CNN/Opinion Research
(release)
National
(921 RV)
Obama 49, McCain 46
Obama 47, McCain 43, Nader 6, Barr 2
Obama/Clinton 52, McCain/Romney 46
Also
Obama 59, Clinton 35 (447 RV)
Clinton 49, McCain 48
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 6, 2008 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBacks (0)
Today's Guest Pollster article comes from David W. Moore, a senior fellow with the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. He is a former vice president and senior editor with the Gallup Poll, where he worked for 13 years, and is the founder and former director of the UNH Survey Center. He manages the blogsite, Skeptical Pollster.com.
Eons ago, it seems, the press was touting Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton as the dominant frontrunners in their respective party presidential contests. The press was wrong in doing this, of course, but the pollsters told them that was true, and journalists believed. Now ABC's Gary Langer has taken a "Look Back" at the 2008 primary season, and once again endorsed the myth of the two frontrunners:
"It was going to be short and simple: Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani. Those were the long-ago and far-away days of initial preferences, when the two best-known candidates held commanding leads for their parties' presidential nominations. That it didn't end that way underscores an eternal truth of American politics: Campaigns matter."
I agree with Langer that campaigns matter, but disagree with his starting point. Indeed, that Giuliani was ever proclaimed the frontrunner is perhaps the most amazing myth of this whole campaign season.
The contest for delegates, as everyone knows, begins with voting in Iowa and continues from state to state, with election results in the early states inevitably affecting the results in later states. During the time that Giuliani enjoyed his so-called "commanding" frontrunner status (in the summer and fall of 2007), he was not the frontrunner in any of those early state contests - not in Iowa, not in New Hampshire, not in Michigan, not in Nevada, and not in South Carolina. He was the frontrunner in Florida, but if he didn't win any of the previous contests, it wasn't likely he would even be viable, much less the national frontrunner, by the time that primary was held.
This isn't just 20-20 hindsight.1 Right from the beginning, critics challenged the media pollsters' use of "national Republicans" and "national Democrats" as indicative of what the voters were thinking. In fact, Langer acknowledged the problem back in July 2007, and it's worth citing his response:
"A colleague here sent me a nice pointed challenge to our latest election poll yesterday: National surveys by themselves are 'close to meaningless,' he said, because they measure national preferences in what'll really be a series of state caucuses and primaries.
"It's a fair complaint, and a serious one - because it cuts to the heart of just what our new survey, and its multifarious brethren, are all about. It's true, of course, that a poll of current preferences nationally does not tell us about current preferences in Iowa, New Hampshire or anywhere else. Without knowing who's thriving in Iowa and New Hampshire, it's hard to predict who survives to South Carolina, much less who wins where on Mega Tuesday and wakes up with the crown on Feb. 6....
"We ask the horse race question in our national polls for context - not to predict the winner of a made-up national primary."
Langer is absolutely right - national polls of the party faithful don't predict state winners, and without an idea of who they might be, there's no way to tell who the nominee might be. By this reasoning, no matter how well Giuliani might have been faring in the national polls, that said nothing about how he might do in the state contests and in his effort to win the presidential nomination. So, on what grounds was he the frontrunner?
It turns out, apparently, that all along ABC was using the national numbers of what Langer calls the "made-up primary" not just "for context," but in fact to predict the winner of the actual nomination process. That's the only way in which Giuliani could be called a frontrunner.
Of course, ABC was not alone. Every major media polling organization reported results, at one time or another, based on that "made-up national primary." And in the summer and fall of 2007, they all reported that Giuliani was the dominant frontrunner - while ignoring that he trailed in all of the early state contests.
Similarly, Hillary Clinton was hardly the "solid" favorite as virtually every major news organization claimed. It's true the polls showed her leading in the several primary states after Iowa, but in this latter state she was never dominant. She trailed John Edwards for the first seven months of 2007, until she moved into a modest lead in the late summer and fall. But there were many undecided voters, and if she lost in Iowa, who could predict how she might fare elsewhere? Howard Dean's experience four years earlier, when his leading status in New Hampshire evaporated in the two-day period following his loss in the Iowa Caucuses, should have been a cautionary note for pollsters.
