Winner Of The Democratic Debates Is...No One?

WEEKLY SNAPSHOT

While there are technically 20+ candidates still in the running for the Democratic nomination for President, and we're tracking them all, we are only focusing on the eight candidates who are currently polling at 2% or higher in our ten poll rolling average.

And of those eight, who had the biggest bounce from this past week's Democratic debate? That would be Bernie Sanders … but he "wins" the bounce award with a bump of just 1.1%. While a lot of people were expecting fireworks between the top three candidates, they are all experienced pros who understand timing and know that now is not the time to get in the ring and grapple.
 

No, that would be the tactic of the bottom half of the ticket, who had mixed results. Beto O'Rourke blunt assertion that was coming after assault rifles led to a modest 0.7% bump and a good number of headlines, while Cory Booker's attempted takedown of Joe Biden with thinly veiled ageism didn't get him any new support (or a drop, either). 

So, with the exception of Elizabeth Warren, who took a noticeable drop (down 3.5% after being up 3.1% the week before), there was overall very little movement in the polling averages pre- and post-debate.
 

What this tells us is three things:

1. There are still a lot of undecided voters out there,
2. Even a smaller stage of ten candidates is still too many for most viewers, 
3. It's still quite far away from the actual primaries and caucuses, and while political media types and pollsters are paying a lot of attention, the majority of voters are not.

What do we make of all this? Simple: Joe Biden remains the frontrunner, with solid support from older, black, and centrist voters (the traditional "core" of the Democratic Party), while Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are staking out the "progressive" side of the Party and are warily circling each other, seeing which one of them will emerge as the leading opposition to Biden.

Of course, it's still just September. A lot could change between now and February. Remember that at this point in the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump was seen more as a sideshow than a serious candidate...and his home address is now 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in a fairly recognizable white house. 

That said, while we are still paying close attention to Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker, and Andrew Yang, the early money on that group is in the "potential running mate / future Cabinet Secretary" category.
 

A NEW POLLING CHART

The polling charts we've been using, which tracked the most recent ten poll results for each of the candidates, appears to have been a bit too confusing and/or unwieldy for some readers, so we've switched to a longer-term chart which tracks the weekly polling average for each candidate going back over the past ten updates. Hopefully this will give a better "at-a-glance" look at how the race is shaping up.

 

UPDATED NATIONAL RANKINGS
 

After the Labor Day holiday and the recent Democratic debate, we have a entirely new batch of polls for our ten poll rolling average.

 

The Top Three

• Biden -- 27.5 % (down 1 %)
• Sanders -- 17.7 % (up 1.1 %)
• Warren -- 14.9 % (down 3.5 %)
   

The Rest Of The Pack

• Harris -- 6.3 % (down 0.7 %)
• Buttigieg -- 4 % (down 1.2 %)
• O'Rourke -- 2.9 % (up 0.7 %) 
• Yang -- 2.4 % (down 0.1 %)
• Booker -- 2.3 % (no change)

 

Outside The Polling

All of the other announced candidates were below 2% or did not show in the national polling from the aggregate of the past ten national polls.

 

NEW STATE POLLS 

We recently redid our State Polling page to break it down into two relevant sections: the first four caucuses and primaries in February, and the then the "Super Tuesday" primary on March 3rd. We've also expanded the baseline to five polls (where available) to get a better feel for each state.

Of the "first four", we have new polls from each, with four alone in New Hampshire. Speaking of which, Bernie Sanders is now in the lead, albeit by just 0.2%. In fact, the "Big Three" are all within the margin-of-error of each other. This one will likely be close all the way up to voting day.

 

As for the other three, Biden and Warren lead in Iowa (with Sanders ticking up strongly), the three are reasonably close in Nevada, and Biden maintains his very strong lead in South Carolina.

 

Of the Super Tuesday states, Biden maintains a good lead in Massachusetts, and with four (!) new polls in Texas, that race is getting a bit more interesting as Warren moves up with native son O'Rourke drops, and both remain nearly nine points behind Biden.