Past History Of Polls Before Iowa Encouraging For Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump’s GOP Rivals

National Polls Before Iowa

I’ve noted many times that polls prior to primaries are of little predictive value. Polls in December 2007 showed that Clinton had a huge lead over Obama. In December 2003, Howard Dean was pulling away in the polls. Eventual winner John Kerry was in sixth place with only 4 percent, even trailing Al Sharpton. While Clinton is certainly in a strong position this year, her leads in the national polls do not guarantee victory. Similarly, while Donald Trump seems to have a significant lead in the Republican race, it is premature to assume he will win unless he actually performs well in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Alfred J. Tuchfarber has looked at the December polls and has also demonstrated how little predictive value they have. In polls from November 2007, taken two months before voting, Hillary Clinton was leading the Democratic race. Rudy Guiliani was leading the Republican race, with Fred Thompson also ahead of John McCain. In 2011 Herman Cain was leading the Republican race, and had left the race by the time of the Iowa caucuses.

One reason for the poor predictive value of national polls is that whoever wins in Iowa and/or New Hampshire generally gets a huge boost in subsequent states. That doesn’t mean that the polls in Iowa are all that more meaningful as voters there typically don’t make up their minds until the last minute. Hillary Clinton was leading in the polls in Iowa and came in third place in 2008. In late 2007 Mitt Romney was leading the polls in Iowa, and came in second to Mike Huckabee. Herman Cain was leading in Iowa as well as the national polls two months before the Iowa caucus.

Polls also have limited predictive value as the pollsters do not know who will actually turn out to vote. If the Democratic caucus in Iowa is dominated by long time Democratic voters, then the polls are showing the race as very close. If those who haven’t previously voted but are showing enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders turn out to vote, there could be a big victory for Sanders. The much stronger degree of support seen for Sanders in social media is very encouraging, but no guarantee of votes. It might also be helpful for Sanders that the Iowa caucuses are later this year than in the 2008 cycle, when many college students were off on vacation. Even more might turn out for Sanders in this year than had turned out for Obama.

Similarly we will not know whether Donald Trump will easily win the nomination, or if a party regular will challenge him, until we see how the voters act.

Republicans Spared Boehner Because God Told Them To

If you believe some people, God takes as great an interest in the Republican Party as he does in Notre Dame football. The Washington Post described how John Boehner managed to remain in power despite opposition in his own party:

Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker.

Boehner’s opponents might have remembered that God’s support for Boehner as Speaker does not necessarily preclude his support for additional people to move on to be Speaker. Before the last election, God wanted Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry to run for president.

I actually find this more disturbing than a politician telling the public that God wants them to run. Perhaps they might pick up some votes, but we hope that the candidate doesn’t really believe this.  In the case of the Republican revolt against Boehner, it appears we actually had members of Congress change how they voted for Speaker because either they believed God told them to spare Boehner or because they believed others when told that this is God’s will.

Wingnuts Say The Darndest Things: Michele Bachmann On How God Will Free Us From Obamacare (Which Literally Kills People)

“I think the President will ultimately be forced to repudiate his own signature piece of legislation because the American people will demand it. And I think before his second term is over, we’re going to see a miracle before our eyes, I believe God is going to answer our prayers and we’ll be freed from the yoke of Obamacare. I believe that’s going to happen and we saw step one last week with the repeal of Obamacare in the House. We have two more steps. We serve a mighty God and I believe it can happen.” —Michele Bachmann

Bachmann has also said recently that Obamacare “literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens.”

The National Memo responds:

Of course, if Bachmann was correct that God pushed her — along with Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry — into the 2012 presidential race, then it seems pretty clear that He was doing His best to ensure that Barack Obama would win re-election, thus protecting health care reform. And if God really wanted to undo Obamacare, then He probably would’ve helped out with House Republican’s previous 37 attempts to repeal the law. But considering that Bachmann was last seen on this list complaining that the IRS will deny conservatives the Obamacare coverage that she hates so much, it’s probably best not to read too deeply into the logic behind her ramblings.

 

Herman Cain Hired By Fox

More changes coming from the propaganda arm of the Republican Party: With Sarah Palin and Dick Morris leaving Fox  there was hope that Fox would no longer be providing a home for every washed-up political hack who has nothing of value to provide to anyone else. Instead it looks like Fox is just looking for kooks who are a little more charismatic than Dick Morris and the former half-term governor. Fox has now hired Herman Cain as a contributor. Perhaps they will save money and pay him $9.99 per word instead of the $15.85 per word they paid Sarah Palin in honor of Cain’s tax plan

Santorum Suspends Campaign; Romney Nomination Inevitable

It is time for Romney to shake his Etch A Sketch. Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign.  Most likely he realized that it is better to get out now as opposed to being humiliated by a loss in Pennsylvania.

Gingrich is still in but his campaign appears dead. Even Herman Cain is dropping Gingrich for Romney. Ron Paul is still in the race, running ads attacking the other Republican opponents, but he remains with zero chance of ever winning the nomination. It was already pretty clear, but in case anyone had any doubt it is now as certain as it can be before the conventions that the general election will be Romney vs. Obama.

May the honest, consistent man with integrity win.

Rick Santorum Becomes Eleventh Candidate To Lead GOP In Polls With Mitt Romney Severely Facing Problems

Although the conventional wisdom has been that Mitt Romney is the probable Republican nominee, he is certainly having a hard time establishing himself as a front runner. Before today’s poll came out, Nate Silver listed ten previous front-runners  in alphabetical order, including some Republicans who led in the polls without being a declared candidate: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. Today, Public Policy Polling makes Rick Santorum the eleventh. Santorum leads at 38 percent. Romney trails at 23 percent, with Gingrich at 17 percent and Ron Paul at 13 percent.

