Morning Consult poll: Bernie Sanders is most popular senator, Mitch McConnell is least popular

[Hassin Bin Sober]

Still the most beloved active politician on the planet.

Morning Consult poll: Bernie Sanders is most popular senator, Mitch McConnell is least popular

Erin Kelly, USA TODAY Published 2:55 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2018


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/10/10/senator-approval-ratings-morning-consult/1590329002/

WASHINGTON – Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the most popular member of the U.S. Senate, while Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the least popular, according to the latest Morning Consult poll.

The poll, released Wednesday, surveyed more than 350,000 registered voters in senators' and governors' home states to compile approval ratings for the third quarter of this year.

Vermont voters were especially happy with their senators, with 63 percent approving of Sanders and 61 percent approving of Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy.

The other three senators with the highest approval ratings in their states were: Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Independent Angus King of Maine and Republican John Thune of South Dakota. All three had approval ratings of 58 percent.

[SHRED]

1. I favor Kamala Harris

Glad she's my Senator.

[MrsCoffee]

2. Yes, but Vermont is apparently the face of the whole planet.

[handmade34]

14. ...

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. My preferences are Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

Illinois rocks!

[justhanginon]

26. You are so right. Our two senators are two of the best!!!!

[ProudLib72]

7. I LOVE Kamala Harris

And I have been falling for Mazie Hirono.

[awesomerwb1]

4. Maybe you need to start your own

Bernie Sanders fan boy/girl website. To equate 630,000 in Vermont to "the planet" is quite a bit of a stretch.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. This poll also shows why Ted Cruz will be hard to beat.

49% approval but only a 35% disapproval among Texans.

[WeekiWater]

6. How in the world does Sanders top Leahy in the poll.

Leahy is very accomplished.

[handmade34]

15. right there with ya...

Leahy is the bestest! ...Sanders needs to get back to work

[WeekiWater]

17. I'm ok with Sanders.

I still wouldn't put him even close so someone like Leahy. Not even close.

Sanders works extremely hard. Mainly for his next reelection. He still works his ass off. Hope I'm doing that well at his age.

[emulatorloo]

8. "Vermont voters approve 63% of Sanders and 61% of Sen. Leahy"

Both Vermont Senators are popular with Vermont voters! Good news! They both do great work for the state they represent.

That being said, Vermont is not the “entire planet”.

[Garrett78]

36. Vermont is not the "entire planet." That's putting it mildly. It's the whitest state in the US.

[Voltaire2]

9. Not good enough Bernie!

Or is it “internet poll rofl lol”.

I forget the approved response for this.

[JaneQPublic]

10. Important to stress: Bernie's popularity is based solely on Vermont voters.

And each senator's ranking is based on his/her approval among home state constituents.

Every time they run this poll, I have to explain this to my Bernie-supporting niece: It's NOT that more people nationwide approve of Bernie than any other senator, since poll respondents are asked ONLY about their OWN senators. The poll simply shows Bernie has the most approving home-state constituents.

As stated on the Morning Consult write-up,

In each poll, Americans indicated whether they approve or disapprove of the job performance of their U.S. senators. For each question, they could answer strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove, or don’t know / no opinion.

Morning Consult obtained an up-to-date list of senators from Sunlight Foundation’s Congress API v3 and Open States API. Survey respondents were assigned to their appropriate senators based on their state of residence.

MORE...
https://morningconsult.com/2018/10/10/senator-approval-rankings-q3-2018-methodology/

[JCanete]

11. This op title is misleading though. He's the most popular in his home state. Not necessarily

nationally. People will be on shortly to point this out, and they have every right to. Vermont is a small rural state, so this particular number, while positive for Sanders and Leahy both, is not indicative of his national popularity.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. And no one is saying that's the only poll either

There have been several.



Here:

See politifact’s “mostly true” rating that he is the most popular politician in the US.

Bernie Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton. So, can he be America's most popular politician?

https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/apr/27/mike-crute/despite-losing-nomination-hillary-clinton-bernie-s/

[JCanete]

16. Yes, that is a better indicator of the claim in the OP title, if dated given how ephemeral public

opinion is. Thanks.

[Autumn]

22. Wow I like that.

in an averaging of polls on favorability done in 2017, his rating was exceeded only by Obama, who perhaps could still be called a politician, though not an active one.

[OilemFirchen]

12. More popular than Vladimir Putin?

Uh oh. I think a few people are going to be insulted by this.

[MineralMan]

18. So, they surveyed people in each state about their own Senators?

That wasn't in the headline, was it?

Many senators are popular in their own states. After all, they got elected by a majority of voters in those states, right?

