The Hillary Camp is incorrect to insist that *72% of Sanders supporters will vote for Hillary* [View all]

[JimDandy]

To be fair, they were relying on a statement made in a CBS News article that played fast and loose with a statistic culled from their own polling survey. The CBS News/New York Times survey in question was taken between May 13th and 17th. In the survey made available to the public, some of the questions viewable are too imprecise to draw accurate conclusions from. In addition, some of the survey questions were withheld from the public. Also, the results of survey questions that were withheld, while reported on in the article, weren't clearly presented. And the totals of respondents who were supporters of each candidate weren't made available to the public. All of this added to the confusion and may have contributed to the misleading 72% figure making the rounds lately.

That 72% figure is misleading for several reasons. Firstly, the CBS News article that reported the results of that survey made it clear that, when not restricted to a choice of voting ONLY for Clinton or Trump, 8 out of 10 of ALL Sanders supporters surveyed who were registered voters (not just those who were allowed to/participated in the Democratic Primary) wanted to be able to choose another option (write-in, not vote, or vote 3rd party/Independent candidate)! Surprisingly, a majority of both Democrats and Independents also did not want to be limited to voting only for either Clinton or Trump!

(3rd paragraph)
Still, most voters are not content with the options of Clinton and Trump: while 46 percent of registered voters would be satisfied with that match-up, 52 percent want more choices. Most Republicans (55 percent) are satisfied, while most Democrats (52 percent) and independents (60 percent) are not. Eight in 10 Sanders supporters would like other choices.

(survey at bottom of article)
Q28 If Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the two parties' candidates for the presidency in November, would you be satisfied choosing between them or would you like other choices?

** REGISTERED VOTERS **

---------------------Total Rep Dem Inp
------------------------%---%---%---%
Satisfied-------------- 46---55---47---38
Other choices--------- 52---43---52---60
Don't know/No answer---1----2----1----1

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbsnyt-national-poll-hillary-clintons-lead-over-donald-trump-narrows/

Secondly, since the actual questions were withheld from the published survey, it wasn't immediately obvious to whom that 72% figure referred. Here is the wording from the CBS News' article:

Contentious primary contests on both sides haven't turned off many primary voters from voting for their party's candidate in a likely November match-up between Trump and Clinton, even if these candidates are not their preferred primary choice. Seventy-one percent of Republican voters who did not support Trump in the primaries would still vote for him against Clinton. On the Democratic side, 72 percent of Sanders supporters would vote for Clinton against Donald Trump. (survey showing that this question actually was withheld is at bottom of this article)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbsnyt-national-poll-hillary-clintons-lead-over-donald-trump-narrows/

So, based on the presentation of the Republican response that appears just before it, the reference to Sanders supporters on the "Democratic side" probably pertains only to his supporters who voted in the Democratic Primary. Left out of that 72% figure, then, are the Sanders supporters who either weren't allowed to vote in closed primaries or who simply didn't vote in the primaries. They would be enumerated in the survey category labeled "Registered Voter-Independents" (calculated total=359*). We know that during this campaign season, that has been a significant amount of his supporters who are registered to vote, and their frustrations over that may partially influence what they choose to do with their vote in the GE.

A New York Times article I found is more clear about from whom the responses to that question were gathered:

However, Mrs. Clinton is still contending with resistance to her candidacy from supporters of Mr. Sanders as their contest carries on and grows more contentious. Twenty-eight percent of Mr. Sanders’s primary voters say they will not support her if she is the nominee, a figure that reflects the continuing anger many Sanders supporters feel toward both Mrs. Clinton and a process they believe is unfair.

“I don’t support her mostly because I don’t trust her,” said Will Lambert, 32, an engineer in Denver who supports Mr. Sanders. “If she became the nominee, I might vote for a third-party candidate, like the Green Party, or I might do a write-in for Bernie. I’m still not 100 percent decided, because I don’t necessarily want to see Trump elected, either. It’s a slim possibility that I might vote for Hillary, but then, I’m at a point in my life where I just don’t want to vote for the lesser of two evils.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll.html?nlid=56810426&_r=0

Thirdly, the number of respondents broken down by which candidate they supported was withheld from the survey presented to the public. So, the total number of Sanders supporters, as well as the number of Sanders supporters broken down by party (Democratic, Independent, Republican) is unclear. It makes a difference whether the poll is referring to 72% of 200 Sanders supporters or 72% of just 10 Sanders supporters.

*

CBS NEWS/NEW YORK TIMES POLL
Party Unity and the November Election
May 13-17, 2016

------------------------------UNWEIGHTED----WEIGHTED
Total Respondents--------------------1,300
Total Registered Voters---------------1,109---------1,031

Registered Voters -Republicans---------345-----------300
Registered Voters-Democrats---------- 362-----------362
Registered Voters- Independents-------402-----------368

Republican Primary Voters--------------379-----------315
Democratic Primary Voters-------------371-----------357

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbsnyt-national-poll-hillary-clintons-lead-over-donald-trump-narrows/

Lastly, that 72% of his supporters who voted in the Democratic primaries and indicated that they would vote for Hillary, if the only choice they were allowed was to either vote for her or for Trump, has probably decreased significantly in this last week. The survey for this poll began May 13th, the day before the contentious Nevada State Democratic Convention, and ended May 17th, while the Hillary campaign was falsely maligning Sanders supporters with allegation of violence at the convention, but before the those allegations were debunked as lies. Negative impressions of the Democratic party by Sanders supporters have soared since then and previous intentions by some of his supporters to resignedly vote for the Democratic nominee have undoubtedly hardened into resolve to not only NOT EVER vote for Hillary, but to now leave the Democratic party.