Franklin Pierce University and the
Boston Herald made a big splash late on Tuesday evening when they released
the first-ever poll of the Democratic presidential primary to show Sen. Bernie Sanders leading former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The survey, of FPU's home state of New Hampshire, finds Sanders at 44 and Clinton at 37, with Vice President Joe Biden (who of course is not actually running) at 9. All other candidates posted negligible scores of 1 percent or less.
Back in March, the last time FPU polled here, Clinton stood at 47 percent. Sanders took just 8, but that's because Elizabeth Warren was also included, and she received 22 percent. Other New Hampshire polls had shown an increasingly close race, so these results are not out of the realm of possibility, as you can see in the chart below:
However, there are reasons to exercise caution.
For starters, there's the age-old maxim of, "It's just one poll." It's easy for a single poll to be incorrect, which is why, whenever possible, you want to take a look at what multiple polls are saying—especially when the numbers you're looking at stand apart from all the rest to date. We'll definitely be seeing more surveys of the Granite State very soon, so this is precisely the sort of occasion when you want to wait for more data.
More concerning is FPU's almost nonexistent track record. It appears that FPU has not polled in many cycles. Prior to their March survey, the last poll of theirs we can find dates back to the presidential primaries in 2008. That means they haven't polled for the last three elections (four if you count the general election in 2008), which is a shockingly long time to go dark. Indeed, even taking a single cycle off would be unusual.
FPU's survey was actually conducted by a firm named RKM Research, run by one R. Kelly Myers. Like FPU itself, RKM has released very little polling in recent years, so we can't evaluate how accurate either they or FPU have been in the past.
There's also FPU's question-raising pedigree. The school's president is Andrew Card, whom you may remember served as George W. Bush's White House chief of staff for many years. And FPU's polling arm falls under the auspices of the school's Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication; Fitzwater was White House press secretary for both Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush. Finally, FPU's media partner, the Boston Herald, is a right-wing tabloid not known for its commitment to the truth—a clam chowdah version of the New York Post.
Again, this poll could very well be spot-on, and we'll know more soon. But the polls that look best for you are always the ones to be most skeptical of.
