Voters in a 2024 SLU/YouGov Poll Call the Cardinals Their Favorite Team

ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Cardinals are tops with fans in the State of Missouri.

In August 2024, the SLU/YouGov Poll interviewed 900 likely Missouri voters, asking them to name their favorite Major League Baseball team. The poll found that 41% of Missourians polled say the St. Louis Cardinals are their favorite team. The Kansas City Royals were the favorite team of 20% of those polled.

“In a time of contentious politics, the Cardinals enjoy strong support from Missouri Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters,” said Steven Rogers, Ph.D., SLU/YouGov Poll Director and associate professor of political science at SLU. The August 2024 SLU/YouGov poll found 45% of Missouri Republican voters, 38% of Missouri Democratic voters and 42% of Missouri Independent voters named the Cardinals as their favorite team. Again the Royals were the second favorite team of each Republicans (17%), Democrats (24%), and Independent (20%) voters.

The poll listed all Major League teams. The teams leading in the American League and National League standings when the poll concluded were also the next two most popular teams in Missouri. Two percent of those polled chose the New York Yankees as their favorite team, and one percent chose the Los Angeles Dodgers. No other team received a full percentage, but St. Louis’ historic rival Chicago Cubs received support from 0.93% of those polled.  

Cardinal Nation not only includes fans in the metropolitan St. Louis area. Voters showed their love of the Redbirds in the northeast, southwest and southeast parts of Missouri. Royals fans came predominantly from the Kansas City metro area and the northwest region of the state.

Not all Missourians are baseball fans. Twenty-six percent of Missouri likely voters stated they did not have a favorite Major League Baseball team. But there were key differences across age groups, according to Rogers.

“Perhaps surprisingly to those who think baseball is a game for older generations, voters who were 18 to 29 years old were the most likely to say they had a favorite Major League Baseball Team, suggesting America’s pastime is not going away anytime soon.”

The margin of error for the full survey sample is ± 3.79%.

Methodology and Funding

YouGov interviewed 900 likely Missouri voters between Aug. 8-16, 2024. The YouGov panel, a proprietary opt-in survey panel, is comprised of 3.1 million United States residents who have agreed to participate in YouGov Web surveys. Using their gender, age, race, and education, YouGov weighted the set of survey respondents to known characteristics of Missouri voters from the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error for the weighted data is 3.79%. 

The August 2024 SLU/YouGov Poll was funded by the PRiME Center in SLU’s School of Education.

About YouGov

Saint Louis University has partnered with YouGov to conduct its annual survey of Missouri voters. YouGov conducts surveys for multiple academic institutions and is the primary, trusted survey firm for media organizations, including CBS News and The Economist. An independent Pew Research Center study of online survey firms in 2016 further concluded that YouGov “consistently outperforms competitors.”

About Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 15,200 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.