Bernie Sanders may be hurting Hillary Clinton's general election numbers. Democrats aren't ready for their primary to be over. And Libertarian Gary Johnson is making some waves. This is HuffPollster for Wednesday, May 25, 2016.
HILLARY CLINTON’S POLLING LOSSES COULD BE DUE TO BERNIE SANDERS - Nate Cohn: "A month ago, Hillary Clinton had a big lead in national and battleground state polls. Today, she has a modest lead at best. A few surveys even show Donald Trump ahead. What happened? Mr. Trump has made gains in unifying his party’s base, while Mrs. Clinton has not done the same with hers. If anything, her problem with Bernie Sanders’s voters has gotten a bit worse. To some extent, Mr. Trump’s gains are not surprising. Candidates usually rise in the polls after they win the nomination and consolidate their party’s base...The prospect of another fairly close general election is not what Democrats were hoping for against Mr. Trump, but Mrs. Clinton will have a chance to widen the gap by winning over supporters of Mr. Sanders...The most recent wave of national surveys shows Mrs. Clinton winning just 55 to 72 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters." [NYT]
Sanders' argument for staying in: his poll numbers - Steven Shepard: "For months, Bernie Sanders and his supporters have pointed to polls that show him running comfortably ahead of Donald Trump in November. But now that Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump has disappeared — and the two likely nominees are now running neck-and-neck in national polls — his argument is gaining new resonance. Clinton and her campaign argue that the Vermont senator hasn’t undergone the kind of scrutiny that Clinton and Trump have — and that his poll numbers are over-inflated compared to candidates who have faced intense political attacks from the other party. The data remain unequivocal, however: The latest averages from HuffPost Pollster give Clinton a just less-than-2-point advantage over Trump, while Sanders — who is virtually certain to finish well behind Clinton in pledged delegates — leads Trump by 10 points. Trump has narrowed Clinton’s lead by 5 points since the end of April, while he’s only chipped 2 points off Sanders’ edge." [Politico]
Most Democrats don’t yet want Sanders to drop out of the race - HuffPollster: "Democrats still want the primary race to continue, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds, although most think that only Hillary Clinton has a realistic shot at winning their party’s nomination. Forty-two percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say that neither of their party’s remaining candidates for president should drop out. Thirty-seven percent want Sen. Bernie Sanders to make his exit, while 15 percent harbor the unlikelier dream of Clinton deciding to quit. The percentage who think that Sanders should drop out has risen sharply since late April, when a HuffPost/YouGov survey found that just one-fifth wanted him to go. Fifty-five percent say now that only Clinton has a real chance of becoming the nominee….Democrats still see Clinton as their stronger general election candidate. Forty percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say that only Clinton could win the presidency, while 40 percent think that either Clinton or Sanders could win, and just 14 percent think that only Sanders can win." [HuffPost]
GARY JOHNSON IS POLLING RELATIVELY WELL - Clare Malone: "At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. A Morning Consult survey published Tuesday and found Clinton getting 38 percent of the vote, Trump 35 and Johnson 10, with 17 percent undecided….Given that Trump and Clinton are sporting historically high negative ratings, Johnson’s polling makes a fair bit of sense; Gary Johnson is neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton. He might not win a state, but he could make some noise." [538]
Why Johnson isn’t in the HuffPost Pollster charts yet - Many pollsters aren’t including Johnson by name in their ballot test questions, so currently, HuffPost Pollster is categorizing his support under "other" in our charts. To see if an individual survey included Johnson, click on the name of the poll to see the details. We’re constantly assessing the way we handle third party candidates and will adjust if pollsters begin including Johnson more frequently.
IT’S MAY; ARGUING OVER POLL DIFFERENCES IS FUTILE - Mark Mellman (D): “[T]here is little doubt the presidential race has tightened considerably….But today’s tight race does not necessarily imply a tight race in November. As we get of tired of saying and hearing, polls are a snapshot in time, not a prediction of what will happen in six months. Indeed, we are now in an unusual period in which we have come to expect a candidate still in the midst of the primary process to be experiencing difficulty relative to someone who has “won” his nomination…. While it’s been suggested the recent polls offer radically different results, they really don’t….There’s no huge variation, especially after focusing on each candidate’s relationship to the averages…. Battling over 1 or 2 points, or even 5, in the May polls is not a particularly informative exercise. The race looks close now, but let’s check back again after Clinton clinches her nomination, and then after the conventions, before we start making fine-grained predictions about the outcome.” [The Hill]
AMERICANS STAND DIVIDED IN DEFINING GENDER - PBS: "[Forty-five percent] of Americans think the sex listed on a person’s birth certificate is the only way to define a person’s gender. 41% of residents, though, think that definition is outdated and needs to be updated to include a person’s gender identity. A majority of Americans who know a transgender or gender fluid person, 50%, are more likely than those who do not, 34%, to say the definition of gender should be revised to include identity. Women, 48%, and residents under 45 years old, 47%, are more likely than men, 33%, and Americans 45 or older, 35%, to have this view. Regional differences are also present. Americans living in the Northeast, 51%, and West, 49%, are more likely than residents in the Midwest, 24%, to believe the meaning of gender should move beyond the sex listed on a person’s birth certificate and should include how a person self-describes his or her identity. Americans who live in the South divide. 41% share this view, and 43% believe gender should remain defined as an individual’s sex at birth." [PBS]
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WEDNESDAY'S 'OUTLIERS' - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Hillary Clinton has an overall better image than Donald Trump. [Gallup]
-Joy-Ann Reid argues that Trump is driving a white nostalgia movement. [Daily Beast]
-Philip Bump thinks that demographic divides will eventually catch up with Trump. [WashPost]
-Jeff Stein interviews five pollsters on whether Trump is really running ahead of Clinton. [Vox]
-Harry Enten explains why he's convinced Clinton will win New Jersey. [538]
-For the first time in modern history, young adults in the U.S. are most likely to be living with their parents. [Pew]