More Americans recognize Bernie Sanders than Tom Brady

One of the more surprising findings from Vox and Morning Consult's poll testing American voters' ability to recognize presidential candidates and celebrities is that Tom Brady is, apparently, not that recognizable out of uniform. Only 56 percent of 551 respondents correctly ID'ed him from a picture in an online poll conducted January 21 to 24, compared with 61 percent for Ted Cruz, 69 percent for Bernie Sanders, and 77 percent for Jeb Bush:

Vox/Morning Consult, Vox/Javier Zarracina

The photo below is the one we used of Brady; it was taken at the Manny Pacquiao/Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight last spring:

America's favorite quarterback.

Unsurprisingly, most of Getty Images' photos of Brady show him on the field, in a uniform that is widely recognizable as that of the New England Patriots and that has the name "BRADY" on it in large letters. Including a photo of him in uniform seemed like giving respondents too big of a hint; anyone who could read "BRADY" would choose that from the multiple-choice options, and even including the Pats logo would've led to some people nailing it despite not actually recognizing Brady.

Nonetheless, we thought the photo above was clearly recognizable as Brady. And to most Americans, it was! But it still wasn't enough to lift his facial recognition above those of most 2016 contenders.

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