Folks, with the 2024 Republican nomination contest just starting to gear up (yes, its just starting! In fact, it won’t ‘start’ for the bulk of the Republican primary electorate until October or November) it’s time to discuss one of the main limitations, and abuses of, presidential nomination polling.
In 2019 and early 2020, I spent A LOT of time trying to explain most 2020 Democratic primary voters had no idea who Pete Buttigieg or Beto O’Rourke even were.
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Even after Beto’s exciting Texas senate bid that raised more than $70 million dollars in 2018, 40% of Democratic Party (primary voters are the most engaged voters in the entire nation) had no idea who he was. DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY VOTERS.
This is why I continue to bang the drum that presidential nomination campaigns begin and end on name ID. Those who have reached saturation name ID the year heading into the primary year will usually be the same one or two candidates who end up being competitive to actually win the nomination. The rest of the field is filler (but don’t cry for them, running for president even as a long shot candidate comes with many excellent consolation prizes).
I mention all of this again because we’re already starting to see polling data that is asking questions of favorability data the data itself can not answer.
Case in point, this Harvard CAPS Harris poll which presents favorability margins for the Republican primary field along with some other notable political figures like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (yes, those are sarcasm asterisks).
I want you to pay close attention to the dark and light gray bands in this data because it will tell you a lot about the American electorate. Once you move past the former Vice President Mike Pence, you’ll start to see name ID take a sharp nose dive. 34% of respondents were like Nikki who? For all your angst about Kristin Sinema 55% of American voters have no idea who she is.
Tim Scott’s biggest problem won’t be convincing Republican Party primary voters he’s a better nominee than Donald Trump, its convincing Republican primary voters he exists, and as far as nomination politics goes, its a tale as old as time.
Given this voter ‘knowledge’ constraint, it’s important for pollsters to acknowledge the limitations of data like these in terms of being able to draw substantive insights.
You can compare net favorability for political figures with comparable name ID saturation with each other. For example, net favorability between Biden, Trump, Harris, Musk, Putin, Desantis, Clinton, and probably Pence are valid inferences to draw from these data. Outside of the high name ID subgroup, you aren’t measuring net favorability. And by limiting our analysis in this way, we can learn one very interesting takeaway: America loves celebrities. Always have (here’s looking at you Ronnie and Arnold), always will.
One final note: I get poo poo’d on this quite a bit from other strategists but the biggest strategic advantage House Republicans have right now is that like in 2010, Republicans can use control of the House to drag down Biden’s approvals and remain largely invisible while they do it. As of May 2023, 32% of voters have no idea who Kevin McCarthy is. If we want to win in 2024, we need to change that. It will not change itself.
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