The Economist/YouGov poll of Aug. 3-6 on Wednesday, last week, listed the standings of candidates for the 2020 Democrat Party primary, and it was a somewhat different result than last week’s blog on the Harvard-Harris survey.
- Joseph Biden – 22%
- Elizabeth Warren – 16%
- Bernie Sanders – 13%
- Pete Buttigieg – 8%
- Kamala Harris – 8%
- Tulsi Gabbard – 3%
- Andrew Yang – 2%
- Beto O’Rourke – 2%
- All others – 1% or less
Unfortunately for some of the candidates, this was not one of the DNC-selected polls, which count as the four 2% results required to qualify for the September tv debates.
For example, Gabbard’s 3% finish is meaningless, and since she is facing two weeks overseas as an Army Major on reserve duty, it seems unlikely she will be on the stage next month.
But what struck me the most was the size of the poll – 417 pages (click to open).
Who would sit on the phone and answer that many questions without falling asleep?
The answer is: no phone necessary or ever used.
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A look inside the primary poll reveals the type of respondent participating to YouGov on the Internet.
Question: Do you have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of the following people?
Here’s the list of those who just said “Don’t know” by % – lower is better:
- Joe Biden – 18%
- Cory Booker – 34%
- Pete Buttigieg – 39%
- Julian Castro – 34%
- Bill de Blasio – 42%
- John Delaney – 58%
- Tulsi Gabbard – 48%
- Kirsten Gillibrand – 42%
- Kamala Harris – 29%
- Jay Inslee – 59%
- Amy Klobuchar – 47%
- Beto O’Rourke – 35%
- Tim Ryan – 56%
- Bernie Sanders – 18%
- Elizabeth Warren – 24%
- Marianne Williamson – 50%
- Andrew Yang – 48%
This raises the question of how do you ask someone’s opinion on voting when they have no opinion at all on the candidate(s)?
Some 34% said they weren’t sure or just wouldn’t vote in the 2020 primary, and 58% said they were not interested in watching the most recent debates. Only 12% said they watched an entire debate.
And these are the folks who reflect public opinion for the rest of us?
Two high-ranking conservative British politicians Stephan Adrian Shakespeare and Nadhim Zahawi – founded YouGov in 2000. Major shareholders of the company are BlackRock and Standard Life Aberdeen.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American global investment management corporation founded in 1988, and is is the world’s largest asset manager with $6.84 trillion in assets under management as of June 2019. It was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, who had worked at First Boston, where he pioneered mortgage-backed securities.
Fink sought funding (for initial capital) from the late Pete Peterson of The Blackstone Group. Peterson called it Blackstone Financial Management for a 50 percent stake in the bond business.
Peterson spent some $1 billion in a campaign since 2008 to raise the Social Security retirement age, cut its benefits and ultimately make it into a Wall Street-managed pension fund. He also wanted to end Medicare and Medicaid, and was a confidant of our Presidents since Richard Nixon, headed the Federal Reserve, and was active in the Trilateral Commission (TC).
You can fool nearly all the people... 