This Race Just Got A Little Less Close: October Presidential Post-Platform Polling
Written by Monkey
Written by Monkey
Published 27 September 2020
On September 26th, Monkey’s Musings ran a poll regarding Europeia’s thoughts and preferences regarding the October presidential election. This poll received 26 responses, compared to the 68 votes cast in the last presidential election. While this poll only captures a small percentage of the potential voters, there are hopefully several insights that can be drawn regarding the state of the race.
Lime sees a drop in support, lags behind Peeps.
When asked about voter preferences, both candidates have more ‘strong’ voters rather than ‘leaning’. Peeps falls barely short of securing a majority, gaining 50% of the vote. When forced to make a choice however, Peeps easily hits a majority. This could spell trouble for the Lime campaign, which only manages to secure a little above a third of the vote. This is a huge contrast from the ENN’s earlier poll, which put the candidates at 50/50. Among the three undecided voters, 2 broke for Peeps/Pichtonia, while only one fell into Lime/Calvin Coolidge’s camps. However, this isn’t enough data to draw any conclusions on, and there’s likely many more undecided voters who could easily fall into either camp.
Scenario 1: Force Runoff
Lime needs to win 54.7% of remaining votes
Scenario 2: Lime Victory
Lime needs to win 61.9% of the remaining vote
Scenario 3: Peeps Victory
Peeps needs to win 47.6% of the remaining vote.
Assuming the current number holds and the number of voters remains the same (unlikely given the drop in citizenship), Lime needs to win 54.7% of the remaining vote to avoid an outright Peeps win, and win 61.9% of the remaining vote to win a majority, while Peeps can win outright by just capturing 47.6% of the vote.
Peeps captures the ‘young’ vote, but Lime fails to win over older voters.
Traditionally, presidential candidates are likely to poll slightly better with either younger or older voters. In this graph, Peeps does slightly better with newer members who have been in the region post Drew-Boom, but Lime fails to compensate for that by attracting the votes of the steady hands in the region. Peeps nearly outperforms Lime in every age group, except for the middle group.
Majority unsatisfied with current field, but race unlikely to see any last-minute entries
When asked about satisfaction regarding the current field, a majority said they were dissatisfied, but I will note that the No responses tended to be more prominent while the poll was just released, signaling it’s likely that the voters began to settle into the two options as time went on and election day drew closer.
Voters support their preferred candidate’s platforms, but overall seen as underwhelming, especially to older members.
Peep’s platform approval barely makes it to 50% approval (an increase from the 36.4 approval measured earlier in ENN’s poll), while Lime’s platform approval falls short, at a little above 45%. Not surprisingly, voters for one candidate are likely to approve their candidate’s platform, and disapprove of the opposing candidate. Peeps has a slight edge here, with a stronger approval rating from his supporters, but also suffers a higher proportion of disapproval from Lime’s voters. Lime’s platform seems more moderate, with a few Peep’s voters indicating approval of his platform. Only 7 of the responses out of the 26 chose universal approve/disapprove for both ticket’s platforms, and not a single response broke ranks (as in indicating approval of the opposing ticket’s platform, while disapproving of their own ticket’s platform).
Disapprovals tended to trend towards older members who have been around longer, which makes sense. The more platforms you’ve seen, the easier it is for you to see one as underwhelming or inadequate.
High platform dissatisfaction...but they matter, among other factors
Most Important Factors:
- Platform stances/initiatives (17)
- General leadership/government experience (14)
- Executive experience (12) and Forum presence (12)
- Platform quality (11)
- Choice of running mate (9) and Foreign Experience (9)
- Discord Presence (7)
- Debate performance and personal relationship (6)
- A new or unconventional idea (5) and Domestic experience (5)
Not unsurprisingly, general government experience, executive experience, forum presence, and platform considerations scored high. Personal relationship and debate performance also came up. Domestic experience got nearly half the votes that foreign experience received. Other factors including gotv, endorsements, and legislative experience received votes, but not enough to make it a significant factor in this race.
Debate expectations high for Peeps win, no votes for ‘Strong Lime Win’
Peeps supporters are confident in a Peeps win, while Lime voters are more careful with hedging their bets, with a decent amount of them seriously pondering a Peeps win. Unlike the platform approval where there were little to no detractors, Lime’s campaign may be in trouble if nearly a third of their supporters think that a Peeps win is likely. This makes sense, considering that Peeps has been involved in a couple of past radio debates and is a friendly face to radio as well, while Lime has not sought high executive office in a while, and is not on radio as often.
Voters identify culture, interior as biggest departmental considerations for next leader
Voters identified culture and interior as the two ministry departments that had the most concern. Not surprising, due to culture’s participation struggles this term, and an interior minister that has been on and off in Europeia due to RL issues. Several responses pointed to foreign affairs as well.
Opponents unlikely to enter race this late, but a few names would see initial support
CSP (4)
Darkslayer (4)
HEM (4)
Malashaan (4)
Istillian (2)
Lloenflys (2)
Androxis (1)
Forilian (1)
Kuramia (1)
Lethen (1)
Maowi (1)
Prim (1)
Seva (1)
Sopo (1)
Comments:
Lack of candidates is really unsatisfying.
Good luck presidential candidates!
Overall, I think it’s still a pretty open race, but it’s definitely narrowed down from the 50/50 we saw earlier. Lime needs to catch up in terms of overall support, and a strong debate performance (which would defy current expectation) could help give him a boost. Lime fares a little better in terms of platform support, seeing a more moderate response in general, but the voting base still seems dissatisfied with the platforms as a whole this time around.
Stay tuned for the presidential debate hosted through EBC tomorrow, September 28, at 3 PM EDT.
