Daily Pnut’s 2020 Presidential Poll Results
July 11, 2019
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower (Daily Pnut considers Eisenhower one of the most underrated Presidents)
The results are in from the super early 2020 Daily Pnut Presidential Straw Poll! Here are the key and interesting results from the poll:
- We had over 1300 responses.
- Respondents’ political parties were 59.8% Democrat, 26.6% Independent, 8% Republican, and the other 5.5% answered Don’t Know/Other.
- We asked respondents to rank their top three choices amongst all presidential candidates:
- For their first choice candidate, respondents chose: Elizabeth Warren (22.46%), Kamala Harris (13.81%), and Joe Biden (10.48%).
- For their second choice candidate, respondents chose: Kamala Harris (18.30%), Elizabeth Warren (15.09%), and Pete Buttigieg (9.82%).
- For their third choice candidate, respondents chose: Pete Buttigieg (12.87%),. Kamala Harris (11.70%), and Elizabeth Warren (8.04%)
- 27 (1.49%) respondents chose Didn’t Know/Other for their first choice candidate.
- Donald Trump didn’t perform so well in the poll, scoring 105 (5.82%) votes as a first-choice candidate, 12 (0.67%) votes as a second-choice candidate, and 31 (1.72%) votes as a third-choice candidate.
- One interesting tidbit here is that our readers showed considerably less support for Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders than the general public has over the leadup to the election. Biden and Sanders generally lead public opinion polls, but Sanders was not in our survey for the top three candidates for first, second, or third place.
Oman, We’re A Big Deal Now
- The desert country of Oman, which borders Yemen, and is situated between Saudi Arabia and Iran, holds a key oil shipping route in the Gulf of Oman, which has become warring grounds between the United States and Iran following the sinking of two oil tankers.
- Oman, however, has strayed away from the conflicts, emerging as a quiet facilitator of dialogue between warring countries and entities. Mohammed bin Awadh al-Hassan, Oman’s incoming permanent representative to the United Nations stated that “We don’t talk much; we act much.”
- Oman has been facilitating the release of American hostages from both Yemen and Iran and some hope that the palatial foreign ministry in Muscat will once again intervene following the breakdown of the United States-Iran nuclear deal. Omani diplomats have met with Iranian officials in recent weeks.
- A country of 4.6 million citizens, Oman is heavily dominated by the practice of Ibadism, a tiny branch of Islam, and despite being an Arab country, it has influences from India, East Africa and other parts of the world because it is a trading nation on the sea, setting it apart from many of its bordering neighbors.
We Are What We Don’t Eat
- For decades, the race to feed more people has been a matter of how much produce farmers can grow. Then in 2011 a special report commissioned by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that, globally, roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption was never eaten in the first place.
- A perfect example are bananas, the most shipped fruit in the world, but ones whose shelf life is so brief many consumers wind up throwing out the last of a bunch. UK-based agri-tech startup Tropic Biosciences aims to change that, by editing certain of the fruit’s genes to delay the ripening process and extend the shelf life. Food products made from gene-edited crops are already being sold in the US, but in the EU there are more regulations. (BBC)
Statistically Samaritans
- Researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a two year experiment in honesty by dropping more than 17,000 wallets containing varying amounts of cash in locations around the world.
- According to the study’s lead author, a team member, pretending to be a tourist who had found a wallet outside, would approach an employee in a public establishment or private institution and ask them to take care of returning the wallet. Researchers wanted to know: First, if the employee would try returning the wallet, and Second, would the amount of cash inside make a difference?
- On Thursday their findings were published in the journal Science. No one had predicted the results. In virtually all countries citizens were more likely to return wallets that contained more money. (NPR)
Additional World News
- British ambassador to Washington quits after spat over leaked memos (Reuters)
- Exclusive: West, Japan rebuke China at UN for detention of Uighurs (Reuters)
- Who Is a Bigger Threat to His Democracy: Bibi or Trump? It’s a tough one. (NYT, $)
- The British Banking Dynasty That’s Even Older Than the Rothschilds: C. Hoare & Co. has been in business for more than three hundred years, and the family that founded it is still running the show. (Bloomberg, $)
- The sinkhole that saved the internet: Keeping the ‘kill switch’ alive is the only thing preventing another WannaCry outbreak. (TechCrunch)
- Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities? Saudi Arabia has quietly directed tens of millions of dollars a year to American universities from M.I.T. to Northern Kentucky. What are the nation’s rulers getting out of it? (NYT, $)
- A Man Began to Drown in Italy. Luckily, an Ex-Olympic Swimmer Was Nearby. (NYT, $)
Sounds Like No Teens Are Near It
- Vancouver-based manufacturer Moving Sound Technologies had provided some 20 parks departments around the US with sonic devices called Mosquitos that blare a constant high-pitched noise only teenagers and young adults under age 25 can hear.
- Supposedly nobody older than that can hear the noise because their ear cells have started to die off. The Mosquito’s small speakers run all night and are meant to prevent loitering and vandalism at public facilities.
- Philadelphia parks officials have outfitted 30 parks and recreation areas with the devices in the last five years. But critics say this age-based targeting is a form of discrimination, and turns young people away from the very places that were created for them. (NPR)
Additional USA News
- The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim (LAT, $)
- All Presidential candidates should make an emphasis on greatly improving our K-12 schools: Elementary Education Has Gone Terribly Wrong: In the early grades, U.S. schools value reading-comprehension skills over knowledge. The results are devastating, especially for poor kids. (The Atlantic) And Principal Who Tried to Stay ‘Politically Neutral’ About Holocaust Is Removed: “I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee,” said the principal of a high school in Boca Raton, Fla. (NYT, $)
- Student Debt Forgiveness Sounds Good. What Might Happen If The Government Did It? (NPR)
- Jeffrey Epstein’s Sick Story Played Out for Years in Plain Sight: How did the New York financier stay nearly untouchable for decades? Vicky Ward—who has reported extensively on Epstein, and on efforts to rehabilitate him—finds out what’s changed. (The Daily Beast) and Jeffrey Epstein Is the Ultimate Symbol of Plutocratic Rot: Powerful elites enabled the financier accused of trafficking underage girls. (NYT, $)
- Judge Gets Threats After Saying Teenager in Rape Case Was From ‘Good Family’ (NYT, $)
- It’s not all bad news out there: The Women’s World Cup Team Is the Most American Thing Out There: We saw women who are unapologetic for taking space and celebrating their victories. (NYT, $)
Fake News = No Views
- Why do some people avoid the news? For one thing, trust in the media is down worldwide. The latest edition of the Digital News Report that came out last week included some data on news avoidance. It’s growing — especially in the UK.
- Worldwide 32 percent of respondents said they often or sometimes actively avoid the news. In 2017 the number was 29 percent, including 38 percent in the US and 24 percent in the UK. The leading reasons given in 2017 by Americans for avoiding news were: “It can have a negative effect on my mood” (57 percent) and “I can’t rely on news to be true” (35 percent). (Neiman Lab) We hope Daily Pnut readers don’t feel this way about us!