Straw polls for the Democratic Party (United States) presidential nomination, 2008

Because varying presentation methods of the same statistics can subjectively affect perceived results, several reasonable presentation methods are contrasted below. Except for the candidate list and narrative presentation, only the ACTIVE registered multistate Democratic campaigns are considered.

Candidates

The following official and potential 2008 candidates have appeared in Democratic straw poll results: Jared Ball, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Russ Feingold, Al Gore, Mike Gravel, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Frank Moore, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack, Mark Warner. The category "Other" includes all other straw poll responses (undecided, blank, fictitious, invalid, etc.) and is treated as an additional candidate for ranking purposes.

Recent Straw Poll Winners by State

Each state and D.C. has been colored to represent its most recent straw poll winner. These polls, however, may not be representative of the entire state since many are smaller, local straw polls, and some are several months old. The numbers of states in which each candidate has won the state's most recent straw poll are as follows:

1. Barack Obama (7)

2. Hillary Clinton (5)

3. John Edwards (3)

4. Chris Dodd (1)

5. Joe Biden, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson (0)

Narrative

The following 29 poll results (including 9 multiparty polls) are sorted by U.S. state. Where data is incomplete, it reflects all data available at source.

Arizona

California

Florida

Idaho

Illinois

Kentucky

Maryland

Massachusetts

Minnesota

Nebraska

New Jersey

Oregon

South Carolina

Texas

Vermont

Virginia

Wisconsin

Multiparty

Raw data

Data suitable for spreadsheet import (letters represent hexadecimal-plus characters).

Standings

JB 856785M 676  56D  8 C8       
HC 113313D 231223111213C4 4 4 3 
CD  B1A9 M  98   5D  8 G8       
JE 234441M 423332342432E1 5 3 71
MG       H 889   8F  8 I8       
DK  7 8  MF755  6784 4 E23  2  3
BO C22122DF112114223121B3 2 1 32
BR 86 554H 347   496 64G7     3 

Votes (including all other votes as "XX")

JB x   52 x   98  13  2   0      3 x  35      2  21   5       1       5   x                     
HC x 1517 x  683 324 20   2     16 x 521 x x  5 349 156 74 x 55 36    5 128       2   x     2   
CD     10 x   25   6      0        x  17         25   5       1       2   x                     
JE x  335 x  594 176 35   0      6 x 217 x x  6 183  47 63 x 14 47    4 290       1   x     1 70
MG                        1      1 x  15         14   4       1       1   x                     
DK     38     89          0   1  2 x  69      1  17  28 40            4 240  26       x       30
BO x  466 x 1444 323 34   2   1 18 x 359 x x  3 195 120 46 x 52 49    9 171       3   x     2 60
BR x   44    336 115 12   1      8 x  24         31  18 26    4 12    2   x                 2   
XX x  288 x 1113 259    138 292  5 x 144 x x 18     212 42 x  8    5743  23  296 12 6   18 14   

Head-to-head

Records of wins, losses, and ties grouped by the Condorcet method.

1. Obama beats Biden 15-1, Clinton 13-9-2, Dodd 11-1, Edwards 19-6, Gravel 9-0, Kucinich 14-1-1, Richardson 15-1-1 (7 wins)

2. Clinton beats Biden 15-0-1, Dodd 11-1, Edwards 18-6, Gravel 9-0, Kucinich 12-2, Richardson 16-0-1 (6 wins)

3. Edwards beats Biden 14-1-1, Dodd 10-1-1, Gravel 8-1, Kucinich 12-1-2, Richardson 14-3 (5 wins)

4. Richardson beats Biden 10-3-1, Dodd 10-0-1, Gravel 8-0-1, ties Kucinich 6-6 (3.5 wins)

5. Biden beats Dodd 6-2-4, Gravel 6-1-2, Kucinich 6-5-1 (3 wins)

6. Kucinich beats Dodd 8-1-1, Gravel 8-1, ties Richardson 6-6 (2.5 wins)

7. Dodd beats Gravel 4-2-2 (1 win)

8. Gravel beats none (0 wins)

Total wins

Total number of first-place finishes.

1. Clinton, Obama (8)

3. Edwards (3)

4. Dodd (1)

5. Biden, Gravel, Kucinich, Richardson (0)

Win-place

Total number of top 2 finishes.

1. Obama 8-10 (18)

2. Clinton 8-4 (12)

3. Edwards 3-5 (8)

4. Kucinich 0-2 (2)

5. Dodd 1-0 (1)

6. Biden 0-0, Gravel 0-0, Richardson 0-0 (0)

Win-place-show

Total number of top 3 finishes.

1. Obama 8-10-3 (21)

2. Clinton 8-4-7 (19)

3. Edwards 3-5-7 (15)

4. Kucinich 0-2-2 (4)

5. Richardson 0-0-2 (2)

6. Dodd 1-0-0 (1)

7. Biden 0-0-0, Gravel 0-0-0 (0)

Olympic ratings

Top 3 finishes with 3 points for win, 2 for place, 1 for show.

1. Obama 8-10-3 (47)

2. Clinton 8-4-9 (39)

3. Edwards 3-5-7 (26)

4. Kucinich 0-2-2 (6)

5. Dodd 1-0-0 (3)

6. Richardson 0-0-2 (2)

7. Biden 0-0-0, Gravel 0-0-0 (0)

NASCAR ratings

100 for win, 98 for place, 96 for show, etc., 0 if absent. This rating gives a high weight to total poll presences.

Among 8 polls with no absences: Clinton 744 (tie), Obama 744 (tie), Edwards 712, Kucinich 682, Richardson 676, Biden 652, Dodd 638, Gravel 634.

Among 11 polls with up to 1 absent: Obama 1042, Clinton 1038, Edwards 996, Richardson 954, Kucinich 944, Biden 922, Dodd 800, Gravel 720.

Among 12 polls with up to 2 absent: Obama 1140, Clinton 1138, Edwards 1090, Richardson 1046, Biden 1008, Kucinich 944, Dodd 884, Gravel 720.

Total votes

Votes (total 10932) in all cases where vote counts are reported.

1. Clinton 3895 (35.63%)

2. Obama 3357 (30.71%)

3. Edwards 2089 (19.11%)

4. Richardson 635 (5.81%)

5. Kucinich 591 (5.41%)

6. Biden 237 (2.17%)

7. Dodd 91 (0.83%)

8. Gravel 37 (0.34%)

Recent votes

Votes (total 5201) taken after the Blue Crab Maryland Straw Poll of 2007-03-07, in all cases where vote counts are reported. This compares recent with overall performance, and avoids giving undue weight to the results of the single largest poll.

1. Clinton 1695 (32.59%)

2. Obama 1447 (27.82%)

3. Edwards 1160 (22.30%)

4. Kucinich 464 (8.92%)

5. Richardson 255 (4.90%)

6. Biden 87 (1.67%)

7. Dodd 56 (1.08%)

8. Gravel 37 (0.71%)