This is a very interesting new poll.
I think about 10 people in the last 12 or so hours sent this to me and they want me
to talk about it.
So let's do it.
There's a question about the 2020 Democratic primary that many people find important and
some don't.
And the question is, who of the Democratic candidates would attract the most Trump voters?
People who voted Trump in 2016 who of the Democratic candidates would have the highest
appeal to that group of people?
And I've said before, I don't think that the way to win 2020 is by convincing Trump voters
to vote for a democrat.
Okay, we're much better off winning on turnout since half the country doesn't vote.
Let's just make sure that people who are already on our side understand the importance of voting
and choose to vote.
It is much easier to register 10 people to vote than to convince a Trump is to vote for
a Democrat in 2020 but that being said, if there is a candidate that is going to pull
way more Trumpists over to our side, it would be important to know that.
And I would want to know that.
And then I can think about, well, is that something that I want to consider when I'm
deciding who to support in the Democratic primary?
So yesterday people started sending me a page from a recent economist you gov poll, which
seems to say Bernie Sanders followed by Andrew Yang would pull the most 2016 Trump voters
to our side.
So let's look at the poll numbers first.
And remember, I am just the Messenger here.
I am not arguing that this is the case.
I am merely showing you data from a poll, which says this is the case.
So looking at this, you'll notice that from the people pulled who voted Trump in 2016
this is the furthest right column on your screen.
14% say they'd vote Bernie and 10% say they'd vote for Andrew Yang.
And then in third place, 9% say they'd vote for Pete Buddha judge.
So this is very interesting, the idea being that Bernie Sanders is the candidate who would
most bring Trump voters to the democratic side and that Andrew Yang is the second highest,
uh, candidate in terms of who would bring Trump voters over to the democratic side.
Now this is very interesting, but if we want to really evaluate this, we have to look at
the details because there are math questions about this and there are also political questions
about those.
Let's start with the math.
You will notice at the bottom right of the image that it says unweighted and 41 this
means that the sample size of Trump voters, for this question, unweighted was 41 people
out of the 41 Trump voters included in this sample, 14% said they'd vote Bernie and 10%
for Yang.
That's six people saying that they voted for Trump in 2016 but would vote Bernie in in
2020 and four for Yang.
These are not exactly the large numbers around which I would necessarily be taking away too
much, but that doesn't mean that the data is not still interesting.
Now, more importantly, there's a political question here.
Just because Trump is prefer Bernie and Yang over whoever else, that doesn't mean they
would actually vote for them over Trump.
The question was, if the Democratic presidential primary in your state were held today, who
would you vote for?
Okay.
Just because a Trumpist voting in the dem primary would choose Bernie or Yang doesn't
mean they would choose Bernie or Yang over Trump in the general election.
That's a really important thing to understand.
The other element of this is that you might say, wait a second, why would Trumpists be
voting?
Why would Trump is who voted for Trump in 2016 even be voting in the 2020 Democratic
primary?
That's another relevant question because based on how it is in the poll, the 41 people answering
that question are 2016 Trump voters who say they will be voting in the 2020 Democratic
primary when the sample is 41 and we don't know if there are people who are Republicans
in a state with an open primary who are going to vote in the Democratic primary.
We don't know if some of them are lying about having voted for Donald Trump.
We don't know if some of them are lying about planning to vote in the 2020 primary.
The point is when you've got just 41 people, if just three people here lied, uh, then the
numbers all of a sudden become much less significant.
Now, all of that being said, to go back to the initial question, with all of the things
that we can consider and thinking about which 2020 a democratic candidate we should be supporting,
I actually do not believe that picking a candidate, because a slightly higher portion of Trumpists
would consider voting for them as a good strategy because we are going to have to win despite
the Trumpists, not by convincing them and big picture, particularly since a preference
for one Democrat over another does not tell us that they would even vote for that person
over Trump in the general election.
I don't know that the right approach is to be looking at polls and saying, well, 14%
would vote Bernie, 10% would vote Yang.
I'm going to make a decision on that basis.
I think we should be supporting the progressive candidate.
I'm a progressive, so I want to look for a progressive candidate whose policy ideas most
match ours period.
And then once we have a democratic nominee selected, we should be working on get out
the vote.
Half the country doesn't vote.
Let's find people who are already sympathetic to our political beliefs, but who may not
be planning to vote and get them to register and vote.
Convincing Trumpists either by calculating the Democratic nominee that would most appeal
to them or just like debating Trumpist and trying to beat them over the head with logic
into voting for a democrat.
That is not the strategy that will remove Trump in 2020.
If you disagree with me, I'm open to having my mind changed.
Uh, follow me on Instagram at Davidson Dot
pacman and tell me exactly where and why you disagree with me.
You can also follow the David Pakman show on Instagram