Yesterday, CNN and The Des Moines Register, hosts of the next Democratic primary debate on Jan. 14, announced their latest poll, which found that Iowa caucus-goers want Andrew Yang in the debate. This poll — by the debate hosts — proves that voters’ opinions are shifting as they start to pay closer attention to the candidates. There is genuine momentum behind Andrew Yang’s campaign and it would be a mistake for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to keep him from the last debate before the Iowa Caucus.
“If the DNC had only done their due diligence and commissioned polls in the early states, Andrew Yang would certainly be on the debate stage next week. We are not going to allow the DNC to dictate who they wish to see as the nominee and deny the will of the people. The issues that will decide this election, and the future of our country, are too important to ignore for the sake of staged political bickering. The DNC tried to run this same play in 2016 and they paid for it with a loss in the general,” said Campaign Chief Nick Ryan.
With the lack of polls put out after the last debate during a period that also included the holidays, Andrew Yang sent a letter to DNC Chairman Tom Perez proposing a simple solution: the DNC should commission four early state qualifying polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, where all the candidates have invested their time, resources, and staff.
When the DNC refused, the Yang campaign decided to commission two polls with two highly regarded polling organizations (Patinkin Research Strategies and Myers Research) in New Hampshire and Nevada. The unbiased feedback showed that Andrew Yang is on the rise and at 5% in Nevada and New Hampshire.
Myers Research and Patinkin Research Strategies have worked with the Democratic Party for many years, and have conducted polling for party organizations including the DCCC, DSCC, DGA, DLCC, and NDCO. Both pollsters would have been considered by the DNC if they had commissioned any early state polls.
Andrew Yang’s campaign is a grassroots movement that has grown from virtually nothing to having almost 400,000 donors and 1 million contributions. Andrew Yang has managed to create a broad coalition for the future of our country and the Democratic Party needs to keep bringing more people into the fold instead of trying to keep people out of the political process.
Read the Patinkin Research Strategies poll of New Hampshire voters here.
Read the Myers Research poll of Nevada voters here.