Nate Siver (538): Warren's Rise Hasn't Come At Biden's Expense

[UncleNoel]

I thought this was worth posting.

Oct. 14, 2019, at 5:45 AM
Biden’s numbers are steady in post-Ukraine polls.
By Nate Silver
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/elizabeth-warren-rise-hasnt-come-at-joe-biden-expense/

Snip//

I just want to make a narrower point: Joe Biden is still doing reasonably well in the polls.
Elizabeth Warren’s doing well, too! She probably hasn’t overtaken Biden in national polls, yet, but it’s pretty darn close — close enough that she was momentarily ahead in one national polling average (from RealClearPolitics) last week. You’d certainly rather be in Warren’s shoes than Biden’s in Iowa and New Hampshire. (Although not in South Carolina, and the Super Tuesday states aren’t so clear.) In fact, if you want to argue that she’s the most likely nominee, I don’t have any real problem with that. I also don’t have any real problem if you think it’s Biden, or that it’s too close to call.

But Warren’s gains have come mostly at the expense of the rest of the field — from Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders, in particular — and from other candidates, such as Cory Booker, whose campaigns never really took off in the first place. Relatively little of Warren’s increased support has come from Biden, whose topline numbers have mostly been steady
.
In fact, Biden’s numbers haven’t declined at all since President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine became the dominant political story. We can see this by taking a before and after comparison of polls that have come out in the past couple of weeks. It’s hard to pinpoint an exact date when Ukraine and impeachment rose to the top of the news. But Monday, September 23, when seven first-term Democratic members of Congress published an editorial calling for Trump’s impeachment over allegations that he encouraged Ukraine to investigate Biden and and his son, was probably the closest thing to an inflection point. .... So here are the results from nine pollsters who have conducted a national poll since Sept. 23.1
National Democratic primary polls since Sept. 23
Average results of Democratic primary candidates in national polls conducted after Sept. 23, 2019, op-ed calling for Trump’s impeachment
Candidate Fox Har YG Q’pac M.C. IBD Ipsos Mon. DFP Avg
Biden 32% 36% 25% 26% 33% 26% 21% 25% 23% 27.4
Warren 22 16 28 29 21 27 15 28 36 24.7
Sanders 17 14 13 16 19 10 16 15 15 15.0
Buttigieg 4 6 5 4 5 7 4 5 6 5.1
Harris 5 6 5 3 6 3 4 5 5 4.7
Yang 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 2.7
O’Rourke 3 3 1 1 3 2 2 1 2 2.0
Booker 2 2 1 2 2 0 1 1 2 1.4
Klobuchar 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1.3
Castro 1 2 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1.0
Gabbard 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0.7
Steyer 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0.6
Only candidates who have qualified for next week’s debate are listed in the chart.
FOX = Fox News; HAR = HarrisX; YG = YouGov; Q’PAC = Quinnipiac University; M.C. = Morning Consult; IBD = IBD/TIPP; MON. = Monmouth University; DFP = Data For Progress / YouGov Blue

In an average of those polls, Biden’s still on top at 27.4 percent, with Warren in second at 24.7 percent. I don’t necessarily buy that Warren pulled ahead of Biden last week, as the RCP average briefly showed; for some reason, RCP’s average didn’t include HarrisX, which is usually one of Biden’s better polls. It’s also sort of a moot point, though. There’s no national primary, and if Warren keeps gaining ground at the rate she has been over the past few months, she’ll surpass Biden eventually.
What there hasn’t been, though, is much sign of a decline in Biden’s numbers, despite all the media narratives constantly predicting one. Here was the most recent pre-Ukraine version (all interviews conducted before Sept. 23) of those same national polls.
National Democratic primary polls before Sept. 23 [Go to the link for the chark]
****
So Biden was at 26.9 percent on average in the pre-Ukraine polls … and he’s at 27.4 percent now. There’s been no decline at all, obviously.

