Tracking the Democrats for 2008: The Most Popular Contenders in Bumper Sticker, Button and Shirt Sales, from November 2004 — January 2006

For over a year now, we’ve been looking forward, offering bumper stickers and campaign buttons for various 2008 presidential contenders, both popular and marginal. The relative popularity of bumper stickers for different contenders indicates the extent to which various contenders’ supporters are motivated enough to make a planned public statement of endorsement. This in turn is an indicator of how easy — or how hard — it may be for different Democratic contenders to make waves as the 2008 race for president heats up and the primary season draws near. It’s less than two years now to 2008 (thank goodness), which makes these indicators increasingly relevant.

With the month of January 2006 just completed, it’s time for a new release of tracking data. Below are the sales results for all 2008 presidential contenders who garnered at least 1% of sales in January of 2006:

The following contenders garnered less than 1% of sales each: Tammy Baldwin, Evan Bayh, Howard Dean, Janet Napolitano, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Richardson, Kathleen Sebelius, and Tom Vilsack.

To place these results in context, let’s look at the performance of this month’s sales winners not just for this month but over the past 15 months:

The first-order news here is the continuing dominance of Hillary Clinton, retaking a wide lead over second-place Barack Obama for the top spot in the hearts and hopes of Democratic-leaning Americans. As Senator Obama’s popularity waned, perhaps not coincidentally Al Gore’s shot up by about ten percentage points in the wake of his monumental speech on the rise of executive power under George W. Bush (audio | transcript). Is Gore a new-old-new standard bearer for the left? If so, he’ll have to take on the idealism of Barack Obama and the solid record (in deeds, not just speeches, Al) of Senator Russ Feingold, who also has been doing reasonably well in a third tier of popularity (along with John Kerry and Mark Warner, who just keeps creeping upward month after month).

We’ll keep on keeping track of these Democratic contenders’ popularity as the 2008 elections creep ever closer; look for another release of tracking data in a month’s time.