Much is being made these days of the early polling--who's up, who's down, who's "in trouble", who is "surging". Does any of this mean anything?
I clearly recall the 1992 election. In October of 1991, I personally hadn't yet even heard of then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. That year taught me not to trust polls this far in advance.
But that doesn't mean the polls are meaningless. Let's take a quick and superficial look at recent presidential elections, and try to suss out what the polls today might or might not mean.
I will avoiding polling in a party with a sitting president. I will also arbitrarily choose polls I personally think are interesting, from August and September of the year before a presidential election. I leave other polls as an exercise for the reader, and I encourage and solicit discussion in the comments. Follow me below the fold for my own first-pass analysis of what the polls today might or might not be telling us.
Memory Lane
Does the leader in late summer or early autumn of the year before tell us anything about who will get a party's nomination?
In September of 1999, Bill Bradley was beating Al Gore in New Hampshire. Gore went on to win that primary. Gore also trounced Bradley in Iowa, with more than 63% compared to Bradley’s 35%. Gore eventually got the nomination.
In September of 2003, Ret. Army Gen. Wesley Clark was ahead in the Democratic polling nationally by about ten points, with 22%, followed by Howard Dean as a distant second at 13%. John Kerry (who got the nomination) was third, with 11%.
In September of 2007, Hillary Clinton had a commanding lead over Barack Obama in national polling, 44% to 24%. In Iowa, Clinton and Obama were in a virtual tie with John Edwards; candidate Obama went on to trounce the other two in the Iowa caucuses, and we know he won the nomination.
On the Republican side, in August of 2003, Rudy Giuliani was on top nationally with 27% (about where Trump is now); Fred Thompson was second with 18% (Ben Carson territory); John McCain was third, with a dismal 16%.
In August of 2007, Rick Perry led the Republican pack, with 29%. Mitt Romney was far behind, at 17%.
We could dig deeper, and find out who was winning in various other state and national polls. I glanced at a few others, but they were redundant, and I’m not writing a term paper here. I’m sure there may have been a few where the eventual winner was ahead this early, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.
My conclusion is that anyone who doesn’t see August-September polling in the year before an election as absurdly early isn't paying attention to history.
Giving Directions
Now, despite the fact that early polling doesn’t mean much as far as who will be successful many months from now, there is one way in which it does matter. It shows the general direction of the party, and sometimes the direction of the country.
Take the examples I gave. Bill Bradley and Al Gore in 1999 were both slightly to the left of Bill Clinton. Though Bradley was ahead in September of 1999 and Gore went on to win the nomination, there was hardly any political space between them. Gore won the nomination mostly on having a better organization. This also clearly showed the direction of the nation as a whole, since Gore won the 2000 popular vote, and arguably the Presidency.
Prior to the 2004 election, both Clark and Kerry were stolid, careful-thinking slightly-left-of-center personalities. Dean, being much more brash and farther left, dropped out early. Clark never even declared himself a candidate. The 2004 election turned out to be really close; Kerry lost the general mostly on his unexciting personality and the dishonest swiftboating of the Bush campaign.
In 2008, there was hardly a hair’s breadth between Clinton and Obama politically. Most Democratic supporters would gladly have voted for either. Obama went on to win the general election in a landslide.
In the Republican race in 2008, Giuliani was popular almost entirely because he had been mayor of New York on 9/11. He was pretty moderate for a Republican (otherwise, he would never have been elected mayor of New York). McCain also presented himself as a moderate; he had a reputation as a “maverick” outsider. It only was later that he turned into little more than a militaristic anti-Obama windup doll. The Republican Party was ready for a moderate. Too bad the Tea Party was created by the Kochs soon after.
Rick Perry and Mitt Romney in 2012 were, again, hardly distinguishable, running primarily on hatred of the Black Guy. Romney won the nomination mostly because all the not-Mitts (especially Perry) revealed themselves to be blithering idiots—and besides, it was Romney’s turn.
The point here is that although the poll leader in August or September of the year before often fails to win the nomination (or even many primaries), it tends to say quite a lot about the eventual nominee, and the desires at the time of the party.
Current Trends
Democrats this year are anxious for an historic candidate; an energetic and liberal woman, or someone who openly accepts the socialist nature of effective modern governance (which is, in fact, the same place most Americans are). As was true in 2008, most Democratic voters will wholeheartedly accept, support, and vote for whichever candidate gets the nomination.
On the Republican side, the current leaders are Trump, Carson, and Fiorina, outsiders who have no experience in government. Together, they are currently controlling over 50% of Republican polling. No one else is over 15%, and everyone else put together does not equal the size of that massive "outsider" voting block. It’s hard to see now any of the second- or third-tier candidates can cobble together a coalition to beat one of those three.
And in none of the early polling examples I presented did a candidate who wasn’t in the top three this early go on to get the nomination.
That is what matters in early polling – not the candidates themselves, but the direction of the parties.
Of course, this year is different in many ways from previous years. The Republican Heir Apparent would normally be Rick Santorum who came in second in 2012, but he’s little more than a joke. The amount of money being raised – particularly by the way-down-the-list candidacies of Jeb! and Walker – is absolutely unprecedented, and money seems to matter more to Republicans than it does to Democrats. All of the Republican candidates that the media thought would be dominant – Jeb! Cruz, Walker, and Rubio – are putting in dismal performances (Jeb! is in third place in his home state for Dog’s sake, and Rubio – the sitting Senator from Florida – is doing even worse).
So I’m not putting any money on anyone on the Republican side. But I will say this. The Republican leaders – Trump, Carson, and Fiorina – are pulling their party far to the right, and filling Republican rhetoric with hate speech, nativist jingoism, and Bushian economics on steroids. In contrast, Clinton and Sanders are running incredibly clean and issue-oriented campaigns, and are drawing big crowds doing it. I expect these trends to continue.
These are the attitudes and flavors of politics that the voters in the two parties are favoring. And that is what I see as the value of early polling.