Warren has gained quite a bit of ground, though, having gone from 19 percent to 24.7 percent. Where is that support coming from?
Biden is steady, and Warren is gaining, post-Ukraine news
Average results of Democratic primary candidates in national polls before and after the Sept. 23, 2019, op-ed calling for Trump’s ****

Some of it has come from Harris, whom Warren is competing with for college-educated voters. Some has come from Sanders. And some of it may have come from second-tier candidates such as Booker, whose solid debate performances seem to have been forgotten and who is back to just 1 or 2 percent in the polls. YouGov’s polling of early-state voters suggests that relatively little of it has come from Biden, on the other hand.
If there’s a bit of bad news for Warren, it’s that she’s already picked off a lot of the low-hanging fruit. She can perhaps grab a few more Sanders voters, especially if some are concerned over the heart attack he suffered two weeks ago. But Sanders has already lost around two-thirds of the voters that he had in 2016, so the ones that remain with him may be a relatively hardy lot. Meanwhile, there aren’t that many more Harris supporters to win over.
That’s not to say that it’s all going swimmingly for Biden, either. Although his topline numbers haven’t changed much, Warren has surpassed him on measures of enthusiasm, she tends to have better favorability ratings than he does, and, obviously, Iowa and New Hampshire are huge potential liabilities for Biden if he loses them.

But our thesis about Biden’s candidacy has never been that he’s the most perfect candidate or has run the most flawless campaign, but rather that he commands deep loyalty from constituencies that often receive little coverage from media elites, including seniors, non-college-educated whites, African Americans and moderates. There aren’t many signs that these voters support Biden solely because of name recognition, or that their support is otherwise superficial. In fact, Biden — like Warren — often does better among voters who are paying the most attention to the campaign.

Now, if you want to argue that the 70 percent of Democrats who don’t have Biden as their first choice are cooling on him, I think you’re on firmer ground. And that could absolutely be a problem for him if he and Warren — perhaps along with other candidates — are scrambling to pick up additional supporters after the early states.
To a first approximation, though, Biden’s numbers have been quite steady. Other than a post-announcement bounce, when he briefly surged to near 40 percent, he’s been somewhere between 26 percent and 32 percent in the RCP average for literally the entire campaign:

In contrast to certain other campaigns, which naively thought that Biden’s support might just up and disappear, Warren’s team has caught up to him the hard way: by building a coalition of around 25 percent of the Democratic electorate on her own, including many voters that were initially skeptical of her.

Empirically speaking, the mid-to-high-20s in the polls tends to be a fairly robust and sustainable position. It doesn’t necessarily make you a favorite to win the nomination, especially when there’s another candidate who’s polling at about the same number. But through this point in a presidential primary, few candidates who have sustained numbers in the mid-to-high-20s have completely flopped. Those numbers tend to be good enough that you’ll win your share of states (past Iowa caucus winners have often gotten around 25 to 30 percent of the vote) or at least your share of delegates. They mean that you’ll probably be one of the trains leaving the station as the field starts to winnow. They reflect a measure of success unto themselves.

All right, this is getting a little grandiose, so let’s save the rest of the analysis for after the debate. Besides, the Democratic primary just isn’t all that complicated right now. Roughly speaking, the nomination process is going reasonably well for both Warren and Biden. And while there are other candidates who are exceeding expectations,2 it isn’t going all that well for anyone else.

To a first approximation, though, Biden’s numbers have been quite steady. Other than a post-announcement bounce, when he briefly surged to near 40 percent, he’s been somewhere between 26 percent and 32 percent in the RCP average for literally the entire campaign:

[RCP tracking chart here]

In contrast to certain other campaigns, which naively thought that Biden’s support might just up and disappear, Warren’s team has caught up to him the hard way: by building a coalition of around 25 percent of the Democratic electorate on her own, including many voters that were initially skeptical of her.

BTW

[Perseus]

1. It is my opinion that Biden has actually benefited from the Ukrainian controversy

How can he not? The allegations are false, and that enrages people who support Biden and those who intend to vote Democrat, it just reassures many of us how deeply corrupt the GOP and its leaders are.

