Weird data on Clinton and Sanders in recent poll of 496 democratic primary voters.

[Vattel]

Last edited Thu Aug 6, 2015, 09:36 PM - Edit history (3)

0% of very conservative voters have a favorable opinion of Sanders', 71% have an unfavorable opinion of him, with 29% unsure.
47% of very conservative voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton, 47% have an unfavorable opinion of her, with 6% unsure.

That makes sense to me, but the same poll also yielded these results:

Among very conservative voters, 42% would prefer Sanders to get the nomination and 27% would prefer Clinton to get the nomination.

Interpretation?

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_National_72215.pdf

edited to add: I found the answer to my own question: Only 3% of the 496 voters identified themselves as very conservative. That's right, 19 voters. So the number of voters in that category is so small the data is meaningless. So those who have been using the 42% preference for Sanders to attack him better rethink their attack.

[magical thyme]

1. a poll of conservative and very conservative democratic primary voters?

uh, ok. what'ev.

[Vattel]

2. The poll was not just of very conservative voters.

I am citing that data from the poll because the poll is being used by anti-Sanders people to try and show that Sanders is somehow courting the very conservative or is conservative or whatever. It's a stupid attack on Sanders. But it was interesting to me that the anti-Sanders people always leave out the favorability ratings and focus on the nominee preference. My guess is that so few people in the poll self-identified as very conservative, that the data is pretty much useless, and that's why you get the weird results.

[Wilms]

3. I'm guessing they won't admit they like him.

But they'll vote for him.