July 20 Poll Report

            Good morning everybody.   

            Elizabeth Warren substantially under-achieved in yesterday’s poll, marking a clear and certain end to Warren’s surge in my polls.   Warren, sitting at 718 in my Support Scores on April 28—which seemed like a fairly strong position at the time—moved up to

930 on May 1,

1019 on May 2,

1023 on May 3,

1055 on May 4,

1069 on May 7,

1095 on May 10,

1158 on May 11,

1159 on May 12,

1265 on May 14,

1285 on May 29,

1289 on May 30,

1309 on May 31,

1319 on June 1,

1321 on June 2,

1437 on June 5,

1652 on June 6,

1733 on June 14,

1859 on June 21,

1868 on June 23,

1873 on June 24,

1982 on June 26, and

2008 on June 27, which was the date of the first Democratic debate. 

            Since then she has been trending a little bit lower.  Her Support Score this morning, 1863, is within the range of where it has been for the last ten days, but until now you could interpret this as just technical fluctuations.  Now we can’t.  She was expected (based on the Support Scores) to get 58% in yesterday’s poll, missed that by 11% (about 150 votes), and, perhaps of more significance, ceded ground to all three opponents, perhaps indicating not enthusiasm for any of them as much as wariness about Warren.   These are the results of yesterday’s poll:

            At the same time, we don’t want to overstate her problems; all of the Democratic leaders are slipping backward at a similar or more rapid pace, except for Harris, and Harris is not gaining any ground.  The polling indicates that there is more interest in more candidates, more "minor" candidates, and that the leaders are not pulling away from the field—yet.   It’s still about 170 days until the Iowa Caucuses.  One assumes that the field will focus on a limited number of candidates by that time. 

            Since yesterday, Tulsi Gabbard is up 32 points as a result of yesterday’s poll, in which she overachieved by 80%.  Gabbard’s Support Score, 250 (2 ½%), is a new high for her.  She was a little over 200, very low 200s, in late May, dropped to 157 on June 27, but has gained almost 60% since then—not that 93 points is a huge deal in this poll; Warren gains and loses more than that in a good or bad day—but it does indicate that Gabbard does have an audience for what she is saying.

            Donald Trump is up another 28 points today as the result of the removal of the May 30^th poll.  The May 30^th poll was four Republicans—Trump, Bill Weld, Jeff Flake and John Kasich.  Flake and Kasich, of course, have already been removed from the poll, so this adjustment was merely removing Weld and Trump.  Weld beat Trump in that poll, 23-21, so removing that from the data pushes Trump back over 600 for the first time since April 25.

            Andrew Yang is up 27 points as a result of yesterday’s poll, and he also reaches a new high for him, at 450.  Yang has been basically tied with Julian Castro for some time, elbowing their way up the ladder together.  This poll pushes Yang ahead of Castro, but I wouldn’t make a lot out of that unless or until there is some real separation between them. 

            Bill Weld is down 12 points as a result of the removal of the May 30^th poll from the relevant data, and

            Elizabeth Warren is down 109 points as a result of her 11-point underperformance in yesterday’s poll. 

            These are the updated Support Scores for each candidate:

            We have 9 candidates in Green, meaning that they are trending upward, and only one in Gray, and the one in Gray is doing very well in the poll which is currently running, so she may be off the list tomorrow.  But there are lots of candidates who are slipping a little bit; they are mostly just the more prominent candidates taking small losses that aren’t big percentages to them, but are big percentages to the tail-end candidates where the support is currently going.  In the last 30 days:

            Kamala Harris is down 3%,

            Amy Klobuchar is down 6%,

            Bill Weld is down 13%,

            Cory Booker is down 15%,

            Pete Buttigieg is down 16%,

            Beto O’Rourke is down 17%,

            Bernie Sanders is down 18%, and

            Joe Biden is down 20%. 

            So lots of candidates are slipping; there is just nobody slipping dramatically, the way that Beto O’Rourke was during June.  Thank you all for your interest in the project.