Once again, our combined Fame-Feeling-Fluency star chart (above) shows the race a tie on these fundamentals. But both candidates surged in Feeling: as decision day approaches, partisan voters are feeling more certain, and certainty breeds happiness.
Why is Feeling so important? We know from previous waves that Fame is at max for both candidates and Donald Trump has had a persistent advantage in Fluency. So the real battleground is Feeling, and Clinton needs to keep the gap as wide as she can.
Participant comments divide along familiar lines – corruption vs experience for Clinton, personality flaws vs freshness for Trump… with a sprinkling of ad hominem jabs too!
The rise in Feeling suggests this may be settling into a more ‘normal’ election, with an impact on Fluency. Our next update will include new Fluency figures to check if this is happening.
Fieldwork dates: 9th-11th September. Next update: Tuesday 20th September.
P.S.: Thanks for all the excitement around our System1 Politics launch! Here’s a great piece about what we’re doing.
