Ignore the 2008 Presidential Polls
Despite the fact that it's still 2006, there seems to be a new 2008 presidential poll released every few days. The latest, a Pew poll, reports the following results:
The bottomline is this: these polls are all but meaningless. Perhaps nothing illustrates this point better than looking back at polls from this point in the last election cycle. For instance, a Fox News poll conducted in January of 2003 (which was closer to the election than we are now)reported the following results:
In fact, throughout 2002 and much of 2003, Joe Lieberman led virtually every poll. Did that mean that Lieberman had some deep base of support among Democratic primary voters? Of course not. All this reflected was the fact that Lieberman had the highest name recognition of anyone in the field by virtue of his status as the Vice Presidential candidate in 2000.
Most primary voters don't really start to pay attention until much closer to the election. They don't know who many of the candidates are, and even when they do, they often don't know much about them.
Take Rudy Giuliani, for example. He polls well because most people know who he is. But I suspect most Republican voters don't know very much about the guy, and the more they learn, the more likely they will be to reconsider their support. Conversely, most Republican primary voters don't know who Mitt Romney is. But, like Howard Dean in 2004, Romney may well emerge as a real contender as we get closer to the actual primaries.
The Democratic side is even more interesting. Four out of the five candidates topping the polls are people who have significant name recongition. Gore, Kerry, and Edwards are all former national candidates. And Hillary is, well, Hillary. But notice that the least well known (by far) among the five, Barack Obama, is already polling at 23%. That strikes me as far more significant than any other data point in the poll.
And, of course, you always have to be on the lookout for the person who will inevitably emerge from total obscurity to become an important player. It happens almost every cycle.
Long story short, don't read too much into these polls.
RepublicansSo what this mean? Is Hillary a lock? Is Giuliani in the driver's seat? No and no.
Rudy Giuliani..........27%
John McCain............26%
Condoleeza Rice........21%
Mitt Romney............7%
Newt Gingrinch.........6%
Democrats
Hillary Clinton........39%
Barack Obama...........23%
John Edwards...........10%
Al Gore................10%
John Kerry.............7%
The bottomline is this: these polls are all but meaningless. Perhaps nothing illustrates this point better than looking back at polls from this point in the last election cycle. For instance, a Fox News poll conducted in January of 2003 (which was closer to the election than we are now)reported the following results:
Joe Lieberman......29%
Dick Gephardt......15%
John Kerry.........13%
John Edwards.......8%
Al Sharpton........5%
Howard Dean........2%
In fact, throughout 2002 and much of 2003, Joe Lieberman led virtually every poll. Did that mean that Lieberman had some deep base of support among Democratic primary voters? Of course not. All this reflected was the fact that Lieberman had the highest name recognition of anyone in the field by virtue of his status as the Vice Presidential candidate in 2000.
Most primary voters don't really start to pay attention until much closer to the election. They don't know who many of the candidates are, and even when they do, they often don't know much about them.
Take Rudy Giuliani, for example. He polls well because most people know who he is. But I suspect most Republican voters don't know very much about the guy, and the more they learn, the more likely they will be to reconsider their support. Conversely, most Republican primary voters don't know who Mitt Romney is. But, like Howard Dean in 2004, Romney may well emerge as a real contender as we get closer to the actual primaries.
The Democratic side is even more interesting. Four out of the five candidates topping the polls are people who have significant name recongition. Gore, Kerry, and Edwards are all former national candidates. And Hillary is, well, Hillary. But notice that the least well known (by far) among the five, Barack Obama, is already polling at 23%. That strikes me as far more significant than any other data point in the poll.
And, of course, you always have to be on the lookout for the person who will inevitably emerge from total obscurity to become an important player. It happens almost every cycle.
Long story short, don't read too much into these polls.
posted by A.L. at 4:38 PM
4 Comments:
Call me crazy or worse, but I won't address the '08 election for another year. All sorts of things might happen between now and then. It's just not worth the effort.
I'm curious to see if Elliot Spitzer throws his hat into the ring.
Thanks for no using this post for another obama lovefest. Good points, following the polls right now is a waste of time - we should be talking about the candidates and where they stand on the issues.
This poll shows the ability of the MSM to shape perceptions much more than it reflects who Americans believe will be a good president.
Somewhat re Hillary: The night of the 1998 elections, after his big win as Texas Governor (with about 70% of the vote), G Bush was pronounced the Rep front-runner based on name recognition, fundraising, and big-state popularity.
Sounds similar to me.
As to Lieberman 2003 - clearly there was a name recognition thing happening, but don't forget that in Jan 2003 the war had not yet turned into his kryptonite.
Tom Maguire
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