Pew Research Center published some interesting polling results today to coincide with the Democratic National Convention illustrating “Clinton’s March to Nomination.” Their take away is 90 percent of “consistent” supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders now favor Sec. Hillary Clinton over her Republican rival.
But, through their random-digit-dial surveys conducted in English and Spanish, Pew found that 44 percent of Democrats changed their nominee preference during the course of the primaries.
Even as Clinton led throughout, the share of voters who remained consistently loyal to her over the course of the election was far smaller than her overall support in any single survey…
But only 29% had consistently named her their first choice in December 2015, March 2016 and April 2016. And even fewer, just 15%, had consistently named her their first choice going all the way back to March 2015.
Sanders supporters were almost as fickle in their support of the senator from Vermont. He did slightly better with loyalty from his supporters, but still just twenty percent of primary voters consistently named him as their first choice.
Pew also found the Democratic primary race support for the candidates divided along demographic lines including race, gender, education, and age. The only surprise to those following the news during the primaries is, I think, how evenly split support was in some of the demographic categories.
Clinton’s core support throughout the primaries came from black Democrats, who supported her 35 percent to Sen. Sander’s 9 percent support. Support from white Democrats were equally likely to support the two nominees: 28 percent for Sec. Clinton to 25 percent to Sen. Sanders. Pew found Sec. Clinton’s support from Hispanics Democrats was consistently stronger at 25 percent than Sen. Sander’s 14 percent.
Sec. Clinton had more consistent support from women, 31 percent than Sen. Sander’s 18 percent. Men, were more evenly split with 26 percent always backing the former Secretary of State to 23 percent backing Vermont’s junior senator.
At higher education levels and less education for its poll results found Sec. Clinton with more consistent support than her primary rival. Thirty-five percent of Democratic voters with a college degree more more education always supported Sec. Clinton compared to 25 percent consistent support for Sen. Sanders. Twenty-three percent of Democratic voters with a high school diploma or less supported Sec. Clinton compared to 9 percent supporting Sen. Sanders. The two candidates were nearly tied with Democratic voters with some college education: 27 percent for Sec. Clinton to 26 percent for Sen. Sanders.
The group of voters in which Sen. Sanders did do better with was younger Democratic voters between 18 and 29 years old. Sen. Sanders had 35 percent consistent support from this group compared to only 11 percent for Sec. Clinton. For ages between 30 and 49, the two candidates were close with Sec. Clinton with a slight edge. Where Sec. Clinton did much better was with voters 50 to 64 and with seniors older than 65, where she had a consistent 39 percent support to Sen. Sander’s 9 percent support.
Pew confirmed that many of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s supporters went to Sen. Sanders during the primary, but just like the majority of his supporters in April 2016, they now prefer Sec. Clinton in the general election by “an overwhelming majority” of 90 percent.