Do not pay attention to the early polls. The real shakedown for viable candidates won’t come until January on the eve of the New Hampshire primary when voters will make more serious choices.
A Public Policy Polling poll released this week has Bernie Sanders leading among “usual” Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire over Hillary Clinton, 42 to 35 percent, with Jim Webb at 6 percent, followed by Martin O’Malley at 4 percent and Lincoln Chafee at 2 percent.
Among Republicans, Donald Trump leads with 35 percent followed by John Kasich at 11 percent, Carly Fiorina at 10 percent, Jeb Bush at 7 percent, Scott Walker at 7 percent, Ben Carson at 6 percent, Chris Christie at 4 percent, Marco Rubio at 4 percent, Ted Cruz at 4 percent, Rand Paul at 3 percent, Rick Perry at 2 percent, Lindsey Graham at 1 percent and Rick Santorum at 1 percent.
Polling history indicates that the summer before actual voting season is a chance for likely voters to vent, but their choices change dramatically when their decisions count.
In 2008, the last open-seat election, the early polls were quite different from the voting shakeout.
On Sept. 7, 2007, a Washington Post/ABC poll had Rudy Giuliani leading the GOP field with 28 percent, following by Fred Thompson at 19 percent, John McCain at 18 percent, Mitt Romney at 10 percent, Mike Huckabee at 5 percent, Sam Brownback at 2 percent and Ron Paul at 1 percent.
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama 42-27 percent, with John Edwards at 14 percent, Joe Biden at 3 percent, Bill Richardson at 2 percent, Dennis Kucinich at 2 percent, Chris Dodd at 1 percent, and Mike Gravel at 1 percent.
By January 2008, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, McCain led the GOP field at 28 percent; Huckabee moved up to 20 percent, and Romney hit 19 percent; Giuliani dropped by 13 points to 15 percent; Thompson dropped to 8 percent; Paul stayed even at 1 percent; and Brownback registered zero.
On the Democratic side, Clinton still led with 42 percent; Obama jumped 10 points to 37 percent, and Edwards dipped to 11 percent.
The actual primary vote was very different from the early polls. Clinton edged Obama by almost three percentage points, 39.1 to 36.5 percent, followed by Edwards, 16.9 percent; Richardson, 4.6 percent; Kucinich, 1.35 percent; Biden, 0.22 percent; and Gravel, 0.14 percent.
On the GOP side, the primary result was quite different from the September poll.
Giuliani, who led in September with 28 percent, only got 8.7 percent of the real vote; Thompson, who was second in the September poll at 19 percent, finished with only 1.23 percent of the vote. McCain, who was at 18 percent in the September poll, won the primary with 37 percent of the vote. Romney jumped from 10 percent in the early poll to take 31.6 percent of the vote. Huckabee moved up to take 11.2 percent of the real vote, while Paul went from 1 percent in the early poll to 7.8 percent of the vote.
What this means is that early polls do not translate to votes.
Many factors are in play. Closer to the election, candidates’ organizations are tested as they comb the hustings for voters. And, even then, the primaries are not predictive of the general election outcome in November.
Ron Schmidt, associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, explained it best, “The people who show up in primaries tend to be the very, very motivated and usually committed to one candidate or another. That’s not necessarily the people who show up on Election Day in November.”
In 2010, with an open gubernatorial seat in Maine and seven Republican and four Democratic candidates, a total of 25,950 votes were cast in the Penobscot County primary. In November, 61,317 votes were cast. An entirely different and larger electorate decided who would be in office.
And the great unknown at this stage are the unenrolled independents who will turn the general election. They are not factored into the early polls, which concentrate on the registered Democrats and Republicans.
But they will look at the nominees from a different perspective. They are mostly free thinkers who go back and forth between parties, and they dislike both parties as organizations. So they’re watching all of the pre-primary polling with an “is that the best you got?” cynicism.
So enjoy The Donald’s latest television show and Bernie mania for the entertainment. But if polling history holds true, they won’t be a factor next spring.
Vic Berardelli of Newburgh is a retired political consultant and author of “The Politics Guy Campaign Tips — How to Win a Local Election.” Now an unenrolled independent, he was a Republican State Committeeman and former member of the Republican Liberty Caucus National Board.