The Silent Center: How Republican Moderates Have Come To Dominate Recent Presidential Primaries

Rick Santorum was the runner-up to the Republican nomination in 2012, as was Mike Huckabee in 2008. But if either contest had been limited to 'very conservative' primary voters only, they likely would have been the Republican nominees for President in their respective races. Photo is courtesy of Scott Olson/Getty Images.

Jeb Bush raised a few eyebrows last December when he stated that the eventual Republican nominee would have "to lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles." The seemingly paradoxical statement is an acknowledgement by Bush of the prevailing conventional wisdom in Republican presidential primaries - that Republican candidates damage their general election prospects by running right of mainstream America during the nominating contest. But more important, at least for the purpose of this article, was the implication that Republican candidates must beef up their conservative bona fides to win.

This second notion is popular among political pundits, making its way into piece after piece examining the historically large crop of potential 2016 GOP candidates for president. And it's nothing new. Mitt Romney perpetuated the notion with his "severely conservative" remark at the 2012 CPAC conference. John McCain's apparent insufficient conservatism was noted many times by pundits during the 2008 primary campaign. 

The inclination to jump on the "too moderate to win the primary" bandwagon feels almost instinctual, especially for a party with as vocal of a strongly conservative faction as the Republicans. Yet an analysis of exit poll results from the 2012 and 2008 Republican primaries demands a different conclusion. No - the overall Republican primary electorate is not averse to an admittedly moderate candidate. Far from it, in fact.

Why? Because exit polling has indicated that self-identified moderates/liberals and 'somewhat conservative' voters greatly outnumber the far-right of the primary electorate.

By combining the results of the twenty states to feature an exit poll in the 2012 Republican primary, we find that self-described moderates and/or liberals comprised 33.3% of the national electorate, 33.1% identified as 'somewhat conservative,' and 33.5% identified as 'very conservative.' In other words, the GOP's self-described ideology fits very nicely into thirds.

Red cells highlight states where self-identified moderates/liberals made up a plurality of the Republican primary electorate. Data in the table is courtesy of Dave Leip's US Election Atlas and NBC News 2012 Republican Primary Exit Poll Results.

Hillary Clinton Exceeds Records Set By Her Husband Against Republicans In 2016, Says New CNN Poll

Hillary Clinton laughs with ex-Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta. A recent CNN/ORC poll certainly gives her plenty reason to smile. Photo courtesy of Win McNamee/Getty Images

Still shaking off the sting of November's thumping, a recent CNN/ORC poll provided Democrats with some glimmers of hope. While most of the headlines generated by the poll were concerned with Obama's sudden surge in job approval, there was another eye-brow raising statistic in the release - Hillary Clinton positively dominates the entire 2016 Republican field, at a time when news of Jeb Bush's unofficial campaign launch has sucked up much of the media oxygen in the room.

So how does the recently much-hyped junior Bush stack up against the recently quiet ex-Secretary of State? Very poorly, actually.

If the election were held today, Hillary would win a clear majority of the vote (54%), while Jeb Bush just barely cross the 40% mark. Supposing the margin between the candidates holds, it would be the worst popular vote performance for Republicans in a Presidential election since Barry Goldwater's landslide 1964 loss.

And if Jeb Bush is not the Republican nominee, and you're a Republican voter, well...go ahead and bend over, per CNN, because 2016 is going to be a rough ride.

The tough-talking New Jerseyan, who most think is a shoe-in to run, trails Hillary by an embarrassing 56-39% margin. Candidates as diverse as Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Ted Cruz, all trail ex-Sen. Clinton by 20 points or more. Hillary even hits 60% in a head-to-head against Sen. Cruz.

If you buy the CNN/ORC numbers, Hillary's performance against all of these candidates is truly intimidating. Not only does she match her ex-two-term President husband's 1990s performance in many demographic metrics, she actually exceeds his showing in many more. Consider the table below, which documents the demographics in which Hillary Clinton performs exceptionally strong in the CNN poll, and compares her performance with past Democratic nominees for President dating back to 1972 (the beginning of the modern exit polling era). 

Exit Poll data courtesy of Best & Krueger's Exit Polls.

