By Logan Philips

Welcome to the first edition of the Presidential Power Rankings for TMP…just as we close out the Fifth Democratic Presidential Debate. Senator Elizabeth Warren has firmly established herself as the co-frontrunner with former Vice President Joe Biden. While Biden still has the edge in the national poll, Warren is only a few points behind. In my assessment, she has proven to be substantially better fundraiser, is excelling in Iowa and New Hampshire, and has the best shot at attracting new support.

Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg has broken from the pack and surged into fourth place, thoroughly outperforming senators and governors alike. It’s difficult to underscore how remarkable his run has been for a small-town mayor from South Bend Indiana. As the new leader in Iowa, he has attracted intense online and media interest, is well liked by most voters in the primary, and is now a very serious contender for the Presidency.

Sanders, on the other hand, appeared to be falling fast a few weeks ago, but has since seen a rise in support after recovering from his heart attack. Kamala Harris has fallen from the high 40s to the mid 30s, and Klobuchar has broken into sixth place off the strength of a strong debate.

1. Overall Power Rankings

These Power Rankings are a combination of six factors, calculated by their weight: polls, endorsements, media buzz (from the Media & Google searches online), fundraising, growth potential, and whether they qualify for 5th & 6th democratic debates. This is based off entirely my own data and calculations – which I explain at the end of the article.

2. All Polls

The poll scores are not reflective of just national polls, but also include the performance of candidates in the first four states, plus California and Texas. Why? Frequently, the winner of Iowa and New Hampshire gets a huge boost in support, media attention, and fundraising. Many nominees in the past, from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, took advantage of surprisingly impressive Iowa and New Hampshire results to ultimately emerge as top contenders. While Iowa and New Hampshire are tightly contested, Joe Biden has built up fairly substantial leads in Nevada and South Carolina.

3. Favorability & Polling Summary

One of the best ways to anticipate which candidates will rise is to look at who voters list as their second choice. More often then not, you have to become someone’s second choice before you become their first choice. Warren has an enormous advantage here, an edge she has maintained for months, which explains why she has risen from 5% in April to 21% today. Likewise, while Harris has fallen on hard times, she still has the capacity to reclaim voters on the strength of a great debate. Net favorability show how many more Democratic voters have a positive opinion than a negative opinion. Tulsi Gabbard lags far behind the field at -6%, which suggest she is unlikely to be a strong contender despite doubling her support in recent weeks.

4. Who’s Trending?

This graph reveals how the national polls have changed since the race began in earnest last February. Warren has had a remarkably consistent surge for over six months on the strength of a clear and effective message about her bold plans to take on inequality and corruption. She lost some support after becoming the focal point of attacks by other candidates in the last debate, but she has seen an uptick in support in the last week. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have also been remarkably consistent since August. Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg have been the opposite and have experienced steep rises and falls in their poll numbers.

Next time, I’ll be posting Power Rankings for the Iowa Caucus, the big first election of the Democratic Primary – measuring the current state of the race, how its changed over time, and with my projections for election day and how many delegates each candidate is expected to win based off current polling.

—

Methodology: My power rankings are a combination off Polls (48%), Fundraising (13%), Endorsements (6%), Buzz (9%), Potential (17%), and Qualifying for the Debate (7%).

The Polls % is an average of national and state polls, as shown in the second picture. To calculate the polling average for each candidate nationwide, I used 16 different recent polls, and gave each poll a different weight based off three factors: First and most importantly, how good is the pollster’s track record when it comes to predicting elections in the past? I based this off the experts at 538. Second, how many people did the pollster interview? Third, how recently was the poll conducted? Unlike RealClearPolitics, which only looks at four polls, I think you’ll get an accurate number by including more polls, while ensuring that high quality polls are weighed substantially more then weak ones. I repeated the same process for each early state. My formula is a reverse-engineered based off 538’s poll averages– the site with the best record of projecting elections the last few cycles.
The Fundraising score, is based off two factors. First, how much money did they raise in the last quarter? Second, how much money do they have in the bank left to spend? rest of the categories, its converted to a score from 1 to 10, with ten being the best performer.

Endorsements are based off how many figures in politics have endorsed the candidate. They get a certain amount of points for each governor, senator, representative, etc. – and extra points if its from an early state.

Buzz is 50% based off how many times was the candidate mentioned in online and tv media in the last two weeks, and 50% how much was the candidate googled online.

Potential is a combination of three things: 1. Who do voters name as their second choice 2. Who do they say they are considering voting for 3. Who do they say they have a favorable opinion of?

Finally, Debates are based off whether candidates have qualified for the November and December debates. They get five points for qualifying for each one – and they’ll get partial credit if they are close to qualifying for the December debate, but are currently just a bit short.

2020 Update: Democratic Power Rankings with TMP’s Political Analyst, Logan Philips