Hillary’s 2016 announcement makes a splash, but her logo flops

William JordanUS Elections Editor
April 18, 2015, 6:31 PM GMT+0

More Americans noticed the Democrat’s announcements than the new Republican candidates, but her campaign logo is the most disliked

Four presidential candidates have now officially announced their intention to run for president, including three Republican senators – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush – and one Democrat – Hillary Clinton. Much has been said about how the newly-minted candidates are polling, but how about their campaign launch events? YouGov’s latest research shows that candidacy announcements are not all created equal.

Though Hillary Clinton opted for the most low-key kick-off, releasing a video online before embarking on a “listening tour” through the key caucus state of Iowa, Americans are far more likely to have noticed the former Secretary of State's announcement than the three Republicans, all of whom gave speeches at campaign-style events.

In fact, 94% of US adults say they have heard something about Clinton’s announcement, including two thirds (66%) who have heard a lot about it. That compares to the 72% of Americans who have heard something about Marco Rubio’s announcement, and just 38% who have heard a lot. Americans are about equally aware of Paul’s and Cruz’s announcements.

Hillary Clinton’s many years in the public eye, and the relentless speculation about her ambitions for 2016 – which began almost as soon as she conceded the Democratic presidential primary to then-Sen. Barack Obama in June 2008 – may explain some of the great awareness of her now official intentions.

Campaign logos

Besides the style of their announcements, the candidates gave hints about how their future campaigns would look and feel with newly-launched campaign websites – and logos. The logos in particular have been the source of minor online controversy.

However, YouGov’s poll finds that there is little question as to the favorite: Ted Cruz’s, which 63% of Americans say they like. That's significantly more than like the 53% who like Rubio’s and the 38% who like Rand’s. It's also double the 31% who liked Hillary’s “H” logo, the least popular one of all.

Respondents were asked to give their feelings about the logos “regardless of whether you agree with the candidate” and the candidate’s full name was not provided when not included in the logo itself, but, unsurprisingly, some partisan feelings seem to have crept in.

Only 15% of Republicans like Hillary’s logo, compared to 55% for Paul’s, 73% for Rubio’s and 90% for Cruz’s. Democrats were less varied, and at 49% Cruz’s was statistically tied with Hillary’s (50%).

Notably, Hillary’s is the only one not to include the candidate’s name, something which may have had an impact on the responses.

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Full poll results can be found here and topline results and margin of error here.