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| Former Gov. Mario Cuomo (left) was mentioned as a possible presidential contender on three different occasions, and was a polling frontrunner in two of them, even polling well ahead of eventual President Bill Clinton at one point. He famously never took the plunge. Photo courtesy of AP/Stephan Savoia. |
The sixth and final part to this series exploring very early primary polling in 15 different contested presidential primaries since 1976 will examine the six contests in which the eventual nominee did not make a splash in national polling until much later in the primary process than those discussed in parts 1-5 (found here, here, here, here, and here).
In other words, we'll be looking at Barack Obama's nomination in 2008, John Kerry's in 2004, Bill Clinton's in 1992, Michael Dukakis's in 1988, Jimmy Carter's in 1976, and Gerald Ford's in 1976. This group of six men never enjoyed the early and persistent polling success of Al Gore in 2000, George H.W. Bush in 1988, and Bob Dole in 1996. Far from Romney in 2012, McCain in 2008, Bush in 2000, Mondale in 1984, Reagan in 1980, and Carter in 1980, they were barely blips on the radar of most early national polling. These are the 6 presidential primary contests where a poll-watcher would have been the most wrong had they relied on those early poll numbers released in the weeks and months following the presidential election. And we'll start with the man who currently occupies the office, President Barack Obama.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention to election polling prior to Obama's 2008 nomination, they might be surprised to learn that the twice-elected, first Democrat to win a national majority since Jimmy Carter didn't even show up in regular Democratic Presidential primary polling until the fall of 2006. In the fourteen surveys conducted in the first year of primary polling following the 2004 election, Obama's name was only included twice. For comparison's sake, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were included in all fourteen.
With the exception of a single, outlier Gallup poll in the summer of 2007, Obama never led Hillary Clinton in a multi-candidate or one-one-one survey of Democratic primary voters until February 2008, after the Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Michigan, Florida, and South Carolina primaries had already been held. And even then, he relinquished his national lead back to her on a handful of occasions following her Texas/Ohio and Pennsylvania primary wins. For that matter, when considering ALL votes cast, Hillary likely won the popular vote, despite losing the delegate count.
If you think that what happened with Obama in 2008 can't happen again, then look no further than his Democratic presidential predecessor, Bill Clinton. In 1992, many commentators lamented the abnormally slow pace with which Democratic presidential candidates were entering the 1992 race. And the public seemed unusually disinterested for such a relatively late stage of the game, thanks in large part to a still war-strong President Bush. Obviously, it seems this would be the primary reason that so few national Democratic primary polls were conducted during the 1992 primary process, as you'll see in the table below. Regardless, eventual Democratic nominee Bill Clinton didn't appear in a single national survey until the Summer of 1991, two-and-a-half years after Bush's inauguration, and just five months before the start of primary contests. Not surprisingly, the frontrunner was Senator Ted Kennedy, the early polling favorite for the 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, and now 1992 Democratic nomination. It's worth noting, however, that this was the last Presidential cycle in which Senator Ted Kennedy started out as the early favorite, and was likely the last time he led in any Democratic primary poll ever again.
