Last Friday the polls opened in the State of the Avocado (I’m sure that doesn’t reference anything else), and 228 of you cast your votes in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Thank you to everyone who participated! Seriously, I would’ve been happy if like 50ish people took my survey. But enough dawdling; on to the results and my attempt to walk you through it!

Q1 – If you were to vote today, who is your top choice for President of the United States?

Ok I didn’t think the site was this overwhelmingly Elizabeth Warren supporters (80.7%). I also thought there’d be a FEW more votes for Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar (seriously, more people talked about genuinely liking Tom Steyer than Biden in Q3, but we’ll get to that). The only other candidate with significant support as their first choice was Bernie Sanders (13.6%). And if you’re wondering, the ‘Somebody Else’ results were: Julian Castro, Frank Stallone, Vermin Supreme, and *views ballot, throws in trash*. The Donald Trump vote didn’t seem serious, while the Bill Weld vote seemed in line with how other Warren / Sanders participants voted in Q2. [Administrative note: for data purposes I discarded the Trump, Vermin Supreme, & trashcan vote]

Q2 – For each candidate, how would you feel if they were elected President?

I screwed this up, just pay attention to the average score on the right! This (badly) shows respondents’ satisfaction with each candidate as president. A 10 is very high while a 1 is very low (on the graph, a neutral ‘5’ ranking is around 1100 on the Y-axis). This essentially allowed for ranking candidates; if you voted Warren in Q1, how do you feel about Sanders? Or Buttigieg? etc. On the whole, the Avocado would be extremely satisfied with Warren (obv.) with Sanders a solid second choice. Practically everyone else is either in ‘Meh’ territory or straight up loathed.

On its face this isn’t all too surprising, but the data reveals a fair amount of diversity in how Avocados feel about candidates other than their own. I looked at the scores from all 29 Q1 Sanders voters who voted in Q2 (two didn’t answer Q2); I looked at 29 random Q1 Warren voters who voted in Q2 (selecting every 8th Warren vote + a couple more to make 29); and I looked at the 10 Q1 votes for anyone else (disqualifying the Trump and Vermin voters; trashcan didn’t bother).

Now 29 respondents per group (or 10) isn’t a GREAT data set, but we can spot some differences in how groups of voters viewed other candidates. Almost across the board our Berniecados rate other candidates lower than the site average, my random sample of 29 Elizacados are around the average if not a bit higher, and the group of 10 StatisticallyInsignificados are a bit higher as well. I’ll let y’all draw conclusions, but do keep a few things in mind: the ‘baseline’ are mostly Warren votes, the size of the non-Warren groups, and … averages are inherently a generalization!

Allow me to amuse you with some sillier things in the Q2 results, and we’ll move on.

• Most frequent score for each candidate? Biden: 5 (64). Bloomberg: 2 (49). Buttigieg: 6 (51). Klobuchar: 6 (46). Gabbard: 1 (65). Sanders: 8 (59). Steyer: 6 (38). Warren: 10 (145). Trump: 1 (213). Weld: 2 (55).
• There were seven instances of Trump receiving a score other than a 1; all of them 2s. In four of these cases, another candidate was rated a 1: Bloomberg twice, Gabbard once, and another with both Gabbard & Weld scored below Trump.
• Had Bloomberg received a single score of 1 instead of 2, he would’ve joined Gabbard as the only Democratic candidates who consistently gained more votes as their score went down.
• Elizabeth Warren never scored a ‘3’, the only candidate to achieve this.

Q3 – Care to share why you chose the candidate you did? Those you didn’t?

• The most frequent sentiment given by Warren supporters was a belief in her ability to accomplish policy goals and govern effectively by being competent both administratively and politically.
• Relatedly, the most frequent reason given for Sanders not as a first choice was a concern that he would not be able to accomplish policy goals once in office.
• The most frequent sentiment given by Sanders supporters was the desire to enact sweeping progressive reforms to the American economy, government, and society.
• Among Sanders supporters who voiced weighing other candidates, most expressed satisfaction with Warren as a second choice.
• Most respondents who mentioned the ‘moderate’ candidates (Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar) broadly expressed a reluctance toward returning to the status quo.
• Biden was mentioned more often than the others, typically as ‘not terrible / not great’. Buttigieg was considered by some to be a good choice for his policies, but more often mentioned as inexperienced or ideologically vague. Few mentioned Klobuchar individually.
• Several respondents expressed disdain for Bloomberg’s presence in the race, both on principle as well as him specifically. Folks were mixed on Steyer; many viewed him only marginally better than Bloomberg, while a few had positive attitudes especially regarding environmental policy.
• Nobody mentioned Tulsi Gabbard positively. Some wondered who Bill Weld is. One mentioned Kirsten Gillibrand was too good for this race.

Q4 – Do you plan on voting during the U.S. Presidential Election?

Q5 – Any other thoughts about this election? Tell |R|P|M| he’s a loser? Feel free to anonymously scream into this void here, or visit the Politics Thread!

I’m hesitant to actually dive into these comments, because it gets to why I made this survey in the first place: anonymity. None of it’s controversial or anything, but many of those speaking to politics and this election outwardly despair over the state of things, both politically and in terms of values. The word ‘Republic’ is said by multiple people, if that tells you anything. Furthermore the drawn out, stressful, and exhausting process of holding a presidential election is clearly getting to people.

So I’ll end this making it about ME! Here’s the vote totals from one of the candidates in Q2 so you can see how doing this drove me insane! Who is it? Guess! And here’s your Avocado Fun Bucks! Enjoy!!