Marianne Williamson speaks during the first night of the second Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, Mich., July 30, 2019. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

I wasn’t sure whether to use the word “number” or “numbers” in the headline, but “zero” is a number and so is “one,” so it’s fair to say that Marianne Williamson has poll “numbers.”

Despite being the most-Googled candidate after the second Democratic presidential debate, the New Age author is not seeing the uptick in polling necessary to qualify for the next debate. Williamson doesn’t register in the new Quinnipiac poll and is at 1 percent in the Morning Consult’s post-debate poll. (Democratic candidates need to poll at 2 percent in four early-state or national polls and have 130,000 unique donors to qualify for the September debate.)


Democratic primary voters are apparently more interested in electability or advancing progressivism than battling the “dark psychic force” that Williamson wishes to conquer with love. But Williamson shouldn’t feel too bad about not registering in the Quinnipiac poll: She is doing just as well as a bunch of Democratic senators and governors (Gillibrand, Bennet, Inslee, Bullock, and Hickenlooper).

The latest surveys do find some movement in the Democratic primary. Quinnipiac shows that Kamala Harris’s debate stumble cost her six points, while Elizabeth has jumped five points:

Finally, new Quinnipiac poll, with trendlines from before debate: Biden – 32% (-2)

Warren – 21% (+6)

Sanders – 14% (+3)

Harris – 7% (-5)

Buttigieg – 5% (-1)

O’Rourke – 2% (+0)

Booker – 2% (+1)

Yang – 1% (-1)

Klobuchar – 1% (+0)

Gabbard – 1% (+0)

Castro – 1% (+1) — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 6, 2019