I’m a big fan of Joe Biden’s. I think he’d be a great president. I’m less certain he’d be a great candidate for president – and his first two runs provide some basis for that judgement. I’m also a bit suspicious of a groundswell or campaign of anonymous leaks in favor of a Biden campaign, all or most of which seem to emanate from The New York Times, which is grappling – or rather, not grappling – with its own institutional problems covering Hillary Clinton. But here’s one thing I’ve been watching closely: Over the past two weeks, among some of the most active and opinion leading center-left voters, those who believe Clinton will be the Democratic nominee has dropped dramatically.
Here are some of the numbers.
We know that, fairly or not, Clinton’s campaign numbers have taken a real hit from the combination of the ongoing coverage of her family foundation (special thanks to the Times hooking you with a conservative opposition researcher) and the email story. Some of this was inevitable as she left the apolitical zone as Secretary of State. But a lot of the damage is real.
We’ve also been running a series of polls of our own readers, which gives a look at one demographic slice of the electorate – strongly center-left in outlook, largely but not only Democrats, voracious news readers and thus your consummate ‘high information voter.’
When we first tested her support in mid-July, she had 37% support. Two weeks later, that number had fallen to 33%. That’s not a big move. But these are large sample sizes – a minimum of 1000 qualified respondents on every sounding.
We also looked at who readers expected to win the Democratic primary, regardless of who they supported.
In mid-July, 78% believed she would be the eventual nominee. Two weeks later, only 64% believed Clinton would be the eventual nominee. Again, these are large sample sizes. And in two weeks, that’s a pretty big drop. We’re not the only ones seeing numbers like this. And I think you have to see this Biden boomlet, whoever is behind it, in that context.
