Post-New Hampshire Primary Polling Suggests Trump's Historically Well Positioned To Capture GOP Nomination

Photos, from left to right, courtesy of Getty Images, Carlos Osorio/AP, and Mike Segar/Reuters

To the chagrin of the sixty-to-seventy-odd percent of Republicans who do not support Donald Trump as their nominee for president, the billionaire firebrand is looking mighty dominant in post-New Hampshire primary polling. But how is he standing up compared to past polling front-runners at this point in the campaign? For Trump critics, the news is pretty bleak, yet not without at least a faint glint of hope.

In my experience, it's always best to start with the bad news, so here goes:  in nearly every presidential primary since 1976, the national polling leader between the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries has gone on to become their party's nominee. Specifically, of the fifteen post-New Hampshire national primary polling leaders examined over the last forty years, twelve eventually earned their party's nomination (or 80% of the time).

Having said that, Donald Trump is currently the Republican's national polling leader, and by a wide margin. With one day remaining until South Carolinians head to the polls, Trump's averaging 36% support from Republicans across seven primary surveys conducted after the New Hampshire primary, reaching as high as 41% and as low as 26%. He maintains an average seventeen point advantage over his next closest competitor, Ted Cruz.

Faced with the numbers, and what we know of history, what else is there to conclude other than the fact that Trump appears headed for the Republican nomination?

Unlike Romney 3.0, Ex-Nominees Do Not Historically Poll Very Well In National Primary Surveys

Looking exclusively at losing presidential nominees, Al Gore's 2004 primary polling numbers most closely resemble Mitt Romney's current status among the 2016 GOP field. Of course, Al Gore never took the second plunge. Photo courtesy of the Associated Press

Former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has stormed back onto the political scene in a big way this month, reaching out to former mega-donors, reassembling the 'old team,' and meeting with fellow potential major candidates. And as poll after poll has shown, rank-and-file Republican Party members across the nation have taken notice.

A surprisingly solid 59% of Republicans say they'd like for the former nominee, who attracted just over 47% of the popular vote in his failed 2012 bid, to give it another go in 2016. Only 26% think he should sit it out. Romney consistently sports the highest favorability ratings of the potentially large field of Republicans candidates, at least where it counts - among the base. Last but not least, he leads comfortably in every national horserace survey of the GOP primary taken to date.

That final fact is somewhat unique in a historical context, and especially so when looking back over the last thirty years. Ex-presidential nominees frequently pop-up in the following cycle's primary polling. But it's much less frequent that they cast such a dominating presence over the rest of the field, so consistently.

In fact, looking back at ALL twenty-one ex-nominee's polling performance in the following cycle's presidential primary in the modern polling era, former presidential nominees can be said to fall into three tiers.

1. Tier 1 - this group of former nominees had no trouble recapturing the party faithful's hearts and minds for the second time in a row following their presidential loss. Qualification for membership in this group requires the ex-nominee poll in first place in at least half of the following presidential primary surveys taken that include that candidates name. For example, because Mitt Romney has appeared in eight national 2016 GOP primary surveys to date, and has led in each, he would qualify for membership in this group. Other ex-nominees falling into this group are Al Gore in 2004, Richard Nixon in 1964, Adlai Stevenson in 1956, and Thomas Dewey in 1948.
2. Tier 2 - this group of former nominees polled reasonably well in primary surveys taken after their presidential loss, almost always hitting double digits, even finding themselves at the summit of some random surveys. They fall short, however, of the polling status achieved by the failed nominees in the above group. Seven of the twenty-one ex-presidential nominees from 1936 to 2012 fall into this category.
3. Tier 3 - ex-nominees in this group are defined either by their surprisingly shoddy, if not embarrassing polling performance in the following cycle's primary survey, or by their unwillingness to even entertain the idea of the presidency ever again, evidenced by their total exclusion from the following primary's polling. Nine of the twenty-one ex-presidential nominees from 1936 to 2012 fall into this category. 

The Predictive Power of (Very) Early Presidential Primary Polling Part III - 1984 Democratic Primary

From left, Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, John Glenn, George McGovern, and Jesse Jackson participate in a primary debate in March of 1984. John Glenn and Gary Hart seriously challenged Mondale in national polling at various stages of the pimary process, though none of the three candidates led in the first year of 1984 primary polling. Photo courtesy of Wally McNamee/CORBIS

The wealth of 2016 polling, of both the general election and primary sort, led veteran news journalist Tom Brokaw to quip yesterday morning on "Meet the Press": "We have an hour to fill." Los Angeles Times writer Mark Barabak recently dedicated an entire column to their futility. And the mere existence of a recent NBC/WSJ poll on the 2016 general election practically ruined NPR reporter Don Gonyea's breakfast last week.

