Aug 22 2011
∞
In my last post I noted in passing that primary nomination polling was basically useless in predicting the eventual nominee. To illustrate it, here are the results of a poll in August 2007 on the eventual Republican nominee. For clarity, I’ve not shown candidates who were polling below 5%.
Worth noting here:
- Romney is around the same 15% he attracts in polls now. Is this the same 15% of Republicans as last time?
- For some inscrutable reason, Giuliani was seen as the greatest candidate Republicans could offer. He was polling near the top all through the summer. I have absolutely no idea what people found so inspiring about him. His campaign was basically dead by the time primaries started.
- The exact same thing happened with Thompson a couple months later.
- McCain is way back in fourth place here, and wasn’t really being taken seriously as a candidate for the actual election.
- Ron Paul was at 2% in this poll. This time, he’s polling around 10%. Actually, he’s basically polling where McCain was last time around. For whatever reason, he’s a lot less fringey than four years ago.
So yeah - the broad array of candidates, the relatively weak preferences (compared to a general election), and the lack of a good filter for primary voters means that primary nomination polling is generally pretty terrible.