Clinton's performance against Jeb Bush among men, women, Democrats, and Independents, is the best performance for any Democratic presidential nominee since at least as far back as national exit polls track (1972). In other words, Hillary Clinton outperforms EVERY Democrat dating back to McGovern, in key demographics tested by the CNN/ORC poll. For example, she's up four among men, a feat not yet accomplished by any Democrat in exit polling to date. Only Bill Clinton came close to such an accomplishment when he carried the male vote by 3 points in 1992. But even then, that election is not directly comparable due to the unique strength of third-party candidate Ross Perot.

Republicans TIE Hillary Clinton In Latest 2016 Poll, Though Demographics Point To Friendly GOP Electoral Landscape

The topsy-turvy nature of 2012 GOP primary polling looks to be repeating itself in the 2016 cycle. Seemingly out of nowhere, former Governor Mike Huckabee has deposed Chris Christie as the Republican leader to take on Hillary Clinton.

There's good and bad news for both Democrats and Republicans in the new 2016 national survey from the pollster liberals love and conservatives love to hate, the occasionally accurate and always trolling Public Policy Polling.

The bad news for Republicans is their previous standard-bearer, Chris Christie, continues to take a beating in the polls for the "bridgegate" scandal. The New Jersey Governor was a fairly rare political figure for this day and age where everyone seems to hate anyone and anything associated with politics and Washington D.C. He had a double-digit positive favorability rating that stretched across party lines. But over the course of just one month, Christie's favorability rating dropped from the best of the field (43/31%) to THE worst (31/46%; even lightning rod Tea Partier Ted Cruz manages a -10% net rating). Having previously led Hillary Clinton by 3-pts (45-42%), Christie now trails by 2-pts (45-43%).

What's more, the entire Republican field looks pretty unpopular nationally. The most popular potential GOP candidate, Mike Huckabee, could only manage a 37% favorability rating. And even then, his unfavorable rating was slightly higher at 38%. The rest of the field ranges from a net favorability rating of -6% (Paul Ryan) to -15% (Chris Christie).

The good news, however, is that despite all of this, every Republican tested looks like they could be competitive in a national race against Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of them except Ted Cruz poll within the margin of error of Hillary (3.4%). And Christie, the GOP's most unpopular candidate at the moment, leads Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren by significant margins.

The bad news for Democrats is that like the Republicans, their standard bearer has also fallen in the court of public opinion. Hillary Clinton's favorability entered negative territory for the first time in a PPP survey in years. And potential primary competitors Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Joe Biden look particularly weak.

The good news for Democrats isn't readily obvious on the face of the poll. But they can find a little relief by pulling back the curtains and examining the crosstabs, for PPP is finding a much more friendly GOP climate than existed in either the 2012 or 2008 presidential elections. In fact, at least two of their more significant demographic findings (race and age) much more closely resemble the 2010 midterm electorate, when Republicans picked up a nearly unprecedented number of House seats and carried the popular vote handily.

Consider PPP's race findings, in which 3/4 of poll respondents identify as white, the highest amount since the 2004 presidential election. We know from examining every presidential election since 1992 that the white share of the vote has dropped from 4% to 2% per cycle. If that tradition holds in 2016, we could expect the white share of the total electorate to be between 68-70% (it was 72% in 2012). For comparison, CNN exit polls showed that white voters made up 77% of the vote in the 2010 midterm election. Likewise, Hispanic voters have seen their share of the electorate increase in every presidential election since 1992 (between 3% and 1% per cycle). In 2012, they made up 10% of voters. By that standard, you'd expect Hispanics to make up between 11-13% of a 2016 presidential electorate, and not the 9% found by PPP (which is much more similar to the 8% found by exit polls in 2010). The African American and Asian share of the vote hasn't increased in ALL of the presidential cycles, but has been on a general upward trend of late.

So I'd posit that the 75 / 12 / 9 / 4% white/black/Hispanic/Asian-Other finding from PPP's national survey is less reflective of a likely 2016 presidential electorate than, say, a 69 / 13 / 12 / 6% finding. Had this been PPP's racial identification finding, Hillary Clinton's narrow margins over her Republican competitors naturally grows (as Democrats have historically performed stronger with minority than white voters). The chart below documents what the PPP results would have been had they found the more racially diverse electorate described above, all other findings remaining the same:

The Predictive Power of (Very) Early Presidential Primary Polling Part IV - 2008 GOP & 1980 Democratic Primaries

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.