Democratic Primary 2020 Poll
FairVote commissioned YouGov to conduct this national poll of 1,002 likely Democratic presidential primary voters that took place from September 2 through 6. The goal of our poll was to elevate approaches to polling crowded fields that provide greater insight than the usual focus on “single choice” results. We partnered with Vox, which showcases a ranked choice voting simulation on its website, and we were assisted by a team of data analysts whose findings are featured below.
This presentation of findings includes: (1) the toplines report from YouGov; (2) crosstab analysis from University of Iowa’s Kellen Gracey and Joseph Coll; (3) a PDF report of FairVote’s featured insights (we showcase a few charts below, beneath the interactive tool); (4) a series of interactive web pages (see links below) that allow users to simulate ranked choice voting and head-to-head comparisons; and (5) a FairVote press release about the poll.
How would the Democratic Primary look with different sets of candidates in the race? Explore results by clicking on any candidate to add or remove them from the running. To find the ranked choice winner, remove the last place candidates until a candidate reaches a 50% majority:
Cumulative Support Across Rankings
We can see how many voters were willing to express some level of support for each candidate by simply accumulating the rankings. That is, if a candidate is ranked first, second or third by a majority of respondents, that demonstrates that the candidate has high overall approval in the field. The below graph has the cumulative rankings for all 20 candidates across all ten allowed rankings.
Be sure to press the play button to animate the graph.
Second-choice table
Head-to-Head Comparison: top 5 candidates
More presidential primary polling
This is part of a series on RCV in presidential primaries. For more presidential primary polling, see the following:
