Have we reached peak Bloomberg? New poll shows potential drop off and a spike in dissatisfaction

Yana Paskova / Getty

Michael Bloomberg prepares to speak at the Christian Cultural Center on November 17, 2019 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

• Insider's latest poll found a spike in voter dissatisfaction with Bloomberg as the potential Democratic nominee.
• Bloomberg's profile in the race has risen since Iowa and New Hampshire - where he did not compete - as he's set to enter the debate stage tonight and hit the ballot on Super Tuesday.
• The former New York City Mayor's net support for the nomination may have hit a ceiling.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After seeing consistent gains for months, Michael Bloomberg may have reached his ceiling in voter support for the Democratic nomination, according to Insider's latest poll.

Between the last poll in the field ahead of the New Hampshire Primary and yesterday, Bloomberg saw a spike in voters saying they would be disatisfied with him as the nominee to face President Donald Trump in November.

For the past several months, Insider has been conducting a recurring SurveyMonkey Audience poll to track the state of the 2020 Democratic primary field. You can download every poll here, down to the individual respondent data. (Read more about how the Insider Democratic primary tracker works here).

Bloomberg's entrance has been fascinating to watch. Over the five last polls of 2019, Bloomberg's awareness among Democrats averaged 65%, but following an unprecedented advertising campaign, has over the most recent three polls surged to 75%. Many of those people have been amenable to the possibility of Bloomberg's nomination.

Of the three polls taken from mid-November to early December, 43% of the people aware of Bloomberg would not be satisfied in the event he became the Democratic nominee, compared to 21% who thought he world be, a net satisfaction of anywhere from -19 to -25 percentage points week to week.

Things have steadily turned around, for Bloomberg: In the first two polls of 2020, 33% of Democrats aware of Bloomberg would be satisfied if he were nominee, and 34% would not be.

Averaging the polls taken January 29-30 and February 7-8, 42% of Democrats aware of him would be satisfied with Bloomberg as nominee, and just 31% of Democrats would not be satisfied with Bloomberg as nominee. That's an outstanding turnaround in such a short time.

Bloomberg, however, has been the target of an onslaught of negative press in the weeks following the New Hampshire primary, and the latest poll - though it may just be one poll and ideally we'd prefer more data - shows a swell of negative perception.

The poll was taken February 18, 2020 with 1,125 respondents of whom 443 were registed to vote and said they would probably do so in their state's Democratic primary. It showed that while 41% of Democrats aware of him would be satisfied in the event Bloomberg was nominee, essentially unchanged since the February 7 poll, 38% would be unsatisfied, up 7 percentage points over the week. The overall margin of error in the poll is plus or minus three percentage points.

Bloomberg's net satisfaction rating fell precipitously - it only recently became positive in the poll taken January 22-23 - falling from +12 percentage points to +3, the first significant decline in months.

With Bloomberg drawing attacks from his opponents and increased attention ahead of his debate debut tonight, voters will get a closer look at the candidate beyond his brief cameos at the tail end of his myriad TV ads.

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weigh its sample based on race or income. A total of 1,125 respondents were collected January 22, 2020, a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.

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