I'm thankful for the highest quality favorability polling I've seen this primary. It shows that people like the plausible Democratic nominees well enough. Here are favorability, unfavorability, and net scores (which are negative for all politicians polled):
Warren: +39.4% 41% (-1.6%)
Buttigieg: +32% 33.7% (-1.7%)
Sanders: +41.1% 44.3% (-3.1%)
D Party: +42.8% 46.9%(-4.1%)
Biden: +39.2% 45.5% (-6.3%)
Trump: +40.7% 53.1% (-12.3%)
R Party: +36.8% 52.2% (-15.4%)
Bloomberg: 21.7% 40.8% (-19.1%)
There's more below, averaged from the last month and a half of Economist / YouGov polls. 538 thinks they typically underestimate Dems by 1 and the GOP by 2, so maybe best to add those corrections. The sample size is much bigger than typical 3-day polls that get their own news stories. And it's a better measure than the outlier polls that typically get shared by gleeful or terrified social media friends.
If I had to predict the candidates' favorability numbers on Election Day, I'd guess these (and guess that undecided voters follow decided ones). Opinion of Trump doesn't change much. The Democratic nominee will probably get pulled down during the primary, spring up during the healing unityfest of the convention, and get pulled back down by messy general-election campaigning.
For reference, at this point four years ago, Hillary Clinton was around -10 and Donald Trump was around -12. And this time, our nominee won't have been the target of a 25-year smear campaign! Obviously the next year will be full of unpredictable events. But I expect we'll do better.
Warren: +39.4% 41% (-1.6%)
Buttigieg: +32% 33.7% (-1.7%)
Sanders: +41.1% 44.3% (-3.1%)
D Party: +42.8% 46.9%(-4.1%)
Biden: +39.2% 45.5% (-6.3%)
Trump: +40.7% 53.1% (-12.3%)
R Party: +36.8% 52.2% (-15.4%)
Bloomberg: 21.7% 40.8% (-19.1%)
There's more below, averaged from the last month and a half of Economist / YouGov polls. 538 thinks they typically underestimate Dems by 1 and the GOP by 2, so maybe best to add those corrections. The sample size is much bigger than typical 3-day polls that get their own news stories. And it's a better measure than the outlier polls that typically get shared by gleeful or terrified social media friends.
If I had to predict the candidates' favorability numbers on Election Day, I'd guess these (and guess that undecided voters follow decided ones). Opinion of Trump doesn't change much. The Democratic nominee will probably get pulled down during the primary, spring up during the healing unityfest of the convention, and get pulled back down by messy general-election campaigning.
For reference, at this point four years ago, Hillary Clinton was around -10 and Donald Trump was around -12. And this time, our nominee won't have been the target of a 25-year smear campaign! Obviously the next year will be full of unpredictable events. But I expect we'll do better.