Worthless poll on a national level. Truly worthless.

[Turin_C3PO]

20. Maybe it means McConnell

is vulnerable in his next bid for re-election. It would be great to see his ass kicked to the curb. I’m not sure how likely that is in Kentucky but a guy can dream, right?

[Polybius]

35. Our best hope is that he runs for re-election

He might actually lose. If he doesn't run (he's 76 now), I'm sure someone with less baggage will run. Not easy winning in such a bright red state.

[Turin_C3PO]

19. I'd love

to see McConnell lose his election in a couple of years.

[mountain grammy]

21. K & R

[Hortensis]

23. No one who shares blame for the murder of Mr. Khashoggi

is admired by me, and that includes everyone who contributed to the election of Trump and that corrupt pack of Republican traitors in congress.

I'm not in the mood. The Saudi royal family wouldn't have dared spit in our faces by murdering this U.S. resident and courageous WaPo journalist under President Clinton. We failed him dreadfully.

VOX: Trump: This took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country,” referring to his desire to sell $110 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, adding that “it would not be acceptable to me.”

Trump’s comments just made one thing extremely clear: He cares much more about getting American companies paid than defending human rights. What’s more, he doesn’t care that much about Khashoggi — who heavily criticized the crown prince in the Washington Post — because he is merely a US resident, not citizen.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

24. Oh good lord. What about the Lindberg baby?

[Hortensis]

25. You underestimate some others. Reportedly

Trump is losing some younger Republican women voters who deeply regret what they empowered.

[Ccarmona]

27. Hawaii's Pair are 6 & 7.

The highest ranking pair in the Country. Glad to say they’re my Senators.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

30. Sanders and Leahy are at the top of the list.

But yeah, good on them! Very popular!

[beachbum bob]

28. No way Tammy duckworth or dick Durbin have those numbers in

Illinois, so I suspect this was a poorly conducted survey.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

31. South of I-80 is basically a red state.

Illinois is solid blue but we have our mouth breathers outside the big cities. Durbin and Duckworth are high profile in a state with a large mouth breathing population.

[MFM008]

29. I like my states democrats

They are now and have ways been democrats.

[Lordquinton]

32. Knowing how approval ratings work is helpful to success in politics

Having the highest approval ratings among their constituents is important, they are doing a good job to the people they represent, and everyone should take notice and not claim it's false because they haven't done anything for them lately.

That McConnell has the lowest is good news for us and I'm seriously disappointed that here at DU people are doing more to take pot-shots at a true progressive than to take advantage of the top republican having the lowest numbers.

[pnwmom]

33. This appears to be a junk poll. The methodology doesn't even explain how they conducted the surveys,

what method they used; and whether they polled a representative sample of each state, or the respondents were self-selected.

But in almost any good poll with a stated margin of error, the 63% of Bernie and the 61% of Patrick Leahy would have been within it -- therefore, statistically the same.

The paragraphs below contain ALL the information Morning Consult has provided about its methodology. All we know is that lots of surveys were conducted over almost three months. We don't know HOW they were conducted, or whether the same methods were used in each state, or how many voters were surveyed in each state. There is no way to know whether any of these state by state comparisons are valid, or even within any particular state.

BY CONTRAST, I'll add a link to another Morning Consult poll. That poll does state that it was conducted online, and includes a margin of error, but it doesn't say whether the respondents were self-selected or not.

https://morningconsult.com/2018/10/10/senator-approval-rankings-q3-2018-methodology/

Senator Approval Rankings Q3 2018 Methodology
BY MORNING CONSULT POLLING

October 10, 2018

Morning Consult conducted 359,057 surveys with registered U.S. voters from July 1 through Sept. 25, 2018 to determine the Q3 2018 Senator Approval Rankings.

In each poll, Americans indicated whether they approve or disapprove of the job performance of their U.S. senators. For each question, they could answer strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove, or don’t know / no opinion.

Morning Consult obtained an up-to-date list of senators from Sunlight Foundation’s Congress API v3 and Open States API. Survey respondents were assigned to their appropriate senators based on their state of residence.

Morning Consult obtained population parameters for registered voters from the November 2012 Current Population Survey. We applied post-stratification weights based on gender, age, educational attainment and race.

Another Morning Consult poll:

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000165-16fb-d25f-abef-37fba87d0000

Methodology:

This poll was conducted from August 02-06, 2018, among a national sample of 1994 Registered Voters. The
interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Registered
Voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and region. Results from the full survey
have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

[EffieBlack]

34. This is a little misleading

He's the Senator either the highest approval rating among his constituents.

This makes it sound as if he was compared with all of the other senators and came out on top.