Polls can be inaccurate. I think 2016 taught us that. Who didn’t think Hillary Clinton was going to win even going into election night itself? I know I did. Almost every poll said so.
Now that I know better, I look for different clues as to how elections will go. The most obvious one is watching attendance at rallies. As it stands, Democrats can hardly fill out a gymnasium whenever they show up to a town during a campaign stop.
Case in point…
And this was Biden's rally in April pic.twitter.com/XafKIaP4zX
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) June 19, 2019
This hasn’t at all stopped the media from parading poll numbers around, especially when they lean against Trump. I can tell you from the perspective of a political analyst and commentator that articles about polls don’t get the interest from readers that they used to.
We all seem to have moved on.
(READ: The Media Keeps Parading Trump’s Bad Poll Numbers but Trump’s Packed Rallies Tell a Different Story)
Outside of rallies so packed that they still leave hundreds of people tailgating in the parking lot, we can also look to other things to see how badly Trump will smash Democrats in 2020.
Now, this may seem odd, but hear me out.
Baby Yoda.
For those of you not familiar with who or what Baby Yoda is, I’m going to assume you A: don’t have any family members who are fans of Star Wars, and B: only use the internet to read RedState articles, which, good for you.
Baby Yoda is a character in the new Disney+ streaming service called The Mandalorian. It’s about a bounty hunting space cowboy and his relationship with what might be the cutest thing Hollywood ever created. Baby Yoda is so cute that he became a popular meme that is still going strong after weeks of circulation, which is pretty rare for a meme. Their shelf life isn’t typically that long.
Baby Yoda and his soup is the new sipping tea meme. I’ve said it. pic.twitter.com/pxPTd8kxEw
— Mando the Bounty Hunter (@AdoptedBabyYoda) November 29, 2019
Me watching my husband cook a bomb 4-course meal while I stand there with my spatchy-spatch ready to stir something pic.twitter.com/FiVErtJyat
— Capri ❁ (@iCaprii) November 26, 2019
https://youtu.be/aAo8gXRMYNc
What does Baby Yoda have to do with the crop of Democrat 2020 candidates? Nothing really, until you compare social media interactions with Baby Yoda vs how many people are talking about Democratic 2020 candidates.
Axios did, and as a result, found that far more people are talking about Baby Yoda than they are about Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. The visual is kind of hilarious, and Baby Yoda is far more popular than Democrats by miles.
Hands down the funniest chart that will ever be published https://t.co/CKnRbYnDEu pic.twitter.com/U5LL7Ffk2A
— Zach Montellaro (@ZachMontellaro) November 30, 2019
But how does Trump fit into all this?
According to Axios, Trump is attracting far more attention on social media than the Democrats ever could.
“Trump attracted three times the attention of all the Democratic candidates combined, underscoring how he consumes the social media conversation,” said Axios in a different report.
If you want to see the breakdown for yourself, here it is.
Now, let’s be clear on some things. Everyone in this chart above is going to attract attention in various ways. Trump, being one of the most hated and loved presidents in America’s history, is going to have a lot of interactions just by virtue of being who he is. Democrats running against him are going to get the same kind of love or hatred by virtue of being them.
Baby Yoda, however, is pretty much beloved by everyone and is going to be highly positive. I point that out because not all interactions for politicians are going to be positive, but I guess if you’re talking about them, it’s a good thing regardless if it’s negative or positive. I can’t say the same for fictional characters.
Regardless, Trump is blowing away the competition by millions of stories while Baby Yoda, even at the height of his popularity, is not even scoring that high.
So the bottom line is this. Baby Yoda is more popular than Democrats by leaps and bounds…but Trump is still more popular than Baby Yoda.
This fictional, green little alien that is so cute that people are swearing they’ll die for it, is the harbinger of 2020 doom for Democrats. Democrats should look to the popularity of Baby Yoda and tremble.