Welcome back to the Data for Progress newsletter, your weekly update on our research, blog posts, and memes.

Memo: How The First Debates Changed The Race
Last week, we released a huge, 16 page memo documenting how the debates changed the 2020 race, based on our polling data.

In terms of a name recognition, three candidates stood out with a more than 5 percent increase: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Julian Castro. But when it came to polling boosts, there was just one clear victor: Harris.



Largely as a result of her fiery interchange with Joe Biden, Harris surged in the polls, while Biden lost significant ground. The other candidates barely shifted, with small dips for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and small boosts for Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker.

As a result of Biden’s large drop, our polling shows that Biden and Warren are now statistically indistinguishable from one another.

Harris also won the debate from a voter consideration standpoint. She began the debate with 45 percent of voters considering her and finished with 56 percent. Julian Castro also succeeded in this metric, with a 10 point rise. Notably, despite losing topline support, Joe Biden’s consideration number only dropped by 2 percent.



Biden did see a notable drop, however, in the number of voters who think he will win the Democratic nomination, which fell from 59 percent to 47 percent. Warren remains the candidate most voters would choose if they had a “magic wand.”

We also analyzed voter ideology in this memo. According to our polling data, a majority of Democrats believe it’s more important for the party to improve voter turnout than to persuade Trump voters - a finding that stayed constant both before and after the debates. This lines up with our findings on voter preferences, which show that voters desire attributes in their candidates like being “knowledgeable” and “honest” more than being “willing to compromise.”

Some positive news for Biden: Democrats really want to beat Trump. And while a bit more than half of Democrats believe Sanders, Warren, and Harris would beat Trump, this number surges to more than 70 percent for Biden - even after the debates.



To read our full memo, click here.


What Attributes Do Democratic Primary Voters Value
Voters choose which candidates they support for a variety of reasons, including both policy and their personal characteristics. With so many undecided voters, we decided to look into which attributes are most appealing to Democratic primary voters.

Our polling found that, in general, Democratic voters prefer women to men, Black and Hispanic candidates to white candidates, and people aged 40 to 60 to those over 70. In terms of ideology, they prefer outsiders to those representing the “establishment,” supporters of Medicare for All to those endorsing other healthcare plans, and candidates promising net zero emissions by 2045 compared with different timelines.



It’s important to note that some of these differences are small, and they obviously don’t imply that the median Democratic voter prefers a 55 year old black candidate who is an “outsider,” is in favor Medicare for All, and supports net zero emissions by 2045.

Interestingly, while the attributes above are what voters personally prefer in a candidate, it’s not necessarily what they perceive to be the most electable. On average, voters think that a candidate that could beat Trump would more likely be white and male.



That said, on other issues relating to age and ideology, the results were somewhat similar.

These results suggest that old, white, male candidates like Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders may be less preferred by the Democratic base, but voters’ perception that they are more electable may help them gain support.


New Updates: Our Breakdown of 2020 Candidates’ Housing Policies
As the 2020 campaign progresses, we’re keeping a running tab of what Democrats are pushing for when it comes to housing policy - one of the most important but under-discussed issues in American politics.

In addition to our existing candidate reports, we have brand new reports for the housing plans of Julian Castro and Kamala Harris. We’ve also updated our existing reports for Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren.

To read these new and updated reports, please click here.


Data Bytes

• Democratic Are Highly Supportive of An Impeachment Inquiry Against Trump: With 96 and counting House Democrats in favor of starting impeachment proceedings against President Trump, the movement to remove our orange-skinned, rage-tweeting Commander In Chief from the White House in growing. But do average Democratic voters actually support starting an impeachment inquiry?
  
  According to our polling data, the answer is “yes.” A strong majority of Democrats - 82 percent - would support an impeachment inquiry. Perhaps more surprisingly, a plurality of American voters overall would too, with 47 percent support and 43 percent opposition.
  
  
  
  It’s important to note, of course, that this data describes an impeachment inquiry, not impeachment on its own.
   

• Automatic Voter Registration Boosts Turnout Among Young and Low Income People: Since the first automatic voter registration bill passed just four years ago in 2015, it’s been hard to gather data about how AVR affects electoral politics. But with new data and after a comprehensive Data For Progress study of the effects of AVR, we can finally measure the policy’s impact.
  
  For this analysis, we analyzed the 17 states - plus the District of Columbia - that have enacted AVR. In general, these state laws allow voting-eligible people to be automatically registered to vote each time they visit a government office like the DMV.
  
  In our analysis, we used logit and linear probability (OLS) models and, after controlling for variables, found that AVR indeed increases voter turnout, although the boost is modest (about 1 percent).
  
  But while the 1 percent increase in overall turnout may not be a jaw-dropping figure, the effect of AVR on youth and low-income voters is very strong. We found that in AVR states, people aged 18-24 were 6.3 percent more likely to vote and low-income citizens were 4 percent more likely to turn out. These findings make sense, given that AVR is most beneficial to those who have a more difficult time registering.
  
   

• People Want To Know The Truth About Policing: Recently, the U.S. Justice Department declined to pursue charges against the police officer who murdered Eric Garner, despite Garner posing no threat to anyone and shouting “I can’t breathe” as he was horrendously suffocated.
  
  Due to a lack of transparency, the public often doesn’t hear the truth behind police brutality-related news items for weeks, months, or years. That’s why it’s essential to hold the police accountable.
  
  One way to hold officers accountable is to ensure that “data, including demographic information, regarding all aspects of the criminal justice system — including arrests, prosecution decisions, law enforcement discipline and internal investigation records, and incarceration — is public and easily accessible to all,” according to The Justice Collaborative.
  
  The best part is, the American people are totally on board with that policy.
  
  
  
  According to our polling, 66 percent of Americans support disclosing police misconduct to the public, while a mere 8 percent oppose it.
   

• Gillibrand, Warren, and O’Rourke Are Doing the Most for Downballot Races: “Here’s One List Where Kirsten Gillibrand Is Winning and Kamala Harris Is Tied With Marianne Williamson.” That’s the title of a recent piece by the New York Times, which covered our research with the Future Now Fund on candidate support for downballot races.
  
  Our findings show that Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Beto O’Rourke are most engaged with helping lower-level candidates win state office seats. With so much political power in the state legislature, these actions are essential.
   

Meme of the Week
public lands: *exist*
fossil fuel companies:

From the Blog
New Polling on Impeachment Shows One Way Forward for Democrats
What Attributes Do Democratic Primary Voters Value?
Automatic Voter Registration Boosts Turnout Among Young and Low Income People
Oregon & the Progressive Kitchen Sink Approach to Housing
People Want To Know The Truth About Policing


Media Hits
Conservatives say Democrats should adopt centrist policies if they want to win back Trump voters. But there's a much more effective way for them to defeat Trump. @Business Insider
Green New Deal Picks Up 2 Major Union Endorsements As Labor Support Grows @Huffington Post
The Fox effect? GOP voters agree with harsh messaging on migrant kids @Washington Post
Battling it out in the mail, at court @Newsday
How Decriminalizing Sex Work Became a 2020 Campaign Issue @Mother Jones
Why We’re Challenging the 2020 Democrats to a Climate Summit @The New Republic
Two Economists Fuel Democratic Debate Over How Far Left to Go @Wall Street Journal
Trump Sets the Terms on Racial Division. Do Democrats Know What to Do? @New York Times
How Trump took over America's courts (video) @Vox
Progressive activists know their enemy in the 2020 Democratic primary: Joe Biden @Vox
Sanders and Warren voters have astonishingly little in common @Politico


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