BURLINGTON, Vt.—the latest national polls released today show Sen. Bernie Sanders (Indep.—VT) increasing his support to 34% of all Democrats, up significantly from last month and well ahead of his name recognition.

“You could say his support is a little soft,” said Prof. Christina Meiklejohn, Nader Chair of Hopeless Long Shots at the University of Vermont. “Especially since half of the voters behind him don’t actually know who he is. But, still. Go Catamounts!” she added, making a complicated gesture that we understand is sometimes made at football games involving the University of Vermont.

Engaging further in the investigative reporting which has won Twissblog more than a dozen Pulitzer Prizes, we spoke to Prof. Susan Randsdowne, Professor of Confusing Mascot Names at the University of Alaska, who informed us that a “Catamount” is a kind of wild cat, like a cougar. “Go Nanooks!” she then yelled into the phone before we could hang up, although we all then agreed that we hadn’t heard her and therefore were under no obligation to find out what a Nanook is.

We then spoke to Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, who explained Sanders’ confusing numbers stemmed from the fact that pollsters had given him credit for varied responses to the telephone survey such as “that other dude” and “you know, that one, who isn’t Hillary,” as well as “the Senator guy” and “anyone who isn’t Hillary or Martin O’Malley or Jim Webb or Lincoln Chafee but is still a credible declared candidate.” Silver also then went on to warn twissblog that there were stiff penalties for attributing fake quotes to real people, even in humor blogs.

Contacted by phone, the Sanders campaign said that it was “pleased” with the latest poll results and expected “to compete strongly for the Democratic nomination.” It also noted that “based on the margin of error, Bernie is outperforming Graham and Jindal for the Republican nomination as well,” and demanded that he be included in the next GOP debate.



Admit it, you’re not really sure whether this is Bernie Sanders or not.