favorability rating at this time last year to 83 percent having an opinion of her with a +54 net favorability rating in August .
However , she has flatlined a bit in recent months ( her net favorability is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corresponding with her plateau and drop-off in horse-race polls .
Biden ’ s changes over the past year are arguably the most interesting of anyone in this trio .
Basically every Democrat knows enough about the former vice president to have an opinion of him , so that number has had little room to grow ( it has increased by just 5 points ) .
But his net favorability rating has dropped by a whopping 22 points .
The fact that it ’ s still so positive now is a testament to how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a year ago , before he announced he was running for president .
So it seems as if the events of the campaign have hurt his image .
Finally , Sanders ’ s popularity has been extremely consistent — too consistent , in fact , to bother plotting on an animated chart !
All cycle long , almost all voters have had an opinion of him , and his net favorability has hovered between +50 and +52 , reflecting how baked-in his support seems to be .
The fact that Biden , Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about 70 percent of Democrats means that many people like more than one of these leading candidates .
For example , according to data from the latest FiveThirtyEight Ipsos poll , conducted using Ipsos ’ s KnowledgePanel , about 40 percent of likely Democratic primary voters had favorable views of all three top contenders at the time of last week ’ s debate .
So if one of them starts racking up wins next month and begins to look notably more viable than the others , that candidate will be well positioned to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these three represent Democrats ’ three most likely nominees , most of the party looks like it will have no problem uniting behind one of them in the general .

Once more, with feeling: People are a lot more apt to change their mind in primaries than in general elections. That’s because, when all the candidates in the race are members of the same party, voters often like several of them, and the 2020 presidential primary is no exception. High favorability ratings have given some presidential candidates well-founded hope that voters may still jump on board with them in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, others still haven’t made an impression on a majority of voters — and unlike at the beginning of the election cycle, they are now virtually out of time to do so.
Now that we are (finally) on the verge of voters actually going to the polls, let’s check in one last time on the number of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters with a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the remaining presidential candidates (based on an average of national polls conducted from the night of Dec. 19 through Jan. 15 — that is, since the December debate).
Sanders, Warren and Biden are the best-liked candidates The share of Democratic or Democratic-leaning respondents with a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the 2020 Democratic candidates, according to an average of national polls conducted Dec. 19 through Jan. 15 Candidate Share with an Opinion Favorable Unfavorable Net Bernie Sanders 94% 73% 21% +51 Elizabeth Warren 87 68 19 +49 Joe Biden 94 71 24 +47 Andrew Yang 68 50 18 +32 Pete Buttigieg 73 53 20 +32 Amy Klobuchar 62 42 20 +22 Tom Steyer 58 37 20 +17 Michael Bloomberg 76 43 33 +10 Michael Bennet 40 24 16 +8 Deval Patrick 36 20 15 +5 John Delaney 38 19 19 0 Tulsi Gabbard 60 20 40 -21 Source: Polls
Three candidates — Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden — are roughly tied for the distinction of being the best-liked Democrat in the field. About 70 percent of Democrats view each of them favorably, and about 20 percent view each of them unfavorably, giving them each a net favorability rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) of around +50 points. What’s more, these three have been the most popular candidates in the field all cycle — Biden had the highest net favorability rating at the beginning of last year, while Warren pulled into the top spot in August.
On the other hand, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is in the worst shape by this metric — more than twice as many Democrats view her unfavorably as view her favorably, making her the only candidate with a negative net favorability rating among members of her own party. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also has a relatively poor net favorability score. More than three-quarters of Democrats are familiar enough with Bloomberg to form an opinion of him (as measured by his favorable rating plus his unfavorable rating), but those opinions are pretty divided (his net favorability is just +10 points). That means his recent television ad blitz may have helped more Americans form an opinion of him, but it hasn’t really improved how positively they see him compared to one year ago.
Which Democratic candidate had the biggest surge in popularity?
Sen. Michael Bennet, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and former Rep. John Delaney have a different problem: Despite all their campaigning (Patrick may only have been on the trail for a couple months, but Delaney has been at it for two and a half years!), less than 40 percent of Democrats know enough about these candidates to form an opinion. Generally speaking, voters have to know who you are in order to vote for you, so this is a bad place to be entering primary season.
Other candidates, though, have managed to boost their brand beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Take former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. They each had a stretch in 2019 where large majorities of Democrats did not have an opinion about them. Now, however, more than two-thirds of Democrats do, and those opinions are overwhelmingly positive. Their net favorabilities shot up more than 20 points each over the course of the year and now both sit at +32. Buttigieg is faring better in horse-race polls, averaging 7 percent support in national polls to Yang’s 4 percent — but it’s worth noting that almost all of the movement in Buttigieg’s net favorability rating came in between winter and spring 2019. Despite becoming better known over the past several months, Buttigieg’s net favorability today is about where it was when in both May and August.
Gabbard and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, on the other hand, have seen a lot of movement in how Democrats feel about them — though not necessarily positive movement. Both increased the share of Democrats with an opinion of them by a sizable 29 points, but their net favorability did not keep pace. Klobuchar’s net favorability is up only 8 points over that time frame, and it was a rocky rise; it went up a bit in May, then fell in August, and now has returned to where it was in May. Meanwhile, Gabbard’s net favorability was pretty steady until the end of the year, when it plunged from +7 in August to -21 today. That’s quite a drop in support, but considering the biggest ways she made headlines in that period — Hillary Clinton asserted that Republicans were “grooming” Gabbard to run as a third-party spoiler candidate, and the congresswoman voted “present” when the House moved to impeach President Trump — such a dramatic hit isn’t all that surprising.
Unsurprisingly, Biden, Sanders and Warren have been both very familiar to and very popular among Democratic voters all cycle long. For example, Warren went from 71 percent of Democrats having an opinion of her with a +44 net favorability rating at this time last year to 83 percent having an opinion of her with a +54 net favorability rating in August. However, she has flatlined a bit in recent months (her net favorability is down 5 points since August), corresponding with her plateau and drop-off in horse-race polls.
Biden’s changes over the past year are arguably the most interesting of anyone in this trio. Basically every Democrat knows enough about the former vice president to have an opinion of him, so that number has had little room to grow (it has increased by just 5 points). But his net favorability rating has dropped by a whopping 22 points. The fact that it’s still so positive now is a testament to how absurdly high (+69) it was a year ago, before he announced he was running for president. So it seems as if the events of the campaign have hurt his image.
Finally, Sanders’s popularity has been extremely consistent — too consistent, in fact, to bother plotting on an animated chart! All cycle long, almost all voters have had an opinion of him, and his net favorability has hovered between +50 and +52, reflecting how baked-in his support seems to be.
The fact that Biden, Sanders and Warren are each viewed favorably by about 70 percent of Democrats means that many people like more than one of these leading candidates. For example, according to data from the latest FiveThirtyEight Ipsos poll, conducted using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, about 40 percent of likely Democratic primary voters had favorable views of all three top contenders at the time of last week’s debate. So if one of them starts racking up wins next month and begins to look notably more viable than the others, that candidate will be well positioned to accumulate support quickly. And given that these three represent Democrats’ three most likely nominees, most of the party looks like it will have no problem uniting behind one of them in the general.
Derek Shan contributed research.


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-24--Is Our Primary System Democratic?

Is Our Primary System Democratic?

Back in the 1970s , we changed how we choose presidential nominees .
Those changes supposedly made our primary system @ @ @ @ @ to cast a ballot in a primary or caucus rather than having party leaders pick @ @ @ @ @ is more to a well-functioning democracy than just being able to vote .
In this @ @ @ @ @ , we look why our primary system may not reflect the views of the people @ @ @ @ @ this ?
Subscribe to FiveThirtyEight on YouTube .
And subscribe to FiveThirtyEight ’ s Politics @ @ @ @ @ deeper dive .

Back in the 1970s, we changed how we choose presidential nominees. Those changes supposedly made our primary system more democratic by allowing voters to cast a ballot in a primary or caucus rather than having party leaders pick a candidate. But there is more to a well-functioning democracy than just being able to vote. In this episode of The Primaries Project, we look why our primary system may not reflect the views of the people.
Want more videos like this? Subscribe to FiveThirtyEight on YouTube. And subscribe to FiveThirtyEight’s Politics Podcast feed for an even deeper dive.
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s Democratic primary forecast.