The reality was that in the summer and fall of 2007, there was no Republican frontrunner, and the Democratic frontrunner had only a tenuous lead. That so many pundits and politicians and members of the general public still think otherwise, because that's what the pollsters told us, should be the biggest embarrassment of the polling industry since Dewey beat Truman in 1948.
By David Moore on June 6, 2008 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)
Any of us that like to look at political survey data -- and that's just about anyone reading these words -- have something of a trove in the now completed exit polls conducted during the 2008 primaries. As the exit pollsters point out in their valedictory blog post, we have just concluded "the busiest primary season in the history of exit poll research." There have been some difficulties along the way, to be sure, but the resulting data set is "gargantuan, as ABC's Gary Langer puts it. In addition to the election night tabulations that we have pointed to regularly (available via these links from MSNBC, CNN, CBS and Fox) there are two new collections worth checking out:
First, Gary Langer and the ABC Polling Unit put together summary spreadsheets (in PDF format) for both the Democratic and Republican contests that allow for easy comparisons using comparable subgroups across every state. The tables include some subgroups not available on the standard network tables (such as breaking down education and income among white voters only). They cover, according to Langer, "79,281 interviews in all, conducted in 68 contests in 39 states, encompassing all the Democratic state primaries, the contested Republican primaries and the Iowa and Nevada caucuses."
The Washington Post's Jon Cohen points out the "biggest contribution" of these tables is the "NET" column on the far left of each page, which shows the results based on a compilation of results across all states.
Second, the New York Times has put together an amazing interactive graphic based on a the exit poll data in the same 39 states. The graphic displays the Obama Clinton vote preference for all states with exit poll broken out by sixteen different subgroups. You really need to interact with the graphic (by pointing and clicking) to understand it, but trust me when I say that the early reviews from the academic number crunchers -- "awesome," "damn this is cool" -- are well deserved. And if you'd rather let someone else show you what it can do, the comedian/activist Baratunde Thurston provides a guided video tour (h/t: TechPresident).
By Mark Blumenthal on June 6, 2008 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Research 2000/DailyKos.com (D)
Kansas
McCain 51, Obama 40
Sen: Roberts 50, Slattery 38
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 6, 2008 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Research 2000/DailyKos.com (D)
Kansas
McCain 51, Obama 40
Sen: Roberts 50, Slattery 38
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 6, 2008 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Rasmussen Reports
West Virginia
McCain 45, Obama 37
Missouri
Obama 43, McCain 42
Gubernatorial Numbers
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 6, 2008 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Gallup Poll
National (5/31 to 6/4)
McCain 46, Obama 45
National (6/4 only)
Obama 45, McCain 45
Obama/Clinton 50, McCain 45
Also
"An Early Gallup Road Map to the McCain-Obama Matchup"
Rasmussen Reports
National
Obama 47, McCain 45
Favorable / Unfavorable
McCain 55 / 42
Obama 54 / 43
Also
"51% of Democrats Back Obama-Clinton Ticket"
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 5, 2008 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)
Cook Political Report/
RT Strategies
(results, cross tabs)
National
Obama 44, McCain 43
(Obama voters) Do you think there is a chance you (ROTATE:) will consider voting for McCain, or have you definitely decided to vote for Obama?
(McCain voters) Do you think there is a chance you (ROTATE:) will consider voting for Obama, or have you definitely decided to vote for McCain?
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 5, 2008 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (77) | TrackBacks (0)
My NationalJournal.com column, which this week discusses some lessons about the limitations of polling in primary elections, is now online.
By Mark Blumenthal on June 5, 2008 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
CBS News
(Story, General Election, Race, Economy)
National
Obama 45, Clinton 41
Obama 48, McCain 42... Clinton 50, McCain 41
If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, would you like to see him pick Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, or not? (Democratic primary voters)
Yes 59, No 35
By Eric Dienstfrey on June 5, 2008 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)