June 11 Poll Report

            A surprising number of points changed hands yesterday—surprising, in that there were not a lot of points in play given that we were polling tail-end candidates.   The poll really did not go as we would have expected it to go, based on previous polls:

            Howard Schultz is not actively campaigning at this time, although I expect him to re-enter the race early next year, but meanwhile he is sinking like a stone in the polling, and yesterday got barely over half of his expected vote share.  This is a very unusual shortage; I’m not sure anyone has under-performed by that much in one of my polls.   Jeff Flake is similar; he’s not in the race either and probably won’t be, so his support is also falling steadily.  

            My interpretation of yesterday’s poll, in which Bennet and Ryan did tremendously well vs. expectations, is not that Bennet or Ryan has anything going, but that the other two are basically dropping out of the poll, so the support had to go somewhere.  If this proves to be true, then the gains yesterday by Ryan and Bennet will evaporate over time due to the secondary effects.   But we’ll see; maybe they have developed some actual support. 

            I took out of the relevant data the poll of April 21, which was Harris, 54%, O’Rourke, 32%, Inslee, 8%, and Delaney, 6%.  The main effect of the removal of that poll is to help Inslee; that was his poorest poll performance by far, so he moves up way up when we take that one out.   A total of nine persons moved up or down by 5 points or more yesterday, which is more than usual.  Those nine were:

            Jay Inslee, who moved up by 33 points as a result of the removal of the April 21 poll.  Inslee’s current 223 (2.23%) is a high-water mark for him; he was at 116 on April 29. 

            Tim Ryan, who moved up by 12 points as a result of his overperformance in yesterday’s poll.

            Michael Bennet, who moved up by 9 points as a result of yesterday’s poll.

            Julian Castro, who moved up 5 points as a result of secondary adjustments.

            Kamala Harris, who dropped 5 points as a result of the removal of the old poll.  Harris’ 815 score (8.15%) is the lowest that she has been in this poll, a personal low.

            Elizabeth Warren, who dropped 7 points as a result of secondary adjustments.

            John Delaney, who lost 8 points as a result of the removal of the old poll.  Delaney only got 6% in the old poll, but that was still a very good poll for him relative to where he is now.  Delaney’s new score, 58, is a new low for him, and it looks like he will be passed tomorrow by Marianne Williamson, who is in the stale poll which will be removed for tomorrow’s calculation. 

            Beto O’Rourke, who slipped 11 points as a result of the removal of the old poll, and who is establishing new low points on almost a daily basis.

            Howard Schultz, who dropped 14 points as result of yesterday’s poll. 

            Also Jeff Flake, although he dropped only 3 points yesterday, has established a new low for him.

            A total of 169 points changed hands yesterday, the highest total in the last five days, although not really a high total. 

            These are the new standings:

            Thanks for reading.