Overly dramatic or not, many of the talking heads looking down on early 2016 polling, at least on the primary level, are justified in their skepticism. Early presidential primary polling, especially those taken the first year following the preceding presidential election, are historically unreliable. In fact, only 3 of the last 15 Republican or Democratic primaries saw the leader in very early polling go on to win the nomination (as noted in parts one and two of this series).

To be fair, as Nate Silver has noted in the past, presidential primary polling accuracy rises sharply following midterm elections. But surveys conducted between the preceding general election and the midterms accurately forecasted the eventual nominee for just three people: Al Gore in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996, and George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Part 2 of this series began exploring those primaries where the eventual winner was on the polling radar very early in the process, but was not the initial leader (such as the case with George W. Bush in 2000). In this third installment, I'll continue in the same vein by looking at 1984 Democratic Primary Polling conducted between November 4, 1980 and December 31, 1982. Like in 2000, the eventual nominee (Walter Mondale) showed up in early polling, just not as a frontrunner. That title belonged to Edward Kennedy.

2016: Paul Ryan More Unpopular than Sarah Palin, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman Were At This Point

2004 Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards (D) (left) actually had a much better net favorability rating at this point in time following the 2004 election than either 2012 nominee Paul Ryan (R), or 2008 nominee Sarah Palin (R).

GOP budget-guy, numbers-hunk, and one-time promising candidate for President in 2012 and 2016 got smacked with some upsetting "numbers" himself this week when Rasmussen Reports released their latest national survey on likely voter impressions of the would-be Vice President: 

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Paul Ryan? (nat'l survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted March 14-15, 2013)
Favorable:    35%   (-8)*
Unfavorable:   54%   (+8)
*Number in parentheses represent the percent-change in Ryan's favorable/unfavorable rating among likely voters nationwide since Rasmussen's previous poll on the race in January.

Only a little more than 1 in 3 likely voters view the young Wisconsin Congressman favorably, while a solid majority see him unfavorably. To be blunt, those are really awful numbers. We're talking Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin type numbers. But they're even worse in the context of where he once stood on Rasmussen Reports, as recently as just two and seven months ago:

Over the course of just two months, views of Paul Ryan have gone from being split evenly among the electorate, to tilting overwhelmingly unfavorable...at least, according to Rasmussen Reports. Where did his massive 16 point negative downturn since January come from? Ryan fell across the board, but most notably among Republicans. In fact, his drop among Republicans is so stark that you almost have to chalk it up to statistical error. For example, a whopping 40% of his own party views him unfavorably, with just 52% seeing him favorably. Compare that to his January Rasmussen rating, when his fav/unfav rating was a staggeringly high 76/14% among Republicans.

Even outside of Rasmussen Reports, you can detect a distinct downward trajectory since the election last November in Paul Ryan's favorability ratings. Perhaps his 'front-and-center' role in the nation's budget debate is to blame. Or perhaps it's due to the Democratic-created notion that Paul Ryan wants to end Medicare as we know it. Or perhaps it's simply his association with a failed presidential campaign. Either way, his post election favorability ratings have been worse than each of the 3 preceeding Vice Presidential losers before him, at a similar point in time following their election loss; the 3 VP nominees being Sarah Palin (R), John Edwards (D), and Joe Lieberman (D). The chart below averages the findings of every favorability survey on the four former VP nominees, from the time of their selection, until present day (or the equivalent thereof in 2009, 2005, and 2001). The full list of each nominee's favorable/unfavorable ratings can be found here, and was compiled from Pollster, TPM Poll tracker, Poll Report, and National Journal.

While all four of the most recent failed Vice Presidential candidates maintained overall positive favorability ratings from the time of their selection to this point in their post-VP run, Paul Ryan's rating remains the lowest, at just 41/40%. Consider the fact that both Joe Lieberman AND John Edwards (pre-love-child scandal, of course) maintained personal favorable ratings of +20 or more (44/15% and 46/26%, respectively). In short, Joe Lieberman was the most popular VP nominee of the last 4 elections, while Paul Ryan is the least (based on favorability ratings from the time of their selection to this point in their post-VP runs).