Assessing the Candidate Brands

 
How do the Democratic candidates stack up on the individual dimensions of branding: familiarity, reputation, personality, performance and connectivity?

 

Familiarity

At this point in the process, likely Democratic  primary voters are quite familiar with all the candidates. Name i.d. for the top three announced candidates is 99 percent and above.

 

Reputation

Voters have quite favorable impressions of the top three candidates, with Clinton holding a slight edge over Obama in total favorability.  Over 50 percent have a "very favorable" impression of Clinton.

 

 

 

 

 

Personality

Who looks most presidential? Who do voters perceive as the most trustworthy, interesting, likeable or Warm and charming candidates? These are the ways we measure the personality, or brand appeal, of the candidates.

This is Obama's strength.  His average personality rating is 35, up 7 points from our earlier study.  While this i Clinton's weakest area, her average rating rose two points to 26.  On the other hand, John Edwards saw his personality rating decline 4 points.

Performance

Clinton dwarfs her opponents in this area.  When it comes to having the most respect from other countries, most preparation and experience to be President and the best plan for Iraq, Clinton's average rating (47) is nearly double that of Obama (18) and Edwards (7) combined.

 

 

 

 

 

Connectivity

Last spring, this was Edwards' one bright spot, but he's losing ground here as well as the race moves on.  Clinton and Obama have both made significant improvements in this area to move ahead of the South Carolina native.