Nate Cohn reminds us not to get overly invested in the polls:
In recent primary campaigns, going back to the 2004 Democratic primary, those candidates who have led in Iowa or New Hampshire polls with just one month to go have lost as often as they have won. On average, candidates’ share of the vote at this stage differed from their final share of the vote by around seven percentage points. With many candidates running, it was not at all uncommon for a candidate to move by more.
The most extreme examples are just that. In 2004, John Edwards held 7 percent of the support in Iowa with a month to go; he won around 32 percent. In 2008, John McCain held 18 percent in New Hampshire; he won with 37 percent. In 2012 in Iowa, Rick Santorum held 5 percent; he won with 25 percent.
Obviously, nothing about this election cycle feels particularly familiar. Yet, it’s still true that most voters have not made up their minds about who’ll they’ll vote for. A lot of people haven’t even decided whether they will vote.
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump look well-positioned to top the field, and really no one looks poised to overtake them. Ben Carson is moving in the wrong direction. Chris Christie is perhaps moving in the right one.
These early contests don’t contain a lot of actual delegates so their importance is more about perceptions. In Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, it can be just as beneficial to exceed expectations as it is to win. It can also be unduly detrimental to do worse than expected.
If Trump and Cruz meet expectations and finish as the top two in Iowa and New Hampshire, I think that sets up a two-person race, particularly if they split the two contests between them. But, if one of them falls below the top tier, and especially if Trump fails to outright win either contest, then there should be room for someone else to move into serious contention.
So, there will be a real fight among the also-rans like Bush, Christie, Rubio, Fiorina and perhaps Kasich to get either a second place finish or a strong third place that stands out from all the others behind them.
Bush has been left for dead, but given his resources, any sign of life could rejuvenate his campaign. Rubio has been the media’s favorite to fill the “Establishment” role, and his campaign could gain some momentum if he can exceed the polling expectations. I don’t think Christie is trying to do well in Iowa, but a second place finish in New Hampshire could turn him into an “Establishment” choice. Fiorina, Kasich, and (I guess) Rand Paul are looking very weak, but that makes it easier to do better than expected. Their challenge, though, is to stand out by launching themselves into the top three.
Ben Carson is in a weird place. He’s already fallen below expectations and it’s threatening to create a total collapse of support. He needs to restore expectations in order to regain supporters, but that would make it harder for him to positively spin the results. I think Ben Carson needs to win Iowa or he’s finished.
On the Democratic side, the big question that remains is whether Sanders can win in New Hampshire even if he loses in Iowa. As Bill Bradley discovered in 2000, a small lead in the Granite State can evaporate in a hurry in the aftermath of a punishing loss in the Hawkeye State. I know the Sanders folks haven’t given up on winning Iowa outright, but I think that’s a long shot and they should probably stop saying that they think they can win. If they can reduce expectations there enough, they might get a positive spin out of the results even if they lose. And that could be just enough for them to hold onto what looks like a very small and tenuous lead in New Hampshire.
The problem for Sanders is that it’s hard to see where he would get his next win after New Hampshire. In 2008, it wasn’t too hard to identify states that would go to Obama after New Hampshire. There were a lot of them. At one point, I was able to correctly predict that Obama would win the next twelve contests in a row based solely on demographic data. There’s nothing like that out there for Sanders. I don’t see any slam-dunk Sanders states, including New Hampshire and Vermont. What I see are a small handful of states where he should be competitive and have a real shot. And I don’t see that changing much even if he wins the first two contests.
There’s definitely a lot of potential for volatility in the race over the next five or six weeks, but it also looks predictable in some ways. Clinton looks like a juggernaut. Rivals to Trump and Cruz look weak and unlikely to make a move. I expect someone to emerge on the Republican side to rival the top two, but not necessarily with enough strength to matter. The scenario that has the most potential to shake up the race is a much better than expected performance by Jeb. More likely scenarios involve stronger than expected finishes by Rubio or Christie.
Anything other than this, like a Carson revival or Paul, Kasich or Fiorina boomlet would be pretty shocking to me at this point. I still think Kasich is the best general election candidate they have, but I don’t think the GOP electorate is in a general election mindset.
Wrote something for Bleeding Heartland on Iowa polling from 1980 to 2012 here:
http://www.bleedingheartland.com/2015/12/21/iowa-polling-45-days-out-let-the-buyer-really-beware/
The R squared for Iowa polling 45 days out is .496 – which means more than half of the final result in Iowa is a result of events in the last 45 days. In addition, only 6 of the 12 candidates who led 45 days out won Iowa.
I also compared Iowa polling for Sanders to Bradley.
Bottom line: this campaign has barely begun, and I would be very wary of writing anyone off.
Polling individual candidates ignores the way caucuses work. It’s not enough that a person supports a candidate. There has to be enough other people in the room who also support or who can be convinced to support that candidate. Thus, these polls are all great fun, full of sound & fury, and are methodologically speaking: worthless.
That’s only in the DEM caucuses. The GOP caucuses are similar to straw polls.
15 days out the R squared goes up to about .8 – so as you get closer they be become much more meaningful. But before that they don’t mean a whole lot.
That’s a great article. Am rereading in an attempt to achieve an R squared of .496 of comprehension. But what I -do- understand is fascinating.
As an outside observer and from the 2004 Iowa DEM caucus, I learned more what to watch for as the contest develops.
