Political pollsters aren’t exactly a popular class of people (if you polled it, they’d probably rank somewhere between religious-tract dispensers and college administrators). They are often blamed for encouraging horse-race journalism and pandering campaigns. Their methodologies are sometimes maddeningly opaque. Some of them seem to apply all their thumbs to all the available scales.
But they aren’t all bad. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm out of North Carolina, likes to ask questions about wildly nonpolitical topics now and then. So here’s this seasonal offering:
[W]e find that Rudolph is the overwhelming favorite in the reindeer primary, although he’s not quite hitting the threshold to avoid a runoff. 46% say Rudolph is their favorite to 9% for Dasher, 6% for Prancer, 5% each for Comet, Cupid, and Blitzen, 4% for Vixen, and 3% for Donner whose last place finish may come due to his association with cannibalism. With 15% undecided, Rudolph is well positioned to get the remaining support he needs to hit 50% to wrap it up and avoid a costly low turnout runoff election where anything could happen.
This being a PPP survey, there are also tons of cross-tabs. Turns out Rudolph is benefiting from a gender gap, with significantly stronger support from women. Men, perhaps reflecting their grumpy resentment of uppity newcomers, are disproportionately pro-Dasher. But this could be an outlier.