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-24--What The Latest Polling On Trump’s Removal Does (And Doesn’t) Mean

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
It was a historic week in the U.S. Senate , as the impeachment trial of President Trump got underway .
We got opening arguments , fights over decorum , dealmaking and more .
We also got a bunch of new polls measuring how Americans felt about all this , and … support for Trump ’ s removal from office remains as polarized as ever .
Almost every poll released this week found the country closely divided on the question , although most showed that slightly more people support Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our average of polls focusing on removing Trump from office shows , as of Thursday night , that 48.1 percent of Americans support doing so .
That includes 83.9 percent of Democrats but only 8.4 percent of Republicans .
Support among independents is almost exactly between the two , at 41.8 percent .
Furthermore , these numbers have barely budged since the House voted to impeach Trump in December .
That implies that each side ’ s political maneuvering in recent weeks , like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ’ s delay in sending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ’ s restrictive rules for the Senate trial , haven ’ t affected public opinion .
You might also notice that our impeachment tracker ( on display below the removal tracker ) has crept up to 50.5 percent .
However , it can be misleading to make a one-to-one comparison between the impeachment tracker today and the impeachment tracker a few months ago .
Before the House voted to impeach Trump , this tracker incorporated a more diverse array of questions , including those that asked if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” That question is now obsolete : These days , the only question pollsters are still asking about impeachment ( as distinct from removal ) is whether respondents approve or disapprove of the House ’ s decision to impeach Trump .
( The removal tracker currently draws from questions that ask only if Trump should be “ removed , ” without mentioning impeachment . )
The impeachment tracker now reflects trends in only one pretty mildly worded question , one of several reasons it ’ s possible that support would be higher than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ example of this can be found in the Monmouth University poll released this week : Americans were evenly divided ( 49 percent to 48 percent ) on whether to remove Trump from office , but they approved of the House ’ s decision to impeach by 7 points ( 53 percent to 46 percent ) .
Opponents of Trump might be tempted to think that having 48 percent of the country behind his removal bodes poorly for his reelection chances .
I wouldn ’ t be reassured by that number if I were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rating ( the most direct measure of his popularity we have ) remains pretty bad — but there are several reasons why we can ’ t assume that this means at least 48 percent of the country will also vote against Trump in November .
First , although they are few and far between , at least some of those who support removal self-identify as Republicans .
They may support his removal because they believe that Vice President Mike Pence ( who would take over if Trump is ousted ) would make a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a choice between Trump and a Democratic candidate , they might still prefer Trump .
In addition , many — if not most — polls asking about removal are conducted among all adults , not among voters .
( The idea , after all , is to see how the country feels about removing Trump , and the country includes millions of nonvoters . )
The people who end up voting in elections tend to be a tad more Republican than the adult population .
So a pollster that shows narrow support for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to show narrow opposition to it with a sample limited to likely voters .
The upshot is that we can ’ t actually say with much confidence whether impeachment is hurting ( or helping ) Trump ’ s reelection chances .
Nor is it even clear it ’ s having any affect at all .
• Following recent reporting that Sen. Bernie Sanders told Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a private meeting in 2018 that he did not think a woman could get elected president , CNN/SSRS asked voters if they thought a woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes , 84 percent to 15 percent .
There is a notable gender gap , though : 89 percent of men said a woman could get elected while 9 percent disagreed , but women were less convinced , at 79 percent to 20 percent .
• A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found that voters in Georgia approve of Trump ’ s job performance 51 percent to 48 percent .
That ’ s pretty different from what the last AJC poll found : a 44 percent approval rating and a 54 percent disapproval rating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week ’ s AJC poll included education in its weighting formula , an important development considering that respondent pools that underrepresented white voters without a college degree may have been responsible for some of 2016 ’ s most egregious polling errors .
• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not running for Senate in Kansas is considered a blow to Republicans ’ chances of holding onto that seat , as it makes it likelier that the party will nominate divisive and potentially unelectable candidate Kris Kobach .
Kobach ’ s main threat for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marshall , and this week , a pro-Marshall political action committee released an internal poll showing Marshall at 29 percent and Kobach at 28 percent .
But internal polls often overstate their candidates ’ standings in hopes of getting favorable headlines .
So this poll actually implies that Kobach probably leads right now — although with more than six months until the primary , there ’ s plenty of time for that to change .
• The Kaiser Family Foundation is out with a wide-ranging new poll on abortion .
Sixty-nine percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be overturned , but the public does support many restrictions on abortion that have been implemented on the state level : For example , 66 percent support requiring a 24-hour waiting period between meeting with a health care provider and actually getting an abortion .
In response to another question , 63 percent of Americans say they know someone ( which can include themselves ) who has had an abortion .
• A new poll by The Economist/YouGov finds that 5 percent of Americans identify as vegetarians and an additional 2 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under 30 are much more likely to say they have a meatless diet : 9 percent of them are vegetarians , and 6 percent are vegans .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 42.0 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 53.8 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -11.8 points ) .
At this time last week , 42.4 percent approved and 52.9 percent disapproved ( for a net approval rating of -10.5 points ) .
One month ago , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a disapproval rating of 52.8 percent , for a net approval rating of -10.1 points .
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot , Democrats currently lead by 5.5 percentage points ( 46.8 percent to 41.3 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 5.9 points ( 47.0 percent to 41.1 percent ) .
At this time last month , voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points ( 47.4 percent to 40.9 percent ) .
Check out all the polls we ’ ve been collecting ahead of @ @ @ @

