Wednesday, May 6, 2015

NBC: What Voters Want - and Don't Want - in a Presidential Candidate

By Carrie Dann, May 5, 2015, NBC

Forget for a moment the names and biographies of the ever-growing array of 2016 White House hopefuls in favor of this question: What kinds of candidates are Americans ready to embrace?

According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the American general electorate is most accepting of the idea of a presidential candidate who is African-American, followed by one who is a woman, a person under the age of 50, or a Hispanic.

It's most sour on the notion of a candidate with no prior political experience, followed by one who is a Tea Party leader or one who lacks a college degree.

And it appears to be more ready for a presidential candidate who is gay or lesbian than for one who is an evangelical Christian.

Here's how that math works: Our NBC/Wall Street Journal pollsters asked whether specific candidate traits would make a respondent "enthusiastic," "comfortable," "have reservations" or "uncomfortable."

By subtracting the positive responses from the negative ones, we can get a pretty good picture of what the most acceptable and unacceptable traits might be for a presidential candidate.



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