Rick Santorum does even better if he does not have to divide he conservative vote with Newt Gingrich. If Gingrich were to drop out, the poll shows that 58 percent of his supporters would go to Santorum. In a such a three way race, Santorum get to 50 percent, while Romney would be at 28 percent and Paul at 15 percent.

Leadership in the GOP race has not meant very much to date, but falling behind at this stage does create problems for Romney. He might go negative against Santorum as he did against Gingrich, but his negative ads are starting to backfire. Some suggest that instead of going negative against Santorum, Romney must convert to a positive campaign. I’m not sure how a man who lacks any core beliefs or convictions can do this.  His strongest pitch is that he can make up the biggest lies about Barack Obama.

The Maine caucuses conclude tonight with a two-man race between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. There is speculation that Paul might be able to pull an upset victory. If you cannot beat a crackpot like Ron Paul, it is hard to see victory for the nomination as inevitable.

There’s another potential embarrassment for Romney. Public Policy Polling is also seeing the start of a surge for Santorum in Michigan. A loss in Michigan would be devastating to Romney, both for losing his home state and because of reinforcing Santorum’s dominance over Romney in the Midwest. Perhaps Romney will try to flip-flop on having been born and raised in Michigan. Would Mitt Romney’s birth certificate then become an issue?

CPAC is also conducting their straw poll. To paraphrase Jay Leno, Romney is promising to change his views to whatever views CPAC members desire. Romney pandered before them, claiming to be “severely conservative.” The word severe might sound out of place here, unless you see it as an honest admission from Romney, such as “I am severely insane” or, at very least, “I am severely out of touch with the voters of this country.”

Donald Trump Wants To Fire Mitt Romney As GOP Frontrunner; Update: CNN Reports He is Endorsing Romney

Donald Trump is making a major announcement on Thursday and reportedly will endorse Newt Gingrich.

First Herman Cain endorsed Gingrich and now Trump. This should lock up the bat-shit crazy vote for Gingrich, which is the major portion of the Republican vote.

Trump has also been talking about running as a third party candidate again. Most likely this was to receive more publicity but perhaps he might use a loss by his candidate as reason to run.

Update: CNN is now reporting that Donald Trump will be endorsing Romney and not Gingrich per reports yesterday. I think we need to wait for the actual announcement to know for certain what he is doing.

Quote of the Day

“NHPrimary Trivia: The Republican candidates have not spoken to a black person since Herman Cain dropped out.” –Andy Borowitz

Bonus Quote going back to Iowa:

“Say what you will about the margin of Romney’s victory, but 8 votes is still 6 more than Rick Perry can count.” –Andy Borowitz

The Republican Circus Can Get Even Wilder

The Republicans have a real problem. Mitt Romney has been running for the nomination, and sometimes has even led the race, since before Barack Obama became president, but the Republicans just don’t want him. Conservatives have been trying to find an acceptable candidate to promote their beliefs but it is just not possible to find a sane leader for a movement which has become outright bat-shit crazy. To demonstrate my point, at the moment they are stuck with Newt Gingrich.  I’ve speculated in the past that that this could lead to none of the current candidates winning and the race going to the convention. The possibility of someone else winning the nomination received further attention after Nate Silver wrote a post today on this topic.

This possibility exists because of the problems with the candidates and the structure of the primaries. Republican caucuses and primaries held before April 1 cannot be winner-take-all, but afterwards they can. This means that it will be hard for anyone to take an overwhelming lead early, making it possible for a candidate with momentum late to win winner-take-all contests and win a larger number of delegates. Theoretically this could be a candidate entering late, but I wonder if this is really possible as anyone not currently in the race will lack the campaign infrastructure and will miss many of the filing deadlines to enter the contests. I suspect that if some of the other candidates recover it might be possible for different ones to win in different states, preventing anyone from clinching the nomination prior to the convention.

Once caucuses and primaries begin they create a new atmosphere and the previous pecking order might be meaningless. If someone wins convincingly in the early contests they should be able to lock up the nomination. The lack of a conventional campaign infrastructure creates doubt as to whether Newt Gingrich can win despite his current lead in the polls, but if the conservative movement, including the Tea Party, line up behind him this might be enough to beat Romney. It certainly doesn’t look good for Romney to be trailing Gingrich in Michigan as he is at the present. A loss in Michigan would probably be the end for Romney, but on the other hand the Michigan polls, as most other states, will probably shift based upon the results in the early states.

If none of the Republican candidates please conservatives, there are a couple of names being raised as potential independent candidates. Donald Trump, angry that only Gingrich and Rick Santorum are attending his debate says, “I am unwilling to give up my right to run as an independent candidate.”

Trump is particularly angry at Michelle Bachmann:

“She came up to see me four times,” Trump said. “She would call me and ask me for advice. She said if she wins, she would like to think about me for the Vice Presidency.”

As I’ve suggested in the past, it makes more sense for Trump to run as an independent than in the Republican primaries as it allows him to continue on Celebrity Apprentice this season. That said, there is a strong likelihood that Trump is only talking about running to attract more publicity. Ron Paul, who has declined to offer support to any other winner of the Republican nomination, is also increasingly being discussed as a possible independent candidate. Paul has been on an upward trajectory, but there is also a low ceiling for his potential support. He will suffer the same fate as candidates such as Bachmann and Cain when his views and past receive greater scrutiny. Speaking  of Cain, he never had a chance to become president, but one organization is interested him–Fox.

Quote of the Day

“Now that he’s back home Herman Cain’s wife has a huge to-do list for him. 1. Clean out the garage. 2. Go live in it.” –Jimmy Kimmel