So both of these are considerably more pessimistic toward Trump than Ipsos and Morning Consult. But in the aggregate, Trump has gotten a boost While Carson has taken a hit. What about in Iowa and New Hampshire?
Donald Trump continues to dominate New Hampshire, if you could call someone barely getting a quarter of support “dominating” (it’s all relative). Amidst a bunch of one-off polls, we have one with good trendlines:
|
TRUMP |
CARSON |
RUBIO |
CRUZ |
MassINC/WBUR |
11/14-15 |
23 |
13 |
13 |
8 |
10/29-11/1 |
18 |
16 |
11 |
6 |
9/12-14 |
22 |
18 |
2 |
5 |
I added the longer trendlines to show Carson’s fade, as well as the rise of Rubio. And it might be coincidence, since we can never know who went where, but funny how Cruz’s five-point rise matches Carson’s five-point decline. But it makes sense. You are a crazy right-wing theocrat, and your guy turns out to be a pathological liar, where do you go? There are two other crazy theocrats in the race, but Mike Huckabee is a has-been. So Cruz it is!
So what happens now that we enter the dead-zone of politics, Thanksgiving week and December? Trump would be satisfied if everything stays static. Carson desperately hopes that his fade in support is arrested.
My guess? The trends already in motion continue to play out. So Carson will continue bleeding while Cruz continues gaining. Rubio will lap up the last few points Bush has before he is 100 percent written off, but the establishment realizes that’s not enough and spends the next six quiet weeks working on getting Mitt Romney into the race.
But really, who the fuck knows?
DEMOCRATS
So Hillary Clinton’s upward trajectory has finally been thwarted! Unfortunately for Bernie Sanders, so has his:
Well Sanders is at 30.1 percent, which doesn’t surprise me because I always assumed that was his ceiling. Demographics and all. That’s slightly down from his high of 30.6 percent, but that’s inconsequential float (Clinton is at 54.2 percent, down from a high of 54.3 percent). Note that last week his aggregate support was 31.7 percent, so why is his max now 30.6 percent? Because as new polls roll in, that line is constantly adjusted. Bottom line, 30 percent is about the max that a Howard Dean-Bernie Sanders-style candidate can get without expanding his or her support beyond white, educated liberals.
Fun question: Had Elizabeth Warren run, would she have been able to bust past this ceiling? I suspect she’d be doing slightly better, but I still don’t see how she’d be able to make inroads against Clinton’s longtime earned support among communities of color. Clinton is really benefiting here from an incumbency effect.
|
CLINTON |
SANDERS |
IPSOS/REUTERS |
11/14-18
|
52 |
31 |
11/7-11 |
51 |
35 |
NBC/SURVEYMONKEY |
11/16-17 |
49 |
33 |
10/27-29 |
50 |
30 |
MORNING CONSULT |
11/13-16 |
57 |
26 |
11/5-8 |
54 |
28 |
PPP |
11/16-17 |
59 |
26 |
10/1-4 |
42 |
24 |
Bloomberg/Selzer |
11/15-17 |
55 |
30 |
9/18-21 |
33 |
24 |
I include PPP and Selzer here, like I did above in the GOP section, with an asterisk, as the trendlines are way dated and predate the start of the debates and the Benghazi inquisition. What else do the numbers above tell us? Nothing more than another week has gone by and Sanders hasn’t busted through that demographic ceiling. Next week is a Thanksgiving pause, and then people have holidays in their minds. If I had to guess, there will be little movement on the Democratic side.
Iowa, on the other hand, is not so static.
Well, Sanders is static. He was at 32.4 percent on September 20, and he’s at 32.5 percent today. But Clinton has been steadily increasing her support, from 48.5 percent on September 20 to 54.4 percent today. It’s not big movement, but it’s movement nonetheless. In fact, the last four polls of the race, including all four conducted this month, have Clinton at 55 percent or better.
New Hampshire looks even worse for Sanders.
That’s a pretty sharp reversal of fortune, from a five-point Sanders lead, to a two-point Clinton edge. But in broader context, this is essentially a tie. Depending on the poll, there are about 3-10 percent undecided, and they will ultimately decide the game, as will any supporters of Martin O’Malley, if they intend to cast a vote that actually matters.
Assuming the race remains this close, the delegate count will be virtually even. However, Sanders needs more than a delegate tie in New Hampshire to give his campaign continued life, particularly heading into demographically diverse states like Nevada and South Carolina. If he can’t pull of victories in lily white Iowa and his neighbor-state New Hampshire, then there’ll be little to suggest he’ll do better when he hits states that actually look like the Democratic Party.