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
It was a historic week in the U.S. Senate, as the impeachment trial of President Trump got underway. We got opening arguments, fights over decorum, dealmaking and more. We also got a bunch of new polls measuring how Americans felt about all this, and … support for Trump’s removal from office remains as polarized as ever. Almost every poll released this week found the country closely divided on the question, although most showed that slightly more people support Trump’s removal than oppose it.
The latest polls say Americans favor removal — narrowly Polls released this week asking whether President Trump should be removed from office Dates Pollster Sample Support Removal Oppose Removal Net Jan. 2-15 Gallup 1014 A 46% 51% -5 Jan. 14-16 SurveyUSA 4069 RV 46 39 +7 Jan. 15-17 HuffPost/YouGov 1000 A 46 43 +3 Jan. 6-19 Pew Research Center 12638 A 51 46 +5 Jan. 16-19 CNN/SSRS 1156 A 51 45 +6 Jan. 17-19 Politico/Morning Consult 1997 RV 47 45 +2 Jan. 16-20 Monmouth 903 A 49 48 +1 Jan. 17-20 FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos 1587 A 54 42 +12 Jan. 16-21 Associated Press/NORC 1353 A 45 40 +5 Jan. 19-21 The Economist/YouGov 1500 A 43 42 +1 Source: polls
Overall, our average of polls focusing on removing Trump from office shows, as of Thursday night, that 48.1 percent of Americans support doing so.
That includes 83.9 percent of Democrats but only 8.4 percent of Republicans. Support among independents is almost exactly between the two, at 41.8 percent. Furthermore, these numbers have barely budged since the House voted to impeach Trump in December. That implies that each side’s political maneuvering in recent weeks, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s delay in sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s restrictive rules for the Senate trial, haven’t affected public opinion.
You might also notice that our impeachment tracker (on display below the removal tracker) has crept up to 50.5 percent.
However, it can be misleading to make a one-to-one comparison between the impeachment tracker today and the impeachment tracker a few months ago. Before the House voted to impeach Trump, this tracker incorporated a more diverse array of questions, including those that asked if Trump should be “impeached and removed.” That question is now obsolete: These days, the only question pollsters are still asking about impeachment (as distinct from removal) is whether respondents approve or disapprove of the House’s decision to impeach Trump. (The removal tracker currently draws from questions that ask only if Trump should be “removed,” without mentioning impeachment.) The impeachment tracker now reflects trends in only one pretty mildly worded question, one of several reasons it’s possible that support would be higher than in other impeachment-related polls. A good example of this can be found in the Monmouth University poll released this week: Americans were evenly divided (49 percent to 48 percent) on whether to remove Trump from office, but they approved of the House’s decision to impeach by 7 points (53 percent to 46 percent).
Opponents of Trump might be tempted to think that having 48 percent of the country behind his removal bodes poorly for his reelection chances. I wouldn’t be reassured by that number if I were the president — Trump’s approval rating (the most direct measure of his popularity we have) remains pretty bad — but there are several reasons why we can’t assume that this means at least 48 percent of the country will also vote against Trump in November. First, although they are few and far between, at least some of those who support removal self-identify as Republicans. They may support his removal because they believe that Vice President Mike Pence (who would take over if Trump is ousted) would make a better president — but if faced with a choice between Trump and a Democratic candidate, they might still prefer Trump.
In addition, many — if not most — polls asking about removal are conducted among all adults, not among voters. (The idea, after all, is to see how the country feels about removing Trump, and the country includes millions of nonvoters.) The people who end up voting in elections tend to be a tad more Republican than the adult population. So a pollster that shows narrow support for Trump’s removal could actually begin to show narrow opposition to it with a sample limited to likely voters.
The upshot is that we can’t actually say with much confidence whether impeachment is hurting (or helping) Trump’s reelection chances. Nor is it even clear it’s having any affect at all.
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s Democratic primary forecast.
Other polling bites
Following recent reporting that Sen. Bernie Sanders told Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a private meeting in 2018 that he did not think a woman could get elected president, CNN/SSRS asked voters if they thought a woman could win. And voters overwhelmingly said yes, 84 percent to 15 percent. There is a notable gender gap, though: 89 percent of men said a woman could get elected while 9 percent disagreed, but women were less convinced, at 79 percent to 20 percent.
A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found that voters in Georgia approve of Trump’s job performance 51 percent to 48 percent. That’s pretty different from what the last AJC poll found: a 44 percent approval rating and a 54 percent disapproval rating. The difference could be because this week’s AJC poll included education in its weighting formula, an important development considering that respondent pools that underrepresented white voters without a college degree may have been responsible for some of 2016’s most egregious polling errors.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not running for Senate in Kansas is considered a blow to Republicans’ chances of holding onto that seat, as it makes it likelier that the party will nominate divisive and potentially unelectable candidate Kris Kobach. Kobach’s main threat for the nomination now appears to be Rep. Roger Marshall, and this week, a pro-Marshall political action committee released an internal poll showing Marshall at 29 percent and Kobach at 28 percent. But internal polls often overstate their candidates’ standings in hopes of getting favorable headlines. So this poll actually implies that Kobach probably leads right now — although with more than six months until the primary, there’s plenty of time for that to change.
probably leads right now — although with more than six months until the primary, there’s plenty of time for that to change. The Kaiser Family Foundation is out with a wide-ranging new poll on abortion. Sixty-nine percent of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned, but the public does support many restrictions on abortion that have been implemented on the state level: For example, 66 percent support requiring a 24-hour waiting period between meeting with a health care provider and actually getting an abortion. In response to another question, 63 percent of Americans say they know someone (which can include themselves) who has had an abortion.
A new poll by The Economist/YouGov finds that 5 percent of Americans identify as vegetarians and an additional 2 percent identify as vegans. However, those under 30 are much more likely to say they have a meatless diet: 9 percent of them are vegetarians, and 6 percent are vegans.
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.0 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 53.8 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -11.8 points). At this time last week, 42.4 percent approved and 52.9 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -10.5 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.8 percent, for a net approval rating of -10.1 points.
Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 5.5 percentage points (46.8 percent to 41.3 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 5.9 points (47.0 percent to 41.1 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points (47.4 percent to 40.9 percent).
Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.
Is our primary system democratic?


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-23--How The Democratic Candidates’ Popularity Has Changed Over A Year Of Campaigning


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-25--Which Democratic Candidate Had The Biggest Surge In Popularity This Year?

Voters in the primaries might like more than one candidate , but that doesn ’ t necessarily mean they are @ @ @ @ @ strongly about a particular person winning the nomination , but they could still have a @ @ @ @ @ .
So just how popular are each of the Democratic candidates right now ?
And @ @ @ @ @ the past year of campaigning ?
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Subscribe to FiveThirtyEight @ @ @

Voters in the primaries might like more than one candidate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are undecided. They might feel strongly about a particular person winning the nomination, but they could still have a favorable opinion of multiple contenders. So just how popular are each of the Democratic candidates right now? And how have opinions changed over the past year of campaigning?
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fivethirtyeight--2020-01-26--How Much Will The Des Moines Register’s Endorsement Help Warren In Iowa?

On Saturday , Sen. Elizabeth Warren picked up her second newspaper endorsement of the week : The Des Moines Register announced it ’ s endorsing Warren in the Iowa caucuses .
Sen. Amy Klobuchar also picked up her second newspaper endorsement with the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsing her on Saturday , which could help Klobuchar in the Granite State , but like Warren , she needs a strong finish in Iowa first .
And right now , Iowa is a four-way traffic jam .
We ’ ve gotten a flurry of new polls this weekend ( that we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but as of this morning , Warren is in fourth place in our Iowa polling average with 15 percent support — 7 percentage points behind Sanders and Biden , who are essentially tied for first at 22 percent , and about 4 points behind former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg , who ’ s polling at roughly 19 percent .
( Klobuchar , meanwhile , is at 8 percent . )
Warren ’ s odds of winning Iowa are a bit lower than other candidates in our forecast — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1 in 9 shot compared to Biden and Sanders ’ s 1 in 3 shot , but she ’ s also not that far behind ( Buttigieg has a 1 in 4 chance ) .
The good news for Warren is that the Des Moines Register ’ s endorsement has historically given its recipient a boost in the polls — though we should be careful not to overstate its importance .
But on average , since 1988 , when the paper first began endorsing candidates before the caucuses , candidates have gotten about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ average in Iowa was before the endorsement to how they ultimately fared in the caucuses ( their vote share ) , according to historical polling average data from FiveThirtyEight ’ s forecast model .
And overall , eight of the 11 candidates the paper endorsed did do better than we expected them to do before getting the endorsement , including all six Democrats .
( By contrast , the endorsement has been a bit more of a mixed bag for Republicans , with only half seeing a boost in their numbers . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the paper ’ s endorsement could really help Warren .
In fact , if we dig a little deeper , the data suggests that the Register ’ s endorsement may matter a lot more to candidates like Warren who are polling below 20 percent in Iowa .
We found those candidates gained , on average , 11 points between their pre-endorsement polling average and final vote share tally .
Conversely , candidates polling higher than 20 percent actually saw their vote share tick down by about a point , on average .
Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ John Edwards ’ s nearly 22-point bump in the Democratic caucuses in 2004 , where he jumped from 11 percent to 33 percent , but even a 10-point increase like the one Sen. Paul Simon got in the 1988 Democratic contest could be a gamechanger .
Granted , neither of those candidates ultimately won the caucuses , but both Simon and Edwards got solid second-place results — and in a race this crowded , who finishes second could be pretty important .
It ’ s difficult to say just how much the Register @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as in our digital age , newspapers have an ever-shrinking footprint in the media landscape .
But the Register is Iowa ’ s largest paper and a lot of Iowans still haven ’ t made up their minds .
An Iowa poll released on Saturday by the New York Times Upshot/Siena College found that 39 percent of likely caucus-goers could be persuaded to back a different candidate .
So for Warren , a substantial bump in coverage — particularly with an upbeat framing — could matter quite a bit as media coverage and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and that boost might provide just enough of a bump to find victory — or at least a solid second-place finish — on Feb. 3 .

On Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren picked up her second newspaper endorsement of the week: The Des Moines Register announced it’s endorsing Warren in the Iowa caucuses. Sen. Amy Klobuchar also picked up her second newspaper endorsement with the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsing her on Saturday, which could help Klobuchar in the Granite State, but like Warren, she needs a strong finish in Iowa first.
And right now, Iowa is a four-way traffic jam. We’ve gotten a flurry of new polls this weekend (that we’ll be writing about more soon), but as of this morning, Warren is in fourth place in our Iowa polling average with 15 percent support — 7 percentage points behind Sanders and Biden, who are essentially tied for first at 22 percent, and about 4 points behind former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who’s polling at roughly 19 percent. (Klobuchar, meanwhile, is at 8 percent.)
Which Democratic candidate had the biggest surge in popularity?
Warren’s odds of winning Iowa are a bit lower than other candidates in our forecast — she’s only got about a 1 in 9 shot compared to Biden and Sanders’s 1 in 3 shot, but she’s also not that far behind (Buttigieg has a 1 in 4 chance). The good news for Warren is that the Des Moines Register’s endorsement has historically given its recipient a boost in the polls — though we should be careful not to overstate its importance.
But on average, since 1988, when the paper first began endorsing candidates before the caucuses, candidates have gotten about a 4-point boost from where their polling average in Iowa was before the endorsement to how they ultimately fared in the caucuses (their vote share), according to historical polling average data from FiveThirtyEight’s forecast model.
The Des Moines Register endorsement helps at the margins The polling average and actual vote results for candidates in the Iowa caucuses who were endorsed by the Des Moines Register YEAR PARTY CANDIDATE Polling Avg Before Endorsement ACTUAL VOTE CHANGE 1988 D Paul Simon 16.7% 26.7% 10.0 1988 R Bob Dole 43.0 37.4 -5.6 1996 R Bob Dole 34.0 26.3 -7.7 2000 D Bill Bradley 30.6 36.6 6.0 2000 R George W. Bush 46.1 41.0 -5.1 2004 D John Edwards 11.0 32.6 21.6 2008 D Hillary Clinton 27.8 30.4 2.6 2008 R John McCain 6.1 13.1 7.0 2012 R Mitt Romney 19.5 24.5 5.0 2016 D Hillary Clinton 47.7 49.8 2.1 2016 R Marco Rubio 11.6 23.1 11.5 Average 4.3 Source: Polls, Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, Des Moines Register
And overall, eight of the 11 candidates the paper endorsed did do better than we expected them to do before getting the endorsement, including all six Democrats. (By contrast, the endorsement has been a bit more of a mixed bag for Republicans, with only half seeing a boost in their numbers.) So in a race this close, the paper’s endorsement could really help Warren.
In fact, if we dig a little deeper, the data suggests that the Register’s endorsement may matter a lot more to candidates like Warren who are polling below 20 percent in Iowa. We found those candidates gained, on average, 11 points between their pre-endorsement polling average and final vote share tally. Conversely, candidates polling higher than 20 percent actually saw their vote share tick down by about a point, on average.
Warren will probably be hard-pressed to surpass Sen. John Edwards’s nearly 22-point bump in the Democratic caucuses in 2004, where he jumped from 11 percent to 33 percent, but even a 10-point increase like the one Sen. Paul Simon got in the 1988 Democratic contest could be a gamechanger. Granted, neither of those candidates ultimately won the caucuses, but both Simon and Edwards got solid second-place results — and in a race this crowded, who finishes second could be pretty important.
It’s difficult to say just how much the Register’s endorsement could help Warren, as in our digital age, newspapers have an ever-shrinking footprint in the media landscape. But the Register is Iowa’s largest paper and a lot of Iowans still haven’t made up their minds. An Iowa poll released on Saturday by the New York Times Upshot/Siena College found that 39 percent of likely caucus-goers could be persuaded to back a different candidate. So for Warren, a substantial bump in coverage — particularly with an upbeat framing — could matter quite a bit as media coverage and candidate poll performance tend to be correlated, and that boost might provide just enough of a bump to find victory — or at least a solid second-place finish — on Feb. 3.


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-27--Inside The Field Offices Of The Iowa Caucuses

