Here's what the perfect 2016 candidate looks like
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
A new CNN poll indicates that three big requirements are popping up on a majority of Americans' wish lists for their next president: Some 59 percent want an experienced candidate, and the same proportion want that experience to come from an executive, not legislative, background. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Americans — including 31 percent of self-described liberals — want a candidate who will "change most of the policies of the Obama administration."
The same poll found that younger voters care more about how much a candidate shares their views, while older people are just happy to vote for an electable ticket in their party. And while older voters were more likely to favor switching away from Obama's policies, the current president's agenda actually netted the most support among the 35-49 age bracket, while millennials (ages 18-34) are ready for a change by a ten-point margin.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