Most importantly is where the state and local party officials and local activists are. If there’s not much division among the ranks of the officials, and it’s a two person race, you get Gore at 65%. In 2004 Edwards locked down a high level of support among locals and retained that support in 2008. Official support for Gephardt was stale by 2004 and Dean didn’t get much of that. In addition to the pissing contest between Dean and Gephardt, Dean was battered by outside Iowa DEM officials and at the end, heavy hitters such as Ted Kennedy dropped in to whip the state officials, the squishy Gephardt supporters and undecideds.
In 2008 Clinton wasn’t able to replicate Kerry’s results because Obama cut into officialdom and had the stronger activist piece. This time around, she appears to have nailed down the Kerry institutional support very early on. But where has the Edwards’ institutional support gone?
Ahhh – this is the question I would love to see an answer to: where indeed has the Edwards support gone?
Edwards ’08 theme is pretty similar to Bernie’s in some ways. The age cross-tabs in Iowa suggest Bernie has taken a lot of Obama’s youth vote.
So where has the Edwards support gone? The writer of the Iowa blog was for Edwards and now supports Clinton, FWIW.
Always the pits to know the right question but clueless as to the answer.
While I disagreed with the Edwards’ supporters, did appreciate that their hearts were in the right place. And I’m reasonably certain that a portion of Obama’s ’08 Iowa support was based on perceiving him as the most “electable.” However, I don’t know how it actually sorted out between ’04 and ’08. Perhaps you have more insight into this:
And
Would it be inaccurate to guess that the Dean vote moved to Obama, the Gephardt vote moved to Clinton, and the Kerry vote split between the two? If so, does that suggest that Clinton retains her 29% and picks up the Kerry-Obama vote? That would mean that she doesn’t need much of the Edwards vote at all. Also suggests that the pro-Iraq War DEM vote in Iowa was a solid majority in both 2004 and 2008.
It’s not an apples to apples comparison. Consider:
January 2008 Democratic turnout: 239,872
January 2008 Democratic registration: 606,209
2008 Democratic caucus turnout rate: 39.57%
January 2004 Democratic turnout: 124,331
January 2004 Democratic registration: 533,107
2004 Democratic caucus turnout rate: 23.32%
No one – and certainly not the Des Moines Register Poll saw the explosion in turnout in ’08 coming. The last DMR poll predicted turnout maybe as high as 160,000 IIRC.
And people didn’t believe it would get close to that.
Edwards greatly expanded his first round total – it got swamped in the explosion of new voter turnout.
So the question is whether there is similar enthusiasm? If there is, and Sanders can get his young vote to the polls like Obama did, he can win if he splits the Edwards vote.
The Edwards vote in ’08 was not the establishment vote, and it was not as old as the ’08 Clinton vote. It should be winnable by Sanders.
57% of voters in the 2008 Caucus had NEVER been to one before. That vote broke 41% for Obama, 29% for Clinton, 18% for Edwards, and 7% for Richardson.
Edwards won the vote among previous caucus goes: 30% to 26% for Obama.
Those 17-29 were 22% of the ’08 Caucus – and Obama won them 57-14 (Edwards) and 11 (Clinton).
Sanders is winning that same group in the Yougov poll 71-28. He loses the over 65 vote 59-33. Clinton won the over 65 total in ’08 45-22 (Edwards)-18 (Obama).
In the CBS poll 14.3$ were 29 and under. In the CBS poll 27% are over 65: in ’04 it was 22%.
If Sanders can get the same profile of voters to the polls as were there in ’08: HE WILL WIN IOWA.
Thanks — but now it seems even less clear than mud.
The numbers don’t seem to be adding up. If Edwards only received 18% of the votes from new caucus attendees, he had to get much more than 30% of the ’04 attendees to come up with an aggregate in ’08 of 30%(understand the real numbers aren’t reported which may make this an exercise in futility for me). Also for Obama 26% old and 41% new only gets him to under 35%.
From what I remember, Edwards’ support came mostly from the old-line Union people and them folks are mostly gone.
According to THIS, Kerry received a higher percentage of the senior and union vote than Edwards did.
Not finding much on the 2008 Iowa caucus demographics:
Clinton is going to win the Democratic Party nomination. As PPP put it, “Clinton leads with every group we track.”
If Trump was a member of the Officially Approved SeriousPeople© Political class everyone in the Infotainment Mediums would be hailing him as the leader and obvious candidate. True he has no history of turning supporters into voters but his leads in national and state polling cannot be wished away. There’s no evidence* anyone in the pack has the support to take him out and there is no evidence* of a mixture of candidates with regional support denying him the nomination.
The Holiday season is known for being a time when the average American pays even less attention to politics than usual. When the dolts wake-up and realize a presidential election is happening and maybe, perhaps (if it’s not too hard and difficult,) they should pay attention it is possible one of the Establishment/Corporate Wing candidates could burst out of the pack and go on to win the nomination as McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. However, the Chosen One of the Establishment/Corporate Wing was JEB! and he has the brains of a newt and the political skills of a muskmelon. Kasich doesn’t have the money or the state level organization or the state level political support. Which leaves Rubio and … nah.
Trump is riding a wave of fear, bigotry, ignorance, and resentiment which fairly accurately describes the GOP base. While he could — there being no Law of the Universe preventing — be derailed it sure doesn’t look like it
*.
* As of Dec. 29, 2015
*
Ditto
* Ditto
oh hell, sorry about that
That’s what happens when you go crazy with the * !!11!!
You make some good points, though, albeit initially looking a bit shout-y about it… 😉
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