Polling History

Q Ratings

2000: Donald Trump's "Q Rating" - a combined measure of name recognition and favorability - was a score of 11, slightly higher than that of IBM's "Deep Blue" AI program, which had a rating of 9. "What weighs 1.4 tons, lives in Yorktown Heights and is as popular as Larry King and Carmen Electra? Hint: It defeated Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997. Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer created by I.B.M., has worked its way onto the celebrity radar screen, according to a study by Marketing Evaluations/ TvQ, a Long Island company that measures celebrity appeal. It showed that 50 percent of 1,200 adults polled across the country recognized Deep Blue. The company formulates Q scores to measure celebrity. Deep Blue got a 9 rating, the same as Carmen Electra. Larry King's is 7 and Donald Trump is 11. Mickey Mouse is a 44. I.B.M. officials say that Deep Blue has received more than 5,000 mentions in the print media over the last three years. It is currently retired from chess, and now doing analyses in retail, Internet and stock prices.” (New York Times, September 3, 2000)

May, 2011: A poll found that 58% of Americans claimed they would never vote for Trump. “A majority of Americans say they would never support Sarah Palin or Donald Trump for president, according to a new national poll. A Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday indicates that 58 percent of the public says they would never vote for Palin, with an equal amount saying the same thing about the billionaire businessman.” (Chicago Tribune, May 5, 2011)

February 3, 2016: Donald Trump placed second in the Iowa caucuses behind Ted Cruz, despite having been the consensus leader of thirteen state polls. “If Donald Trump felt cocky on the eve of Monday's Iowa caucus, he had good reason: 13 polls showed him winning that presidential contest. They were all wrong -- as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, trumped the pollsters, and his rival, to come out on top. On the Democratic side, the majority of recent polls gave Clinton an edge over her main rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clinton eked out a very narrow win. Anyone who predicted the outcomes deserves a ‘special pundit medal of honor,’ Amy Walter wrote in a post-election analysis for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.” (USA Today, February 3, 2016)

A late poll by Monmouth University found only 4% of voters reported their vote had been influenced by James Comey's letter to Congress announcing that a review of computer devices had found no evidence of law-breaking by Hillary Clinton. "FBI Director James Comey sent a(nother) letter to Congress on Sunday afternoon - two days before the finish line of the 2016 campaign - to inform lawmakers that after reviewing emails related to Hillary Clinton that were found on former congressman Anthony Weiner's laptop, the agency stood by its July recommendation against charges. [...] Monmouth University went at this question directly in a couple of state polls this past week. In Missouri and Pennsylvania, it asked people flat-out whether the Comey announcement changed their votes. In both cases, 4 percent said it had, while about 9 in 10 said it didn't." (Washington Post, November 3, 2016)

A majority of poll respondents claimed that Donald Trump would change Washington - for the worse. "When voters are anxious and dissatisfied, they tend to favor the party out of power. That meant the Republicans in 1968. But Clinton is from the president's party. That puts her on the wrong side of the ‘change’ issue. Last month's Pew poll asked ‘Do you think Hillary Clinton would change the way things work in Washington?’ A majority of voters said Clinton wouldn't change things much. And (Donald) Trump? Voters think Trump would change things all right, but most of them believe he would change things for the worse. That's the reason why so many voters are dissatisfied with the choices (according to Pew, the lowest level of satisfaction in two decades). Voters are desperate for change -- as they were in '68 -- but they face a choice between a candidate who won't change things and a candidate who will change things for the worse.” (Huffington Post, Bill Schneider, | July 10, 2016)