I am just hoping that if Biden becomes the nominee and wins the presidency that he doesn't do what Obama did in regards to Bush, Chaney and that cabal, which was to "Move Forward" and not investigate. I believe that if Obama had made available the investigations that at least Chaney would be in jail. The corruption during G.W. was as bad as what it is today, it is just that they were not as transparent at being corrupt like the current administration, although the current doesn't do it to be transparent, they are just incompetent.

[UncleNoel]

2. Here is Nate's chart of the pre and post impeachment poll averages

Average results of Democratic primary candidates in national polls before and after the Sept. 23, 2019, op-ed calling for Trump’s impeachment
Candidate Before Sept. 23 Since Sept. 23 Change
Biden 26.9 27.4 +0.6
Warren 19.0 24.7 +5.7
Sanders 16.1 15.0 -1.1
Buttigieg 5.3 5.1 -0.2
Harris 7.2 4.7 -2.6
Yang 2.4 2.7 +0.2
O’Rourke 2.1 2.0 -0.1
Booker 2.8 1.4 -1.3
Klobuchar 1.2 1.3 +0.1
Castro 0.9 1.0 +0.1
Gabbard 0.9 0.7 -0.2
Steyer 0.5 0.6 +0.1

If a pollster has published multiple polls in that time frame, only the most recent poll was counted. Only candidates who have qualified for next week’s debate are listed in the chart. Totals may not add up exactly due to rounding.

[DownriverDem]

3. Why is it

that left leaning sites don't support Biden? Nationally, folks so support him. A Biden/Harris ticket would be awesome.

[caraher]

6. It's about policies

"Left-leaning" Democrats want to see a more forceful pro-environment, anti-corporate, pro-working class and middle class agenda enacted. Biden's centrism does not reflect what we most want to see in top leadership. No great mystery there, and it's nothing personal.

[UncleNoel]

8. In fact, Biden is 、pro-working class and middle class...

That is the whole point on his broad appeal to Americans. He is also pro-minority groups. Bedtime in Taiwan...Good Night. Have a good day in America from an ex-pat anthropologist living in the mountains of central Taiwan.

[caraher]

12. I'm not going to say he's not pro-working class and middle class

What I am saying is that he is not out front on things like the Green New Deal or going beyond Obamacare or directly taking on corporate power in the ways Sanders and Warren are. Biden's appeal is strongest in symbolic terms - his Scranton roots, riding Amtrak, and of course serving as VP under Obama. But his campaign has not focused on putting new ideas front and center the way some other campaigns have.

[ritapria]

4. FireHouse Strategies claims Bernie is Done

Berne support : 5% in Iowa , 9% in NH , 8% in SC ….. What happened ?... We're f *cked …..Help ...Help... (Source Latest Polls 538) ... PS : "I'm about to have a heart attack"., If the poll is right.. Bernie has only about 10,000 Caucus Goers left in the entire state of Iowa ...About 40% of them showed up for his speech at The Iowa State Fair …...

[crazytown]

5. Benie's support seems to have held up well to me.

I haven't seen any big cliff falls sine the announcement.

[UncleNoel]

9. It does hurt. I am sad about this. He is a legend.

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. K&R

[BlueMTexpat]

10. Thanks for posting!

To the extent that the polls are indicative of true trends (those of us who are still recovering from the 2016 result - not sure I ever will - are wary of polls in general), I believe that Nate is right here.

Biden and Warren have their own groups of supporters and I believe that neither has gained or lost because of the other. People are supporting them for different reasons and there is, IMO, little crossover except that both are Dems. And good ones, to be sure!

For example, Biden was never even in my top five candidates. He's a good guy and I hate what Trump is trying to do to him, which is totally and completely WRONG. But my support for Elizabeth Warren actually came at the expense of the four other candidates I like, most especially Harris, because she and Elizabeth were my top two.

I also strongly believe that the 25 percent of the electorate that EW has won "the hard way" will continue to increase, especially as she adds even more who were initially skeptical. But it is important to remember that a large part of the electorate is still "undecided" about any of the candidates. Things can still change.

[highplainsdem]

11. K&R!

[Cha]

13. Mahalo, UN

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. K&R