It’s now November 2019, a year away from Election Day, a few months away from the Iowa Caucuses.
Back in the 2008 cycle, this is how the polls were looking at this point:
- AP/Ipsos poll Nov 5-7, 2007: Clinton 45%, Obama 22% (Clinton +23%)
- CNN poll Nov 2-4, 2007: Clinton 44%, Obama 25% (Clinton +19%)
- USA Today/Gallup poll Nov 2-4, 2007: Clinton 50%, Obama 22% (Clinton +28%)
- Newsweek poll Oct 31- Nov 1, 2007: Clinton 43%, Obama 24% (Clinton +19%)
- et al.
(And if you look at polls of Republicans, a fellow named Rudy Giuliani was in the lead, averaging about 15 points ahead of the eventual nominee, John McCain.)
Just sayin’ — don’t put too much stock in the polls. With a big field of candidates, really all the polls do is indicate which candidates are in the top tier of public opinion. It’s reasonable to assume this subset is likely to contain the eventual nominee. The current polls do not give us a good indication of who that eventual nominee will be.
No one doesn’t want to see good-looking early polls for their favorite candidate, but they are, of course, no substitute for such things as
- an engaging candidate on the stump
- innovative campaign strategies
- dedicated campaign workers and volunteers
- adequate funds to run the enterprise
- and a tremendous get-out-the-vote effort on primary/caucus/election day.
By the same token, we shouldn’t put much stock in polls today that are trying to gauge general election results a year from now. While the headline of that CNN poll, listed above, trumpeted positive news for the senator from New York — “A year from Election Day, Clinton remains person to beat” — the write-up acknowledged the reality that despite besting her primary opponents and the GOP front-runner in the poll, her path to the presidency was “in no way certain.”
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With the election of the next president a year away, Sen. Hillary Clinton remains the person to beat, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday suggests.
As the countdown begins to November 4, 2008, the New York Democrat continues to dominate the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and comes out ahead when voters are asked whether they prefer her or the GOP front-runner, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
But Clinton's path to the White House is in no way certain. Clinton was criticized for her performance during a debate last week, and her rivals for the Democratic nomination have stepped up attacks that she has equivocated on her position on Iraq, Iran and other major issues.
I’m not picking on Hillary Clinton — her robust early polling in the 2008 cycle is just one example. Looking at Gallup polls, you can see for example that in February 1980, incumbent Jimmy Carter was beating Ronald Reagan 60% to 31%. Nine months later, Reagan beat Carter by a landslide. In April 1992, George H.W. Bush was beating Bill Clinton 44% to 25%. Seven months later, Bush lost.
Considering such examples, I hope you can see how utterly dubious it is to think that we should decide our candidate preferences based on minor head-to-head differentials in polls against Trump a year out from the election.
We should resist taking early poll numbers seriously, and should at least be a little wary of how these polls are used to pitch narratives. Take, for instance, this recent New York Times “battleground states” graphic. Even putting aside the fact that we’re a full year away from the election, this chart is misleading on its face: it’s filled with blue and red boxes, almost all of which ought to be colored gray — too close to call — since they’re within the margin of error. The misuse of color makes this graphic a textbook example of a misleading chart.
The New York Times has also recently polled Democrats regarding their primary candidate preferences in so-called battleground states. Needless to say, voters in these 2020 contests will be influenced by the results of earlier contests. A classic example is Barack Obama’s early win in Iowa in 2008, which proved his chops, his viability. Polling lots of states months prior to that victory would certainly have produced results that didn’t well reflect the eventual reality.
Just to be crystal clear: my point is not that we are overestimating the strength of Democratic candidate X or the Democratic ticket in general. My point is that we shouldn’t be tempted to overestimate the predictive value of polls this early regarding our top-tier candidates, whether the polls make a candidate look like their chances are iffy or awesome.