I’m a bit late to this, but I just came across a Zogby poll of Americans released on September 15th which asked over 4000 Americans (ages 18 and above) who their favorite Beatle is. I was surprised to see these results:

Paul McCartney 27%
John Lennon 16%
George Harrison 10%
Ringo Starr 9%
Don’t Like The Beatles 22%
Don’t Know? 3%

I would have thought Lennon would win by a pretty wide margin because he seems to be the favorite Beatle of most of the people I know. In fact I often feel like I have to let people know how important Paul was to The Beatles music precisely because it seems a lot of people have the misconception that Lennon basically was The Beatles with the other guys being nothing more than his backing band (seriously, I have come across quite a few people who think this.)

But then when I see the break downs by politics and religion it begins to make more sense of why the people I know are mostly John fans, it fits with the demographic breakdowns of the polling.

25% of Democrats pick John as their favorite while only 6% of Republicans do. Conversely 25% of Born Again Christians chose Paul as their favorite Beatle while only 8% of them chose John. Very interesting indeed. The poll also said that among people who do not attend church, John was the favorite. I definitely know a lot more non-church attending Democrats than Born Again Christian Republicans (in fact, I would say I do my best to avoid such people.)

I also found the breakdown of the people who said they don’t like The Beatles at all quite interesting:

30% of conservatives don’t like The Beatles.
19% of moderates don’t like The Beatles.
9% of liberals don’t like The Beatles.

Of course I should point out that this was an “interactive poll” from Zogby, not a telephone poll and these interactive polls are well known for their inaccuracy. So while I find these numbers interesting, I don’t necessarily think they’re very accurate.

Paul McCartney, The Beatles

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