What Is Electability?

NBC News: “Unlike primary voters in every other recent presidential election, Democrats are still so rattled by the 2016 election that they keep telling pollsters they’ll vote for whichever candidate they think has the best chance of beating President Trump, whether or not they like that candidate most.”

“The problem is that no one, whether it’s the amateur pundit-voters or the professional prognosticators, can actually predict the future enough to know who it will take to beat the president some 500 days from now.”

Said pollster Patrick Murray: “Electability is in the eye of the beholder. Voters are not very good at predicting electability… It really is ill-informed, but we know that it’s not facts —but perception — that drive voter behavior.”