Rebecca Cook/Reuters
Democratic candidates at the first night of the second 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan, on July 30, 2019.
- Earlier this summer, Insider polled voters on what accomplishments made them more likely to vote for a presidential candidate.
- Democratic voters' most favored qualities included having released tax returns, gubernatorial experience, Congressional experience, and a middle-class or poor upbringing.
- We analyzed every Democratic primary candidate's resume to see who best fits the bill.
- When it comes to the characteristics voters say they want the most, not all the frontrunners stack up.
- Here are all the Democratic candidates, ranked from least to most desirable to voters based on their resumes.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
More than half of all US presidents have been lawyers. Many were born into wealth. But according to voters polled by Insider, those aren't terribly desirable traits for those running for president.
Voters said they best liked candidates who had served as governor, grew up middle class, and had served as vice president.
Insider surveyed 1,168 American adults on the prior qualifications and attributes that make them more likely to vote for a candidate for president.
Respondents were able to select as many options as they liked from a list of 41 attributes, including biographical details from "ivy league education" to "business owner." The poll then asked respondents to select from that same list of attributes the ones that make them less likely to vote for a candidate for president.
Taking the difference between how much each quality was liked and disliked, Insider was able to calculate the net favorability of each quality and assess every candidate's resumes based on the results.
Among those polled who said they plan to vote in their state's Democratic primary or caucus, the most favored attributes in a candidate were having released tax returns, experience in the Senate, having served as governor, and having served as vice president, and growing up middle class. The most disliked attributes were a rich upbringing and having worked as a banker, real estate executive, corporate lawyer, or landlord.
Here are all the Democratic candidates still running - save for Wayne Messam, who did not meet our threshold of polling above 1% or having held higher office, and Joe Sestak, who entered the race after our polling - ranked by how appealing their qualities are to voting Democrats.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Total 1,168 respondents collected May 17 to May 18, 2019, a margin of error plus or minus 3.01 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.
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