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| Both Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) led primary polling for the first three years of their respective party's primary process, only to come up empty handed. Photos courtesy of Joan Readle/Getty (left), and Corbis (right) |
Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie would stand a fair chance of winning their party's nomination if Republicans and Democrats decided on a nationwide basis at the ballot box today. But then again, so would General Colin Powell at a similar point in 1997, and Senator Edward Kennedy in 1981. Unfortunately for them, that's not how the party's pick their nominees.
As discussed in part 1 of this series, there have only been three instances in the last forty years of presidential primary polling in which the frontrunner in the first year following the preceding election went on to win his party's nomination.
Clinton and Christie can't like those odds. But about 80% of the time, or three out of the last fifteen primaries, early surveys were unreflective of final results.
The twelve Republican or Democratic primaries since 1976 to feature non-predictive early primary polling split roughly into two groups - 1) those where the eventual nominee showed up in early surveys, but not as the frontrunner (as discussed in Part 2 and 3 of this series), and 2) those where the eventual nominee seems to have come from nowhere, emerging in much later polling, sometimes after primary contests have begun.
This fourth installment will continue to focus on group one above...namely the 2008 Republican and 1980 Democratic Presidential Primaries.
2008 - THREE YEAR FRONTRUNNER FINISHES WITH ZILCH
It's been less than ten years, but some may be surprised to recall that there was a definite polling frontrunner in the early 2008 primary process - it just wasn't John McCain. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had been in the spotlight since the September 11th terrorist attacks, which took place in the waning three months of his eight year mayorship. That adoration turned to presidential speculation not long after the Republicans renominated President Bush in 2004. By the next year, the speculation had translated into a fairly consistent lead in early 2008 Republican presidential primary polling:
Across sixteen surveys in the first year following the 2004 presidential election, Giuliani led likely GOP foes in twelve of them, tied for first place in two, and finished a close second place in the remaining two.