When you think about Sen. Elizabeth Warren ’ s ground game , you probably don ’ t think about growing vegetables .
But when a neighborhood association president in Des Moines , Iowa , told Warren field organizer Jarae Hines that the local community garden needed some TLC , he responded , “ Perfect — we ’ ll be there every Saturday.
” And after getting his hands dirty — literally — for two months with other community members , he found he had a fresh crop of willing volunteers for Warren ’ s campaign .
We at FiveThirtyEight spend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opinion and how that translates into election results .
But there ’ s a step we often skip over : how campaigns identify , persuade and turn out supporters .
A robust campaign infrastructure focusing on voter outreach — “ field organization , ” in campaign lingo — can have small but meaningful effects on the outcome of an election too .
Studies of the 2008 general election , for example , suggest that Barack Obama ’ s vaunted field operation could have increased his vote share by as many as 3 points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may loom largest in presidential caucuses , like next Monday ’ s in Iowa .
A caucus is a complex process , and according to political scientist and FiveThirtyEight contributor Joshua Darr , who studies campaign strategy , that gives an advantage to campaigns that better train their supporters on its ins and outs .
Caucuses are also unique because there are up to two rounds of voting : An initial vote is followed by a brief window in which supporters of candidates who didn ’ t clear the viability threshold can physically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” with another campaign .
Because this realignment process takes place in public view , Darr says , the community relationships established by a campaign ’ s field organization can be decisive : “ Caucuses are much more about personal connections and seeing people you know in a high school gym and going to stand with them , not an individual decision made in the isolation of a voting booth.
” This year ’ s Iowa caucuses are expected to be very close , too — certainly close enough that a good field @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Given that winning the Iowa caucuses sometimes sets off a chain reaction that can lead all the way to the White House , it ’ s possible that the next president of the United States will have his or her Iowa ground game to thank .
And so , two weeks ago , we drove the snowy roads of Iowa in a rented four-wheel drive to size up the Iowa field operations of the state ’ s four highest-polling candidates .
On Monday , we sat in on a volunteer meeting at former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buttigieg ’ s field office in the old factory city of Newton ; on Tuesday , we stopped by former Vice President Joe Biden ’ s Hawkeye State headquarters , just west of downtown Des Moines , as well as a Warren field office in the nearby neighborhood of Beaverdale .
( Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ s campaign declined our request to visit one of his offices . )
The field office — a physical location that serves as a base for campaigns ’ voter-contact efforts — is the basic building block of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and each of the four candidates has at least 20 of them scattered throughout Iowa : By our count , Buttigieg has the most with 33 , followed by Biden with 28 , Warren with 27 and Sanders with 21 .
( For comparison , Obama set the modern standard for Iowa field offices with 37 , although they were more geographically scattered than any of the 2020 contenders ’ are . )
And as you can see from the maps below , there is a lot of overlap in where the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — all have at least one field office in each of Iowa ’ s nine most populous counties — and several pockets of the state don ’ t have a single field office for one of the top four candidates .
For the most part , the campaigns ’ strategies aren ’ t all that different either : The Biden , Buttigieg and Warren operations seem fairly equally staffed .
The Biden campaign told us it has 150 paid staffers in the state , 115 of whom are field staffers ; the Buttigieg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staffers in Iowa , most of whom are field organizers ; and the Warren campaign told us it has about 150 paid staffers statewide .
Likewise , Biden ’ s , Buttigieg ’ s and Warren ’ s field operations all seem to follow a time-tested staff structure similar to what Obama employed in 2008 : A single state organizing director manages a handful of regional organizing directors who oversee scores of field organizers deployed to every corner of Iowa .
And it is the field organizers who form the backbone of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professional networker , part drill sergeant , part door-to-door salesman , a field organizer is often people ’ s first introduction to a candidate .
Ben Osterlund , a Buttigieg field organizer in Newton ’ s Jasper County , arrived in Iowa last summer and immediately began making inroads in the community .
He spent his first couple months attending city council meetings , volunteering at the local animal shelter , even going to bingo night at the senior center — anywhere he was likely to meet civically engaged locals .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but inevitably they would ask , ‘ So … what are you doing here ?
’ ” That ’ s when Osterlund would start spreading the gospel according to Pete .
Convincing Iowans to support a candidate requires a field organizer to forge genuine relationships ; the caucus process takes hours and is conducted in full public view , so voters need to believe in a campaign to subject themselves to it .
According to Jesse Harris , a longtime Iowa field operative who is now a senior adviser to Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five , six conversations with one voter before they make up their mind is not unusual ” — which is why the Biden campaign asks its organizers to meet a quota of “ substantive conversations ” every single day .
A field organizer ’ s next hurdle is turning ordinary supporters into volunteers .
This is an important step for not only expanding the campaign ’ s network , but also because of the role volunteers can play during the caucuses .
On a fully staffed campaign like that of Biden , Buttigieg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responsible for roughly 10-20 of the Iowa caucuses ’ 1,678 precincts , but because organizers themselves can ’ t actually supervise more than one caucus site at a time , they designate certain volunteers to be “ precinct captains ” — some precincts even get a full “ precinct team ” — to wrangle supporters and undecideds alike to the “ right ” corner of the room on caucus night .
At this stage in the campaign , field organizers have largely finished recruiting their precinct teams and are now focused on training @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Buttigieg volunteer meeting that we attended in Newton , Osterlund was reviewing the procedure for Feb. 3 as if it were a finely honed battle plan .
A large sheet of paper taped to the wall at the front of the room enumerated the four-step plan : show up , persuade , group up , repeat .
Osterlund quizzed his roughly three dozen volunteers on what the threshold is for candidates to remain viable ( 15 percent ) and encouraged them to keep a close eye on their supporters : “ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person to scurry off to a different group.
” He urged precinct captains to memorize the caucus rules and double-check the way the caucus chair assigns delegates to candidates , so they can contest any rulings that go against Buttigieg .
And he implored the volunteers to attend an even more in-depth caucus training session later in the week .
As the meeting adjourned , many of the precinct captains-to-be stuck around , whipped out their phones , and seamlessly segued into the other major role that volunteers play in campaigns : voter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visited , the small , repurposed rooms buzzed with activity as volunteers and organizers huddled around Formica tables sending texts ( “ text-banking , ” a fairly recent campaign innovation ) and making calls ( “ phone-banking ” ) to potential supporters .
At the Warren office we visited in suburban Des Moines , callers sat below a wall from which hung 34 file folders , each containing printouts of one of Warren ’ s signature “ plans ” for easy reference .
“ What we do is we try to meet [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what issues are most important to them , ” Hines , the Warren field organizer , told us as we walked through the office .
“ So it ’ s been nice to have Elizabeth roll out policy after policy , because we always have something to talk about with them , and we always have an answer.
” But just calling and texting voters isn ’ t enough .
According to all three campaigns , the most effective form of voter outreach is canvassing , or knocking on doors and just talking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ research agrees it ’ s significantly more effective than phone-banking or mailing fliers to voters . )
In Jasper County , for example , Buttigieg volunteers try to hit the doors every weekday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. — the sweet spot between when people get home from work and when they sit down to dinner .
And on weekends , when more volunteers are free , Biden , Buttigieg and Warren all hold “ weekends of action , ” or a flurry of events and canvassing drives across the state to galvanize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Another tactic the campaigns employ is “ relational outreach , ” which is simply volunteers calling , texting or social-media messaging their friends and neighbors in order to get them to caucus for their candidate .
Hines told us that the Warren campaign relied heavily on word of mouth to recruit volunteers : One of his fellow field organizers , in West Des Moines , expanded her circle of volunteers from five to 30 people thanks entirely to friends of friends .
“ You ’ re more likely to listen to your friend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person who came here from Phoenix , Arizona , ” he explained .
Similarly , the Buttigieg campaign believes that , especially in small cities like Newton and low-turnout environments like the caucus , having someone you know personally vouch for a candidate makes a big difference .
At the Buttigieg volunteer meeting we attended , Osterlund asked attendees to take 15 minutes at the end of the meeting to contact their friends and family and encourage them to attend an upcoming Buttigieg town hall .
But despite how personalized the campaign ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the procedure for tracking voter contact is largely the same across the campaigns .
Field organizers use the state voter file to print out a list of houses to visit ( or numbers to dial ) — a process known as “ cutting turf.
” From there , each canvasser or phone-banker then works their way down the list , logging the responses they get : not home , undecided voter , definitely a supporter , not registered , definitely not a supporter .
The campaign inputs the findings into a database , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for another wave of voter contact .
Found an avid Biden supporter while door-knocking ?
The Biden campaign will want to recontact her just before the caucus to remind her to vote .
And if a rival campaign finds that same Biden supporter , it will know not to waste precious GOTC ( “ get out the caucus ” ) time on that house .
It ’ s hard to know at this point who might have a hidden edge in Iowa .
Our visits , if anything , only underscored just how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaigns ’ field strategies are .
But since the numbers behind their field operations are comparable — their quantity of offices , their quantity of staffers — it makes sense that campaigns are focused on achieving the highest possible quality of conversations with voters .
Even as Osterlund ’ s day-to-day in the run-up to caucus night is consumed by canvassing , staging events and corralling his volunteers , he says he always takes an extra few minutes to nourish the relationships he ’ s cultivated in the past year .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a volunteer or someone on the phone , ” Osterlund said .
Then he smiled : “ Maybe to our detriment .
”

