The U.S. Political Personality (III): Presidential Candidates

We expect that U.S. presidential elections will be contentious. That always sounds worse than it is. With no disagreement or even controversy, what difference does it make who we choose for president? The whole point of an election is to decide who is best suited for the office. If candidates were all the same and agreed, we could pull a name from a hat and be done with it.

So, maybe being contentious isn’t as bad as it sounds. On the other hand, if we value contention, we may have an “embarrassment of riches” this year, because of the strong differences. Then again, if we separate civility and unnecessarily harsh tones from reasonable contention, it might simply leave us with only the “embarrassment” part of that phrase. Regardless, 2016 will go down in history as one of the more unique election years. But our job here is not to editorialize.

It is our ongoing quest to find out more about personality types and traits, and how they relate to the world. To that end, we have asked our readers to tell us their choices for presidential candidates. Then we matched this with their personality types. From that we were able to glean interesting information about the people who choose particular candidates. We have already covered party preferences and voter involvement in two previous articles of this series – this article will focus on the candidates themselves.

It’s important to keep in mind that this is a snapshot of the supporters of the candidates, and not necessarily the candidates themselves. It would make sense that supporters who identify with certain candidates may share similar personality traits with them. However, our data doesn’t guarantee that sort of bridge and shouldn’t be taken to represent the candidate – just his or her supporters as they have given us their own responses.

We have not only included the three candidates that are currently still running – Trump (unopposed), Clinton and Sanders – but also a couple of “honorable mentions” – Cruz and Kasich – who survived a good run until recently in the primary.

A word about bias. Bias is hard to avoid at the best of times during an election year. It is particularly hard when some of the candidates are larger than life and almost a caricature of themselves. Before describing a candidate in a certain way, we put the description through a test. Would a news anchor feel comfortable describing the candidate this way? Not pundits. Not editorial boards. Not opponents. Not supporters. But anchors. We know that not all news anchors are unbiased, but that’s the closest thing we have to it. They’re supposed to be. So, if we say, for example, a candidate is divisive, that is not just our opinion. It’s common wisdom as revealed by the media. It’s not perfect but it’s some measure by which we try to stay honest. History is history and opinions are opinions, and they aren’t the same thing.

This site is about personalities not politics, so, from that perspective, we don’t have a dog in this fight. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t point out both the good characteristics and bad characteristics of the candidate as they are typically presented through the news.

For those interested in the numbers: Since our respondents are self-selected, they do not represent the same demographic you might see represented in a national poll. Since we don’t pick respondents randomly from the population, our polls aren’t a mirror of the country. The numbers won’t match. For example, in the larger world, Bernie Sanders continues to trail just behind Hillary Clinton. In contrast, our respondents are “Bernie voters” significantly more than they are “Hillary voters.” By our online poll, Bernie should be way out ahead of his opponent. However, the real results of the primary and the news organization polls place him second.

However, it’s not necessary to reflect the population exactly in a poll to get good information. We’re not interested in finding out how a certain state is likely to vote, for example. Rather, our goal is to compare different voter groups from the personality perspective. Because of our large sample (over 1600 respondents), we can speculate about the leanings of a trait in an informed way when it’s compared in a relative fashion to other traits. It’s a matter of comparing our data about how those with certain traits vote relative to other traits.

The Clinton Supporter

It may not surprise Bernie supporters that those who chose Hillary as their first choice are almost exact opposites to those who support Bernie. (And we use the familiar first name here because everybody wants to be a populist now. First name usage seems to be in vogue, especially on the Democratic side.) Where Hillary supporters lean Extraverted, Bernie’s lean Introverted. Hillary folks are more Observant; Bernie’s are more Intuitive. Same with most of the traits. There is a nearly perfect polarity between the two candidates’ supporters. From a personality standpoint, it does suggest they appeal to very different crowds. This may not bode well for reuniting the Democratic party after the primary season.

Then on the other hand, we also asked our respondents about their second choices for president. Those who chose Hillary or Bernie in the first round, overwhelmingly (~95%) agreed they would support the other Democratic candidate as their second choice, regardless of their personality traits. Thinking and Assertive types were the most reluctant, with ~9% defecting to Donald Trump’s camp. Based on this, perhaps we can offer some hope for Democratic Party unity after all. (Of course, there are many other factors than personality types. Some may just decide to sit out the election rather than vote for their second choice.)

So, who follows Hillary? Her supporters are more likely to be Extraverted, Observant, Feeling, Judging and Assertive. These personality traits speak to concrete orderliness and predictability. Interestingly, those in our survey who claimed they were Democrats were more likely to say they were Intuitive, Prospecting and Turbulent. While clearly Hillary is getting enough votes that it would be hard to deny that enough Democrats support her, this data might suggest the fit isn’t perfect with the majority of Democrats.

Of the three remaining primary candidates, Hillary is perhaps the most “known quantity” in politics. Americans have seen her as First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. Whether one likes her or not, she’s a brand everybody knows and she offers few surprises. (That doesn’t mean she hasn’t changed her position in reaction to Bernie pulling her left. Nonetheless, her basic political style is familiar to all Americans.) This would appeal to Sentinels with their appreciation for tradition and predictability. However, during this particular election season, being known may not be all it’s cracked up to be. People seem to be looking for change and her “sameness” might be spoiling her attempts to close deal against more revolutionary Bernie in the primaries.