It seems almost trite to point this out, but it’s early, the polls reflect name recognition more than anything else, and things can and will shift a great deal between now and next year, when actual votes will be cast. That’s what makes this field and this cycle so interesting: nothing is pre-determined. None of these candidates have more than a 20% chance of winning, but someone has to win, right?
So the current polls are less a gauge of who will win, but of where the race currently stands. Those are two completely different things. And to make that point, let’s go back in time to see who was leading in mid-May polls in previous cycles.
5/2003
Joe Lieberman 21, John Kerry 17, Dick Gephardt 16 (NBC/WSJ)
Joe Lieberman 22, Dick Gephardt 17, John Kerry 15 (Quinnipiac)
Joe Lieberman 19, Dick Gephardt 14, John Kerry 12 (Fox)
5/2007
Hillary Clinton 42, Barack Obama 28, John Edwards 14 (Gallup)
Hillary Clinton 39, Barack Obama 23, John Edwards 15 (Fox)
Hillary Clinton 43, Barack Obama 25, John Edwards 17 (CNN)
Rudy Giuliani 32, John McCain 24, Fred Thompson 12, Mitt Romney 10 (Gallup)
Rudy Giuliani 25, John McCain 18, Mitt Romney 10, Fred Thompson 9 (Fox)
5/2011
Rudy Giuliani 16, Mitt Romney 15, Sarah Palin 13, Ron Paul 12 (CNN)
Mitt Romney 17, Sarah Palin 15, Ron Paul 10, Newt Gingrich 9 (Gallup)
Bonus: Check out this Gallup poll from mid April!
Donald Trump (!) 16, Mike Huckabee 16, Mitt Romney 13, Sarah Palin 10 (Gallup)
5/2015
Jeb Bush 13, Ben Carson 13, Scott Walker 11, Mike Huckabee 10, Donald Trump 4 (Fox)
Ben Carson 10, Jeb Bush 10, Marco Rubio 10, Donald Trump 5 (Quinnipiac)
Marco Rubio 14, Jeb Bush 13, Mike Huckabee 10, Scott Walker 10, Donald Trump 3
The Democratic field in 2015, essentially cleared for Clinton, is the only time since 2003 (polling was scarce in previous cycles) that the definitive early frontrunner went ahead and won the nomination. Any time we’ve had a strong early leader, it has been because of strong name recognition, which in the end didn’t do those candidates any good. Joe Lieberman had been Al Gore’s running mate. Hillary Clinton was a former U.S. senator and first lady. Rudy Giuliani was “America’s Mayor” post-9/11, a whole world removed from the husk of a shell of a joke of a brain-addled piece of shit that he is today.
It really is a testament to how terribly George W. Bush f’d shit up that Jeb was never able to garner any real support despite his universal name ID and over $100 million raised.
Joe Biden is currently sitting somewhere in between where Lieberman and Clinton were in 2003 and 2007, respectively. “Normal” people, the ones who don’t obsessively follow the day-in, day-out of campaigns like we do (we’re nerds, people!), will naturally gravitate toward the name they know, especially when he served alongside a historic and beloved president.
Part of the fun of the next six months will be seeing how Biden’s support falls as the rest of the field gains wider visibility. Who knows, maybe his support doesn’t fall! I’ve been wrong before, I’ll be wrong again. But we’ve seen these patterns before, and they don’t historically bode well for those with the big early leads.