When you think about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ground game, you probably don’t think about growing vegetables. But when a neighborhood association president in Des Moines, Iowa, told Warren field organizer Jarae Hines that the local community garden needed some TLC, he responded, “Perfect — we’ll be there every Saturday.” And after getting his hands dirty — literally — for two months with other community members, he found he had a fresh crop of willing volunteers for Warren’s campaign.
We at FiveThirtyEight spend a lot of time thinking about public opinion and how that translates into election results. But there’s a step we often skip over: how campaigns identify, persuade and turn out supporters. A robust campaign infrastructure focusing on voter outreach — “field organization,” in campaign lingo — can have small but meaningful effects on the outcome of an election too. Studies of the 2008 general election, for example, suggest that Barack Obama’s vaunted field operation could have increased his vote share by as many as 3 points in some states.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?]
And field organizations may loom largest in presidential caucuses, like next Monday’s in Iowa. A caucus is a complex process, and according to political scientist and FiveThirtyEight contributor Joshua Darr, who studies campaign strategy, that gives an advantage to campaigns that better train their supporters on its ins and outs. Caucuses are also unique because there are up to two rounds of voting: An initial vote is followed by a brief window in which supporters of candidates who didn’t clear the viability threshold can physically move across the room and “realign” with another campaign. Because this realignment process takes place in public view, Darr says, the community relationships established by a campaign’s field organization can be decisive: “Caucuses are much more about personal connections and seeing people you know in a high school gym and going to stand with them, not an individual decision made in the isolation of a voting booth.”
This year’s Iowa caucuses are expected to be very close, too — certainly close enough that a good field organization could help make the difference. Given that winning the Iowa caucuses sometimes sets off a chain reaction that can lead all the way to the White House, it’s possible that the next president of the United States will have his or her Iowa ground game to thank.
And so, two weeks ago, we drove the snowy roads of Iowa in a rented four-wheel drive to size up the Iowa field operations of the state’s four highest-polling candidates. On Monday, we sat in on a volunteer meeting at former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s field office in the old factory city of Newton; on Tuesday, we stopped by former Vice President Joe Biden’s Hawkeye State headquarters, just west of downtown Des Moines, as well as a Warren field office in the nearby neighborhood of Beaverdale. (Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign declined our request to visit one of his offices.)
[Our Latest Forecast: Who will win the Iowa caucuses?]
The field office — a physical location that serves as a base for campaigns’ voter-contact efforts — is the basic building block of any campaign’s field operation, and each of the four candidates has at least 20 of them scattered throughout Iowa: By our count, Buttigieg has the most with 33, followed by Biden with 28, Warren with 27 and Sanders with 21. (For comparison, Obama set the modern standard for Iowa field offices with 37, although they were more geographically scattered than any of the 2020 contenders’ are.)
And as you can see from the maps below, there is a lot of overlap in where the top four campaigns are locating their field offices — all have at least one field office in each of Iowa’s nine most populous counties — and several pockets of the state don’t have a single field office for one of the top four candidates.
For the most part, the campaigns’ strategies aren’t all that different either: The Biden, Buttigieg and Warren operations seem fairly equally staffed. The Biden campaign told us it has 150 paid staffers in the state, 115 of whom are field staffers; the Buttigieg campaign says it has around 160 total staffers in Iowa, most of whom are field organizers; and the Warren campaign told us it has about 150 paid staffers statewide. Likewise, Biden’s, Buttigieg’s and Warren’s field operations all seem to follow a time-tested staff structure similar to what Obama employed in 2008: A single state organizing director manages a handful of regional organizing directors who oversee scores of field organizers deployed to every corner of Iowa.
And it is the field organizers who form the backbone of a campaign’s field operation. Part professional networker, part drill sergeant, part door-to-door salesman, a field organizer is often people’s first introduction to a candidate. Ben Osterlund, a Buttigieg field organizer in Newton’s Jasper County, arrived in Iowa last summer and immediately began making inroads in the community. He spent his first couple months attending city council meetings, volunteering at the local animal shelter, even going to bingo night at the senior center — anywhere he was likely to meet civically engaged locals. “We would chat first about different things, but inevitably they would ask, ‘So … what are you doing here?’” That’s when Osterlund would start spreading the gospel according to Pete.
Convincing Iowans to support a candidate requires a field organizer to forge genuine relationships; the caucus process takes hours and is conducted in full public view, so voters need to believe in a campaign to subject themselves to it. According to Jesse Harris, a longtime Iowa field operative who is now a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign there, “Having four, five, six conversations with one voter before they make up their mind is not unusual” — which is why the Biden campaign asks its organizers to meet a quota of “substantive conversations” every single day.
A field organizer’s next hurdle is turning ordinary supporters into volunteers. This is an important step for not only expanding the campaign’s network, but also because of the role volunteers can play during the caucuses. On a fully staffed campaign like that of Biden, Buttigieg or Warren, each field organizer is responsible for roughly 10-20 of the Iowa caucuses’ 1,678 precincts, but because organizers themselves can’t actually supervise more than one caucus site at a time, they designate certain volunteers to be “precinct captains” — some precincts even get a full “precinct team” — to wrangle supporters and undecideds alike to the “right” corner of the room on caucus night.
At this stage in the campaign, field organizers have largely finished recruiting their precinct teams and are now focused on training them for the big night. At the Buttigieg volunteer meeting that we attended in Newton, Osterlund was reviewing the procedure for Feb. 3 as if it were a finely honed battle plan. A large sheet of paper taped to the wall at the front of the room enumerated the four-step plan: show up, persuade, group up, repeat. Osterlund quizzed his roughly three dozen volunteers on what the threshold is for candidates to remain viable (15 percent) and encouraged them to keep a close eye on their supporters: “We don’t want a single Pete person to scurry off to a different group.” He urged precinct captains to memorize the caucus rules and double-check the way the caucus chair assigns delegates to candidates, so they can contest any rulings that go against Buttigieg. And he implored the volunteers to attend an even more in-depth caucus training session later in the week.
As the meeting adjourned, many of the precinct captains-to-be stuck around, whipped out their phones, and seamlessly segued into the other major role that volunteers play in campaigns: voter outreach. At each field office we visited, the small, repurposed rooms buzzed with activity as volunteers and organizers huddled around Formica tables sending texts (“text-banking,” a fairly recent campaign innovation) and making calls (“phone-banking”) to potential supporters.
At the Warren office we visited in suburban Des Moines, callers sat below a wall from which hung 34 file folders, each containing printouts of one of Warren’s signature “plans” for easy reference. “What we do is we try to meet [voters] where they are, find what issues are most important to them,” Hines, the Warren field organizer, told us as we walked through the office. “So it’s been nice to have Elizabeth roll out policy after policy, because we always have something to talk about with them, and we always have an answer.”
But just calling and texting voters isn’t enough. According to all three campaigns, the most effective form of voter outreach is canvassing, or knocking on doors and just talking to voters. (Past political science research agrees it’s significantly more effective than phone-banking or mailing fliers to voters.) In Jasper County, for example, Buttigieg volunteers try to hit the doors every weekday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. — the sweet spot between when people get home from work and when they sit down to dinner. And on weekends, when more volunteers are free, Biden, Buttigieg and Warren all hold “weekends of action,” or a flurry of events and canvassing drives across the state to galvanize volunteers and win over new supporters.
Another tactic the campaigns employ is “relational outreach,” which is simply volunteers calling, texting or social-media messaging their friends and neighbors in order to get them to caucus for their candidate. Hines told us that the Warren campaign relied heavily on word of mouth to recruit volunteers: One of his fellow field organizers, in West Des Moines, expanded her circle of volunteers from five to 30 people thanks entirely to friends of friends. “You’re more likely to listen to your friend or family member that you are some person who came here from Phoenix, Arizona,” he explained.
Similarly, the Buttigieg campaign believes that, especially in small cities like Newton and low-turnout environments like the caucus, having someone you know personally vouch for a candidate makes a big difference. At the Buttigieg volunteer meeting we attended, Osterlund asked attendees to take 15 minutes at the end of the meeting to contact their friends and family and encourage them to attend an upcoming Buttigieg town hall.
But despite how personalized the campaign’s pitch is to individual voters, the procedure for tracking voter contact is largely the same across the campaigns. Field organizers use the state voter file to print out a list of houses to visit (or numbers to dial) — a process known as “cutting turf.” From there, each canvasser or phone-banker then works their way down the list, logging the responses they get: not home, undecided voter, definitely a supporter, not registered, definitely not a supporter.
The campaign inputs the findings into a database, from which information can be extracted later for another wave of voter contact. Found an avid Biden supporter while door-knocking? The Biden campaign will want to recontact her just before the caucus to remind her to vote. And if a rival campaign finds that same Biden supporter, it will know not to waste precious GOTC (“get out the caucus”) time on that house.
It’s hard to know at this point who might have a hidden edge in Iowa. Our visits, if anything, only underscored just how similar the Biden, Buttigieg and Warren campaigns’ field strategies are. But since the numbers behind their field operations are comparable — their quantity of offices, their quantity of staffers — it makes sense that campaigns are focused on achieving the highest possible quality of conversations with voters. Even as Osterlund’s day-to-day in the run-up to caucus night is consumed by canvassing, staging events and corralling his volunteers, he says he always takes an extra few minutes to nourish the relationships he’s cultivated in the past year. “I never tried to shorten a conversation with a volunteer or someone on the phone,” Osterlund said. Then he smiled: “Maybe to our detriment.”
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s Democratic primary forecast.
Which Democratic candidate had the biggest surge in popularity?


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-27--Election Update: Sanders Is On The Upswing

