The World's Most Important Poll

We call this the World's Most Important Poll because it shows that Hillary has many Democrats that find her their least favored candidate, thus raising questions about her ability to succeed in the general election if she gets the nomination. IT ONLY COSTS A FEW DOLLARS TO CREATE THIS POLL. TRY IT FOR YOURSELF. IT'S FUN!!

The poll does many other things as well:

• It forces voters to think about all of the candidates, even those with whom they are unfamiliar
• It forces voters to think about electability in the general election.
• It lets voters share their opinion about who they DON'T LIKE in addition to who they DO like. And, it demonstrates that these two things are very different. (The lowest "like most" candidate is NOT the same as the highest "like least" candidate. Some candidates ARE polarizing!)
• It engages voters in the election RIGHT NOW in a tangible way - boy, do they LOVE polking those pins in the chart!

How it works: Voters are given TWO pins, one for the candidate they like the most, and the other for the one they like the least. They cannot vote until we have confirmed their registration status as Democrats. We do the verification of status on the spot with a laptop computer loaded with current voter data. This thing draws crowds and gets results!

Background, we run this poll every Thursday night at the San Luis Obispo, California, Farmer's Market. Patterns have emerged and have changed over time. One pattern which is consistent is that Hillary Clinton always has the highest number of "Like Least" votes - and these are Democrats who are voting.

This poll is easy and cheap to create - you just create the poll on letter size paper and then spend a couple of dollars blowing it up to 30x40 inches at a print shop that specializes in blueprint reproductions. That and a couple of boxes of push pins and you are ready to "poll" . The other critical ingredient is having a list of current voter status information. We got ours and put it on a laptop computer. You could just as easily get a big printed out version and use that for verification (as long as the list is not WAY too long. Ours is 150,000 voters). Set yourself up where lots of folks walk by and then ask folks: Would you like to vote in our poll? Are you a Democrat in this county? (check this if you have the ability to do so.) Give them two pins and then stand back!

Scroll down for several pictures:

The poll itself. This particular night Hillary did better than usual. Typically, she nets out a zero or less than zero.

Our booth at Farmer's Market in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Crowds gather when the poll is in action. We often have lines of folks waiting to let us verify their registration so they can get pins and "cast" their votes.

We verify status on our laptop, re-registering those who need it.

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Re-registering a voter

Voter marks their FAVORITE Democratic Candidate

And their LEAST favored candidate.