Mobile Survey Shows Bernie in the Lead, Trump Losing Share

Mobile is the new way to survey Americans

Survey stats: We polled 700 Americans after the New Hampshire Debates
What we discovered: Hillary Clinton lost her lead, and Donald Trump lost ground– despite attending the debate
Most surprising:  90% plan on voting in November, but 46% say their decision can be swayed. And the majority of participants believed the Panthers would win.

We reached out to over 2000 Americans via their mobile phone to see who tuned into this weeks Democratic and Republican debates. Of them, 700 (36%) answered our questions on who is most electable, the key issues they care about, and how this week’s debates will affect their decision in November’s election.

700 Americans completed our mobile survey in a few hours, here’s the breakdown by gender, age, and political affiliation:

Gender

  • 58% female
  • 42% male

Age

  • 18% 18-34
  • 32% 25-34
  • 22% 35-44
  • 16% 45-54
  • 12% >54

Affiliation

  • 34% Republican
  • 39% Democrat
  • 27% Independent

1) Do the debates matter? 

  • 44% – Yes they allow the public to know where the candidate stand
  • 36% – Yes, but feel politicians change their tactics to get votes
  • 16% – No, because politicians will say anything to get elected
  • 4% – No, there are better ways to get their message out

2) How did the Democratic candidates do?

Of those 544 who watched the Democratic debate;

53% felt that prior to the Democratic, Hillary Clinton was the leading candidate, compared to 47% for Bernie Sanders. Prior to that, our Iowa poll showed Hillary commanding 62% of the lead.

After the town hall, who did the voters believe was “most electable”?

  1. Hillary Clinton – 47%
  2. Bernie Sanders – 53%

Secretary of State Clinton lost ground again in our poll, and Bernie Sanders is now the most electable candidate – as determined by respondents across the country.

3) Trump lost ground in Iowa, did he regain momentum in New Hampshire?

Ted Cruz scored a remarkable victory in Iowa, and our poll showed him gaining ground after the debate.

After the New Hampshire debate, the most electable candidate is still Trump as stated by 34% of respondents. But that’s a drop of 5 points – and NOT just in New Hampshire as our respondents were randomly selected to participate on their mobile phone from across the country. Here’s who the 564 participants who watched the Republican debate believed is the most electable candidate:

  1. Donald Trump – 34%
  2. Ted Cruz – 21%
  3. Marco Rubio – 12%
  4. Ben Carson – 11%
  5. Jeb Bush – 9%
  6. Chris Christie – 7%
  7. John Kasich – 5%

4) What are the important topics for the election?

Among 12 categories presented to respondents, the usual suspects in the lead are the Economy & Healthcare (tied 1st) Education, and Taxes (tied 2nd). We added two new categories – “Legalization of Marijuana” and “Sports Betting” to see how important they were to likely voters:

  1. Economy
  2. Healthcare
  3. Taxes
  4. Education
  5. Government Spending
  6. Immigration
  7. Gun Control
  8. Public Safety
  9. Environment
  10. Foreign Policy
  11. Legalization of Marijuana
  12. Abortion
  13. Religion
  14. Sports Betting

5) What’s the impact on future voting choices? Is there any effect on November election? Candidates should take note.

  • 90% of respondents plan on voting in November
  • 54% say they know who they will vote for
  • 26% say that their decision can be swayed
  • 20% still don’t know

There’s a lot of time between now and then, and a lot of votes that can be won – or lost, depending on your performance (or failure to appear) in the upcoming debates.

6) Mobile phones are the new way to survey to gain the opinions of Americans on the election – and anything else you’d want to know

We surveyed over 2000 Americans in just a few hours to reach 700 respondents who watched at least one of the debates.

We found that the majority -49%- of likely voters in our survey thought the Carolina Panthers would win, compared to 40% for the Broncos. The other 11% still gave the New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals a chance. Maybe it’s not to late for some of the candidates who recently dropped out to make another run.

Traditional polling relies on in-person interviews, or phone calls that take 15-20 min. However, many Americans across all age groups rely on their cell phones as their primary means of communication (57%), and many have even switched to wireless-only (41%).

For more on this survey, and to customize the results views by question or answer, check out the results here.