Up until this point , we ’ ve been pretty hesitant to read too much into any one of the post-debate polls — largely because for each poll that showed Sen. Bernie Sanders on the upswing , there was another poll that showed him on the downturn .
But now with four more national polls and six early-state surveys ( three from Iowa and three from New Hampshire ) since we last checked in , we ’ ve got a much clearer picture of where things stand .
And one thing that ’ s immediately obvious is that Sanders really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates has increased by 4 percentage points since Friday , up from 22 percent to 26 percent in our forecast .
But notably , his gain hasn ’ t come at the expense of former Vice President Joe Biden .
In fact , Biden ’ s odds are unchanged — he still has a 42 percent shot at winning a majority of pledged delegates , which was also the case on Friday .
Sen Elizabeth Warren , on the other hand , slipped 5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roughly tied with Buttigieg in our overall delegate forecast .
( Buttigieg ’ s odds remain the same , and the chance that no candidate wins a majority of pledged delegates ticked up very slightly . )
The second thing that ’ s immediately obvious from this latest batch of polls is that the race in Iowa is still incredibly close .
Biden has slightly better odds than Sanders in our forecast , but it ’ s probably better to think of the two of them as roughly tied , with Buttigieg and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , this weekend ’ s polls did change the picture in New Hampshire with Sanders vaulting into the lead , which at least partially explains some of his overall gains in the forecast .
Sanders now leads in N.H. while Iowa remains wide open Part of the reason Sanders has seen such a large uptick in our model is fairly easy to explain — he picked up three uniformly good polls in New Hampshire since last Thursday : • First , MassINC Polling Group and WBUR found Sanders more than 10 points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at 29 percent on Thursday .
( Buttigieg was at 17 percent , Biden at 14 percent and Warren at 13 percent . )
This was an especially good poll for Sanders not only because he led by such a large margin , but also because it represented a major swing from the pollster ’ s previous survey in December , where Sanders was in second at 17 percent behind Buttigieg ’ s 18 percent .
• Next , CNN and the University of New Hampshire found Sanders in first at 25 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Buttigieg in third at 15 percent and Warren in fourth at 12 percent in their poll released Sunday .
The last CNN/UNH poll in October also found Sanders in the lead , but Sanders ’ s still managed to grow his support by 4 points , and expand his 3-point lead in October to 9 points .
• Finally , another Sunday poll from NBC News/Marist College found Sanders in the lead at 22 percent , Buttigieg at 17 percent , Biden at 15 percent , Warren at 13 percent and Sen. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This was the first New Hampshire poll from these two organizations this cycle , so we don ’ t have a benchmark for comparison . )
What this has meant for Sanders is that he has now edged Biden out to secure a 5-point lead in our New Hampshire polling average , and he is also in the lead in the New Hampshire primary forecast with a 2 in 5 chance of winning the most votes .
And it ’ s actually Buttigieg — not Biden — who has the second best shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , although Biden is super close on Buttigieg ’ s tail at 21 percent .
Warren , meanwhile , has experienced a pretty stark tumble .
Her New Hampshire polling average is down 3 points since the debate and her odds of winning New Hampshire have fallen , too , so that she now has about an 11 percent chance there — behind both Buttigieg and Biden .
Iowa , though , is a bit more of a mixed bag .
Biden is still in the lead there , but he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have made sizable gains there after the last debate .
And the three most recent Iowa surveys we have didn ’ t really give us a clearer picture ; if anything , they have an almost “ choose your own adventure ” quality to them — some put Biden in the lead while others favored Sanders .
On the whole , though , they were much better for Sanders than some of the other Iowa polls released in the immediate aftermath of the debate that had put Sanders in the low double-digits .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the three latest polls in Iowa show : • On Saturday , New York Times Upshot/Siena College found Sanders in the lead at 25 percent , ahead of Buttigieg at 18 percent , Biden at 17 percent and Warren at 15 percent .
This marked a pretty big jump ( 6 points ) for Sanders from the last time they surveyed Iowa in late October , and a fairly dramatic fall for Warren , who fell 7 points from first to fourth place .
Buttigieg and Biden ’ s numbers , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • And on Sunday , a new CBS News/YouGov survey also found Sanders in the lead at 26 percent , but the gap between him and the rest of the field was much narrower : Biden was at 25 percent , Buttigieg at 22 percent and Warren at 15 percent .
This poll didn ’ t represent much of a change from their last poll of the Iowa contest from earlier this month , which found Sanders , Biden and Buttigieg all in a three-way tie for first at 23 percent .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out their latest numbers for Iowa on Sunday , but they found Biden in the lead with 25 percent , Sanders in second with 19 percent , Buttigieg in third with 18 percent and Warren in fourth with 13 percent .
This was obviously a good poll for Biden , but it wasn ’ t necessarily bad for Sanders , considering the last Iowa poll Suffolk released in October found Biden in first at 18 percent , Warren at 17 percent , Buttigieg at 13 percent and Sanders in fourth at 9 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has a slight edge in Iowa with about a 1 in 3 shot of winning the most votes there , though Sanders has nearly the same odds .
Buttigieg isn ’ t that far off either , but just like in New Hampshire , Warren ’ s chances have declined pretty significantly .
She ’ s now got only a 1 in 9 shot of winning the most votes in Iowa , which puts her in an increasingly tough spot .
She will have to hope that the endorsement she picked up from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help her recover in the week leading up to the caucuses .
But the bottom line in Iowa is this : There is a lot of uncertainty going into the Feb. 3 caucuses .
Biden still leads nationally , but Sanders is catching up We also got a number of new national polls this weekend , and they , too , showed a clear improvement for Sanders — he ’ s now at about 21 percent in our national polling average , which is his strongest position since Biden announced in April .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this front at 27 percent , but unlike Sanders , his numbers aren ’ t ticking upward .
In fact , if you compare all of the national polls released since the Jan. 14 debate to the most recent pre-debate poll from each pollster , you ’ ll see that Sanders ’ s simple average has gone up about 3 points while Biden ’ s has barely budged .
Granted , some of these pollsters haven ’ t polled all that recently — the ABC News/Washington Post last surveyed the candidate field in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms .
So this is why it can be useful to see how things changed in our more complex polling average , which accounts for things like a poll ’ s recency , but as you can see in the table below the topline is actually pretty similar : Biden ’ s numbers haven ’ t budged , but Sanders ’ s have still increased — 2 points , instead of 3 .
Meanwhile , as was the case in both New Hampshire and Iowa polls , Warren ’ s numbers have declined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if we didn ’ t mention former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg , who has also seen a 2-to-4-point uptick in his poll numbers since the last debate .
In fact , he has now moved ahead of Buttigieg in our national polling average and currently sits in fourth place nationally .
However , Bloomberg is a bit of a wild card in that he ’ s skipping the early-voting states and instead spending millions of dollars on advertising in Super Tuesday states .
He ’ s also harder for our model @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there isn ’ t really a historical analogue to someone using such a nontraditional approach .
So while his upward progression in the polls may signal that this strategy is working out him , it ’ s also entirely possible that his support will ebb after other candidates have won actual votes in the first four contests .
Bottom line : This last batch of polls contained some pretty good news for Sanders — and in FiveThirtyEight model terms , it ’ s a fairly big deal that Sanders went from a 22 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delegates to a 26 percent chance .
It ’ s also notable that this happened and Biden didn ’ t lose any ground .
Sanders ’ s gains instead seem to have come at Warren ’ s expense , who fell from a 13 percent chance of winning a majority of delegates on Friday to an 8 percent chance on Sunday .
If you ’ re wondering how much you should update your priors as a result of this weekend ’ s flurry of polls , our best advice is this : Keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are really wide open there , and a lot could still change both before Iowa but also especially after .
At the same time , it does seem as if Sanders really is having a moment .
The question now is whether it ’ ll last or if the polls will once again shift , maybe this time in Biden ’ s favor or Buttigieg ’ s — or even Warren ’ s or Klobuchar ’ s .

