Here at TPM, we’re making our first foray into the public opinion survey business. Our core audience is definitely Democrat-leaning. But t tends to be more center-left than left-left. That’s a key demographic to look at for understand where the trends of national political discussions are moving.
So here are a few findings, each with at least 2000 qualified responses.
First, not surprisingly President Obama’s approval rating is higher and trending higher over recent weeks.
Last week, coming right off the big series of wins in late June, he got a 92% approval ratings. Again, not terribly surprising.
So who are they supporting in the Democratic primary. These numbers stunned me.
Bernie Sanders (44.8%)
Hillary Clinton (36.6%)
Martin O’Malley (1%)
I think what offsets ideology here is that these are, like all “opinion leaders”, very politically active and well read and they talk to other people about politics a lot. That makes them less likely to default to the establishment candidate. Still, for voters who aren’t that far to the left, that is a very impressive number.
On who they think will win the numbers are dramatically different ..
Hillary Clinton (78%)
Bernie Sanders (16.5%)
Meanwhile, our readers overwhelmingly believe that Jeb Bush will be the Republican nominee. We’re still in the field with this question. So the sample size is too small to get a solid read. But it seems unlikely that it will shift greatly. Currently 49% say it will be Jeb. The only other contender out of single digits is Walker at 15%.
