Yougov has a new national democratic primary poll just out (full PDF results), showing Bernie Sanders breaking 20% for the first time.

Nationally, Bernie is at 25% in a multi-candidate matchup, and at 32% against Clinton alone. What's more, as we will see below, the poll provides evidence indicating that Bernie's appeal is not confined just to white liberals, as some have argued. There is also evidence that much of Hillary's current lead may simply be due to name recognition, and so as more people learn who Bernie is, he still has plenty of room to grow his support.

In a general matchup, including not only Sanders and Clinton, but also other candidates (and potential candidates), the results are:



Hillary Clinton 43%

Bernie Sanders 25%

Joe Biden 12%

Jim Webb 4%

Lincoln Chafee 1%

Other 5%

No Preference 11%

531 respondents

(PDF, see page 97 results)

There are some problems with this question. In particular, Joe Biden hasn't even announced his candidacy, and there is no indication that he is running.

So it makes sense to look at a Sanders vs. Clinton matchup, without other candidates cluttering things up. In that case, the results are:



Hillary Clinton 51%

Bernie Sanders 32%

Not sure 7%

I would not vote 9%

531 respondents

(PDF, see page 99 results)

Of course, this is only one poll, butUp until now, the polls that have shown Bernie Sanders' support surging have primarily been state polls - in particular in Iowa and New Hampshire.

There's an obvious explanation for that. And that is that those are the early primary states in which potential Democratic primary voters are already paying more attention to the race. On a national level, however, potential Democratic primary voters are not paying much attention to the election yet. Many ordinary voters (not political junkies) have still never heard of Sanders.

However, some pundits (including Nate Silver and Nate Cohn) have jumped on this fact and have argued that it indicates that Bernie Sanders can't possibly win, and that his support is confined to white liberals - and perhaps even to wealthy white liberals.

I am certainly a big believer in the importance of demographics in driving election results. However, at this stage in the primary cycle, it is completely premature to be making reliable prognostications of that sort. Silver and Cohn have jumped the gun, and this poll provides emerging evidence that Bernie's national support is not confined to white liberals.

And this poll provides evidence suggesting that the Silver/Cohn thesis is mistaken. To see why, let's dig in to the cross tabs a little bit. Obviously, these are cross tabs, so the margins of error are higher. However, taken as a whole, the cross tabs do provide evidence that Sanders' support is not confined to a narrow group.

Crosstabs

Vote by Age:



It is clear that Bernie does best among younger voters. He is only down by 1 point among voters age 18-29, and down 6 among voters age 30-44. However, it is not as though he has no support among older voters either. While Sanders clearly can motivate and inspire young people to participate in the political process, he is not just the candidate of young people.



Sanders does do well among white voters. Of that there is no doubt - he is only behind Clinton by 6 points. Clearly, Clinton also is still doing well with African American voters, among whom she leads 79-11. But things are a lot more dicey for Clinton with Hispanics, among whom she only leads 51-41, Likewise, among "Other" race, Clinton leads 37-24 which to be sure is an advantage, but is far below her support with African Americans. Of course, the sample sizes for each of these minority groups is small, and have higher margins of error. When you add up all non-white voters together, Clinton leads 64%-28% - a considerable advantage to be sure, but it is also not as though Sanders is not drawing significant support from non-white voters. Sanders' 28% support from non-white voters is not that far behind his 32% support among all voters.



There is not that much difference in Sanders' support by region. He is clearly not just a regional Northeast candidate. Sanders fares just as well (within margins of error) in the midwest, south, and west as he does nationally.



The first hit to the idea that Sanders only appeals to white Democratic liberals is the fact that he is actually doing better among Independents than among Democrats. Sanders is actually narrowly leading Clinton among Independents nationally, 38-35. Electability, anyone? What's more, it is not as though Independents do not vote in Democratic primaries. They do - and in large numbers, especially in key early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as in many other states. Much as Barack Obama held an advantage with Independents against Hillary Clinton, so too does Sanders.



This poll provides no evidence that Sanders appeals only to liberal voters. In fact, it blatantly contradicts that idea. Clinton leads overall by 19%. Among liberals, Clinton leads by 17%; among moderates, she leads by 18%; among conservatives, she leads by 23%. These are differences by ideology, but are not particularly large differences, and are well within the margin of error for the crosstabs. Both Clinton and Sanders have higher nominal support among Liberals than among moderates or among Conservatives - but that is because more moderates and Conservatives are undecided!



As one would expect, there is a gender gap; Clinton does better among women, while Sanders does better among men. But Sanders' support among women (29%) is not far behind his overall support (32%).



There is this idea going around that Bernie Sanders only gets support from wealthy voters. That idea, too, is contradicted by this poll. This idea is, if you think about it, is a bit strange - after all, Sanders is a self-proclaimed Social Democrat. In fact, both Sanders and Clinton do worst among wealthy voters - 44% for Clinton and 27% for Sanders. The reason is that, as with moderate and conservative ideology, more high income voters are undecided. There is not much of a difference in Sanders' support across income categories - 30% among under $40k, 36% among $40-$100k, and 27% among $100K+ households. So this idea is probably based on the Conservative stereotype of "Hollywood Liberals," and the data provides no reason to take it too seriously at this point.

The name recognition factor

The other thing worth looking into a bit is name recognition. After 20+ years in the spotlight, everyone knows who Hilllary Clinton is. Everyone has an opinion on her, one way or the other. By contrast, 36% of voters do not know enough about Sanders to have formed an opinion of him (favorable or unfavorable - see page 80 of the poll results PDF). That means that Sanders has room to grow, whereas it is more difficult for Clinton to grow her support. So what happens when Bernie's name recognition goes up to 100%?

Well, if the 36% of people who haven't heard of him support him at the same rate that the 64% of people who have heard of him do, Sanders' support will climb to around 43.5%. In this case, if Sanders picks up support evenly from Clinton, from "not sure," and from "wouldn't vote," then the race would look like this:



Hillary Clinton 43%

Bernie Sanders 43.5%

Not sure 5.9%

I would not vote 7.6%

This is only a very rough linear projection of what may happen to the race as Sanders' name recognition increases, and only gives us a very approximate preliminary idea of what may happen. We may or may not reach that point - it is for the voters to decide. Sanders' support may go higher, or it may go lower. But the point is, even on the national level, this is looking increasingly like a competitive Democratic primary.

Again, this is only one poll. But it does provide some indication that, as Bernie Sanders' name recognition gradually increases, and that as more and more people hear his message, we may be headed for a genuinely competitive national primary barnburner.

What it does not provide support for is the idea that the only people who will vote for Bernie are white liberals in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Simply put, anyone who thinks that this thing is somehow a lock for Hillary Clinton is fooling nobody but themselves. To be sure, obviously none of this means that Bernie is assured of victory either. We cannot yet say just how competitive this thing is going to get. But that's why we actually have elections, isn't it?