Net favorability can be a weird metric. "No opinion / neutral" tends to be a popular response in these polls. So someone like AOC might have 30% "favorable" / 30 "no opinion" / 40 "unfavorable" for a net favorability of -10. But that might reflect 100% unfavorability among Republicans and a 50/50 "favorable / no opinion" split among Democrats. So then in an election, she might win 60/40, despite having -10 net favorability.
That said, it's not irrelevant either, because strong favorability / unfavorability can be a reasonably good predictor of outcomes if you interpret it right, especially in recent years. Trump's win in 2016 could arguably have been predicted by his high favorability and high unfavorability, while Hillary had high unfavorability and low favorability.
Republicans are really good at making one or two Democrats into a giant lightning rod to hate on. Some of that hate is deserved. But its often just Ben Garrison tier "This FEMALE legislator is UGLY and EVIL and STUPID" superficial smearing.
Hillary was a great instance of this. People spent decades ranting about her clothing, the tone of her voice, and various Pizza-gate tier conspiracies. If you asked what Hillary did in Haiti, maybe one in ten people would know what you were talking about. And voters who hated her the most inevitably knew the least.
In some sense, it lets folks like Hillary get away with murder precisely because "Buttery Males!" dominates the minds of the public, rather than her shitty attempt at health care reform in the 90s or her disastrous State Department lead effort to topple Libya.
Ik AOC isn't that great but -16% lmao :amerikkka-clap:
I guess what Americans really love is dying from COVID
Net favorability can be a weird metric. "No opinion / neutral" tends to be a popular response in these polls. So someone like AOC might have 30% "favorable" / 30 "no opinion" / 40 "unfavorable" for a net favorability of -10. But that might reflect 100% unfavorability among Republicans and a 50/50 "favorable / no opinion" split among Democrats. So then in an election, she might win 60/40, despite having -10 net favorability.
That said, it's not irrelevant either, because strong favorability / unfavorability can be a reasonably good predictor of outcomes if you interpret it right, especially in recent years. Trump's win in 2016 could arguably have been predicted by his high favorability and high unfavorability, while Hillary had high unfavorability and low favorability.
Republicans are really good at making one or two Democrats into a giant lightning rod to hate on. Some of that hate is deserved. But its often just Ben Garrison tier "This FEMALE legislator is UGLY and EVIL and STUPID" superficial smearing.
Hillary was a great instance of this. People spent decades ranting about her clothing, the tone of her voice, and various Pizza-gate tier conspiracies. If you asked what Hillary did in Haiti, maybe one in ten people would know what you were talking about. And voters who hated her the most inevitably knew the least.
In some sense, it lets folks like Hillary get away with murder precisely because "Buttery Males!" dominates the minds of the public, rather than her shitty attempt at health care reform in the 90s or her disastrous State Department lead effort to topple Libya.