Somebody Hates Everybody And Everybody Hates Chris Christie
by danielle.schweizer on Apr 20, 2015 | Views: 160 | Score: 3
Nate Silver is the founder and editor of the polling aggregation website FiveThirtyEight, aptly named after the number of electors in the United States electoral college. Silver's recent publications center around politics in relation to the coming general elections, which will determine the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. Using data from the six most recent national polls (YouGov, Public Policy Polling, Quinnipiac, Fox News, ABC/Washington Post and CNN), Silver took the average favorable and unfavorable ratings by partisan identification and created a graphic. The graphs below use the data presented in this graphic to explore the relationship of most favored potential presidential candidate and political identification of those polled.
Favorable and Unfavorable Ratings by Democrats
| Unfavorable Ratings | Favorable Ratings | |
|---|---|---|
| Clinton-D | 13 | 84 |
| Biden-D | 22 | 68 |
| Christie-R | 57 | 20 |
| Bush-R | 66 | 17 |
| Paul-R | 55 | 14 |
| Huckabee-R | 53 | 12 |
| Rubio-R | 46 | 12 |
| Cruz-R | 55 | 11 |
| Carson-R | 29 | 10 |
| Walker-R | 41 | 10 |
Democrats gave Democratic candidates higher favorable rankings and lower unfavorable rankings, while simultaneously giving Republican candidates higher unfavorable rankings and lower favorable rankings. Hillary Clinton received the highest favorable ranking of any candidate by any political affiliation polled, scoring an 84 percent favorable ratings by Democrats.
Favorable and Unfavorable Ratings by Republicans
| Unfavorable Ratings | Favorable Ratings | |
|---|---|---|
| Huckabee-R | 18 | 58 |
| Bush-R | 28 | 54 |
| Rubio-R | 14 | 51 |
| Cruz-R | 20 | 50 |
| Paul-R | 23 | 50 |
| Walker-R | 10 | 45 |
| Carson-R | 10 | 42 |
| Christie-R | 41 | 37 |
| Biden-D | 77 | 16 |
| Clinton-D | 81 | 15 |
As expected, Republican voters prefer Republican candidates, as shown by the high favorable ratings for Republican candidates and high unfavorable ratings for Democratic candidates. However, Chris Christie is the only Republican candidate who received a higher unfavorable than favorable rating from Republicans, garnering only 37 percent favorable ratings and 41 percent unfavorable ratings.
Favorable and Unfavorable Ratings by Independents
| Unfavorable Ratings | Favorable Ratings | |
|---|---|---|
| Clinton-D | 55 | 41 |
| Paul-R | 33 | 36 |
| Biden-D | 54 | 33 |
| Huckabee-R | 37 | 33 |
| Bush-R | 48 | 29 |
| Rubio-R | 30 | 29 |
| Christie-R | 48 | 27 |
| Cruz-R | 41 | 27 |
| Carson-R | 19 | 26 |
| Walker-R | 27 | 26 |
Those who identify with the Independent political affiliation seem to favor all the candidates and potential candidates equally, with a 15 percent difference between the favorable rankings of candidates. There is however, a 36 percent difference between the unfavorable rankings of candidates. Independents seem to favor Republican candidates more, as the highest ranked unfavorable candidates for Independents polled are the only two Democrats included in this poll, with Clinton receiving a 55 percent unfavorable rating and Biden a 54 percent unfavorable rating. Republicans with the closest unfavorable ratings are Bush and Christie, both with 48 percent unfavorable ratings.
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Intriguing observations, Danielle. Looking at the Democratic survey first, though, made me think that the Bush numbers were more unfavorable both as percentage and absolute numbers. Your headline is borne out only with the GOP graph. Want to put that first? The independents look about a draw between Christie and Bush.
Since your title emphasizes the negative, would these bring out results better if the Unfavorable were shown at the bottom of each graph? That facilitates comparisons reading across. Just a thought.