#YangSurge Trends After Andrew Yang Passes Pete Buttigieg In National Poll
A new Emerson College national poll puts Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang in fourth place with 8 percent support, ahead of Michael Bloomberg at 7 percent and Pete Buttigieg at 6 percent. The data led Yang’s supporters to push #YangSurge into the top trends on Twitter Thursday evening.
The results reveal that Bernie Sanders still leads among young people aged 18 to 29, gaining 47 percent support from this group. Interestingly, Yang draws the majority of his support from this group as well, coming in at 20 percent support.
Director of Emerson College Polling Spencer Kimball noted that Yang is pulling some younger voters away from Sanders to create a “very interesting dynamic.”
Of all candidates, Yang’s supporters were also most likely to say they would not vote for anyone else as the Democratic nominee should he failed to gain the nomination. The data comes as the Quad-City Times reported that Yang has drawn support from former Donald Trump voters who plan to either take a risk on Yang or support Trump again.
Lance Lorber, who lives in Davenport, Iowa, switched his party to Democrat to vote for the 44-year-old serial entrepreneur.
“If Yang’s the nominee, he’ll give Trump a run. The one candidate Trump avoids is Yang. If he mentions him, he gets more attention. He’s afraid. They seem him as a threat to his candidacy.”
We hit 4th for the first time ever: Week before voting starts? #YANGSURGE pic.twitter.com/jgST5hlRl8
— Chris Manik / UX and Web Designer (@manik_nyc) January 24, 2020
Yang is currently on a 17-day bus tour of Iowa ahead of the state’s caucuses on February 3. Per CNN, former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson recently revealed she would be supporting Yang’s campaign bid in the Iowa caucuses, although she did stop short of endorsing him.
“Andrew is light in tone, but he is deep in substance,” she wrote on Instagram. “I know from first hand experience the breadth of his intellect and the expansiveness of his heart.”
Williamson noted that Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will almost certainly make it past Iowa and said that she wants to help Yang get past the early primaries.
“I’m lending my support to Andrew in Iowa, hopefully to help him get past the early primaries & remind us not to take ourselves too seriously.”
A new Monmouth University national poll showed Yang as the only candidate with a nominally positive net favorability rating — 33 percent favorable and 29 percent unfavorable. Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, suggested that the results could be a sign that Yang should start “making the electability argument.”
