The Problem With Bernie Sanders’ Polling Argument
For months, Bernie Sanders has been pointing to polls that show him performing better in general match-ups against Republicans than Hillary Clinton.....
General election polls taken months before voting day have a history of being wrong. According to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight, general election polls taken a year in advance have been inaccurate by more than 5 percentage points in the last 10 out of 14 elections for which there is data.
Even polls six months out are inaccurate, too. For example, at this point in the 2000 election, late April polls showed then-Gov. George W. Bush with a strong national lead of five points over then-Vice President Al Gore. Bush lost the popular vote to Gore by half a percentage point that November.
Part of the discrepancy has to do with the early unfamiliarity of the candidates. This year, despite months of frequent coverage on television, social media and the press, Sanders is not as well known as Clinton. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 56% of Americans say they know Clinton “a lot” while just 38% say the same as Sanders. And while Clinton’s negative ratings may be baked-in after decades in the public eye, Sanders has not received that kind of scrutiny.
In politics, familiarity breeds contempt. If Republicans viewed Sanders as the likely Democratic nominee, he would face negative advertising and intense scrutiny of his record, on everything from his honeymoon in the Soviet Union to his large spending programs. Like any less well-known candidate, Sanders’ unfavorable ratings would rise as people became more familiar with him, pollsters say.
For now, Sanders serves as a kind of stand-in for the Democratic Party, a lesser-known candidate whose popularity reflects the overall favorability of the party, says Stan Greenberg, a veteran Democratic pollster. The Democratic Party is viewed more favorably than the Republican Party, with a favorable-unfavorable rating of about 45-47 compared with 31-58 for the Republicans, according to poll averages. That suggests that in a national race between a generic Democrat and a generic Republican, the generic Democrat would win. At this point in the race, that “brand advantage” benefits Sanders.
http://time.com/4305514/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-general-election-polls/