Up until this point, we’ve been pretty hesitant to read too much into any one of the post-debate polls — largely because for each poll that showed Sen. Bernie Sanders on the upswing, there was another poll that showed him on the downturn. But now with four more national polls and six early-state surveys (three from Iowa and three from New Hampshire) since we last checked in, we’ve got a much clearer picture of where things stand. And one thing that’s immediately obvious is that Sanders really has gained in the polls.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?]
Sanders’s chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates has increased by 4 percentage points since Friday, up from 22 percent to 26 percent in our forecast. But notably, his gain hasn’t come at the expense of former Vice President Joe Biden. In fact, Biden’s odds are unchanged — he still has a 42 percent shot at winning a majority of pledged delegates, which was also the case on Friday. Sen Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, slipped 5 points since Friday, and is now roughly tied with Buttigieg in our overall delegate forecast. (Buttigieg’s odds remain the same, and the chance that no candidate wins a majority of pledged delegates ticked up very slightly.)
This weekend’s polls gave Sanders a boost How candidates’ chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates have changed since Jan. 23, according to FiveThirtyEight’s primary forecast Candidate Jan. 23 forecast Current forecast Difference Joe Biden 42% 42% 0 Bernie Sanders 22 26 +4 Elizabeth Warren 13 8 -5 Pete Buttigieg 8 8 0 No majority 15 16 +1 Current forecast as of Jan. 26 at 9:00 p.m. ET.
The second thing that’s immediately obvious from this latest batch of polls is that the race in Iowa is still incredibly close. Biden has slightly better odds than Sanders in our forecast, but it’s probably better to think of the two of them as roughly tied, with Buttigieg and Warren not too far behind. That said, this weekend’s polls did change the picture in New Hampshire with Sanders vaulting into the lead, which at least partially explains some of his overall gains in the forecast.
Sanders now leads in N.H. while Iowa remains wide open
Part of the reason Sanders has seen such a large uptick in our model is fairly easy to explain — he picked up three uniformly good polls in New Hampshire since last Thursday:
First, MassINC Polling Group and WBUR found Sanders more than 10 points ahead of the rest of the field at 29 percent on Thursday. (Buttigieg was at 17 percent, Biden at 14 percent and Warren at 13 percent.) This was an especially good poll for Sanders not only because he led by such a large margin, but also because it represented a major swing from the pollster’s previous survey in December, where Sanders was in second at 17 percent behind Buttigieg’s 18 percent.
Next, CNN and the University of New Hampshire found Sanders in first at 25 percent, Biden in second at 16 percent, Buttigieg in third at 15 percent and Warren in fourth at 12 percent in their poll released Sunday. The last CNN/UNH poll in October also found Sanders in the lead, but Sanders’s still managed to grow his support by 4 points, and expand his 3-point lead in October to 9 points.
Finally, another Sunday poll from NBC News/Marist College found Sanders in the lead at 22 percent, Buttigieg at 17 percent, Biden at 15 percent, Warren at 13 percent and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 10 percent. (This was the first New Hampshire poll from these two organizations this cycle, so we don’t have a benchmark for comparison.)
What this has meant for Sanders is that he has now edged Biden out to secure a 5-point lead in our New Hampshire polling average, and he is also in the lead in the New Hampshire primary forecast with a 2 in 5 chance of winning the most votes. And it’s actually Buttigieg — not Biden — who has the second best shot of now finishing first (26 percent), although Biden is super close on Buttigieg’s tail at 21 percent. Warren, meanwhile, has experienced a pretty stark tumble. Her New Hampshire polling average is down 3 points since the debate and her odds of winning New Hampshire have fallen, too, so that she now has about an 11 percent chance there — behind both Buttigieg and Biden.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who will win the Iowa caucuses?]
Iowa, though, is a bit more of a mixed bag. Biden is still in the lead there, but he’s practically tied with Sanders and both have made sizable gains there after the last debate.
Sanders now has a 5-point lead in N.H., but Iowa is a tossup Changes in the top five candidates’ Iowa and New Hampshire polling averages before and after the last debate IOWA NEW HAMPSHIRE CANDIDATE JAN. 14* CURRENT CHANGE JAN. 14* CURRENT CHANGE Joe Biden 20.1 22.7 +2.6 21.8 16.8 -5.0 Bernie Sanders 19.9 22.0 +2.1 20.1 21.7 +1.6 Pete Buttigieg 17.4 18.5 +1.1 13.1 14.5 +1.4 Elizabeth Warren 14.9 14.8 -0.1 16.0 13.1 -2.9 Amy Klobuchar 6.7 7.8 +1.1 4.7 7.5 +2.8 * Polling average as of the day before the debate.
And the three most recent Iowa surveys we have didn’t really give us a clearer picture; if anything, they have an almost “choose your own adventure” quality to them — some put Biden in the lead while others favored Sanders. On the whole, though, they were much better for Sanders than some of the other Iowa polls released in the immediate aftermath of the debate that had put Sanders in the low double-digits. Here’s a run down of what the three latest polls in Iowa show:
According to our forecast, Biden has a slight edge in Iowa with about a 1 in 3 shot of winning the most votes there, though Sanders has nearly the same odds. Buttigieg isn’t that far off either, but just like in New Hampshire, Warren’s chances have declined pretty significantly. She’s now got only a 1 in 9 shot of winning the most votes in Iowa, which puts her in an increasingly tough spot. She will have to hope that the endorsement she picked up from the Des Moines Register on Saturday can help her recover in the week leading up to the caucuses. But the bottom line in Iowa is this: There is a lot of uncertainty going into the Feb. 3 caucuses.
Biden still leads nationally, but Sanders is catching up
We also got a number of new national polls this weekend, and they, too, showed a clear improvement for Sanders — he’s now at about 21 percent in our national polling average, which is his strongest position since Biden announced in April. The former vice president still leads on this front at 27 percent, but unlike Sanders, his numbers aren’t ticking upward.
In fact, if you compare all of the national polls released since the Jan. 14 debate to the most recent pre-debate poll from each pollster, you’ll see that Sanders’s simple average has gone up about 3 points while Biden’s has barely budged. Granted, some of these pollsters haven’t polled all that recently — the ABC News/Washington Post last surveyed the candidate field in late October, eons ago in campaign terms. So this is why it can be useful to see how things changed in our more complex polling average, which accounts for things like a poll’s recency, but as you can see in the table below the topline is actually pretty similar: Biden’s numbers haven’t budged, but Sanders’s have still increased — 2 points, instead of 3. Meanwhile, as was the case in both New Hampshire and Iowa polls, Warren’s numbers have declined.
Sanders — and Bloomberg — gained nationally How the top six candidates’ standing changed from each pollster’s previous pre-debate poll SHIFT FROM MOST RECENT PRE-DEBATE POLL POLLSTER BIDEN SANDERS WARREN BLOOMBERG BUTTIGIEG KLOBUCHAR CNN/SSRS -2.0 +7.0 -2.0 +0.0 +3.0 +1.0 Monmouth U. +4.0 +2.0 -3.0 +4.0 -2.0 +1.0 Morning Consult +0.0 +1.0 +1.0 +2.0 +0.0 +0.0 SurveyUSA +2.0 +4.0 -1.0 +6.0 -2.0 +0.0 YouGov +1.0 -2.0 +2.0 +1.0 +1.0 +1.0 Emerson College -2.0 +3.0 +0.0 +5.0 -2.0 +2.0 Reuters/Ipsos* -2.0 +0.0 -3.0 +1.0 -1.0 +1.0 ABC News/W. Post +4.0 +6.0 -11.0 +8.0 -4.0 +1.0 Fox News -4.0 +3.0 +1.0 +5.0 +0.0 -2.0 Simple avg. +0.2 +2.6 -1.7 +3.5 -0.8 +0.5 FiveThirtyEight avg. change +0.4 +2.1 -0.7 +1.9 +0.0 +0.1 *Change based on average of two national surveys released by Reuters/Ipsos since the Jan. 14 debate compared to their last poll before the debate. Calculated change in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average since Jan. 14 Source: Polls
We would be remiss, though if we didn’t mention former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has also seen a 2-to-4-point uptick in his poll numbers since the last debate. In fact, he has now moved ahead of Buttigieg in our national polling average and currently sits in fourth place nationally. However, Bloomberg is a bit of a wild card in that he’s skipping the early-voting states and instead spending millions of dollars on advertising in Super Tuesday states. He’s also harder for our model to get a read on, as there isn’t really a historical analogue to someone using such a nontraditional approach. So while his upward progression in the polls may signal that this strategy is working out him, it’s also entirely possible that his support will ebb after other candidates have won actual votes in the first four contests.
Bottom line: This last batch of polls contained some pretty good news for Sanders — and in FiveThirtyEight model terms, it’s a fairly big deal that Sanders went from a 22 percent chance of winning a majority of delegates to a 26 percent chance. It’s also notable that this happened and Biden didn’t lose any ground. Sanders’s gains instead seem to have come at Warren’s expense, who fell from a 13 percent chance of winning a majority of delegates on Friday to an 8 percent chance on Sunday.
If you’re wondering how much you should update your priors as a result of this weekend’s flurry of polls, our best advice is this: Keep an open mind on Iowa. Things are really wide open there, and a lot could still change both before Iowa but also especially after. At the same time, it does seem as if Sanders really is having a moment. The question now is whether it’ll last or if the polls will once again shift, maybe this time in Biden’s favor or Buttigieg’s — or even Warren’s or Klobuchar’s.
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s Democratic primary forecast in full.
Which Democratic candidate had the biggest surge in popularity?


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-27--Politics Podcast: Bernie Sanders Is Gaining Ground One Week Before Iowa

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew assesses Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ s improvement in state @ @ @ @ @ week before the Iowa caucuses .
They also debate whether reporting on former National Security @ @ @ @ @ new book will pressure Republican senators to call witnesses in President Trump ’ s impeachment @ @ @ @ @ to the episode by clicking the “ play ” button in the audio player above @ @ @ @ @ iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new @ @ @ @ @ to listen .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners @ @ @ @ @ us a rating and review on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion @ @ @ @ @ bad polling ” ?
Get in touch by email , on Twitter or in the @ @

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew assesses Sen. Bernie Sanders’s improvement in state and national polls with just one week to go before the Iowa caucuses. They also debate whether reporting on former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s new book will pressure Republican senators to call witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.