Post #5:Week of August 22 to 28

 GOP: For people watching way too carefully, you may notice that sometimes the numbers from the previous polls have changed a little. This happens because new polls arrive after my Sunday deadline that have to be added to the previous week. The changes tend to be small, and you can assume the most recent graph has the most recent data.

Here is the complete non-surprise. GOP primary voters are falling in love with Donald Trump more and more. Does it matter to them that he can't quote a bible verse? Fuck to the no. He hates who they hate, so he has to be good people.

Here is the even worse news for JeBush Bush. He is now in third behind Ben Carson,  King of the Jews, who saw fit to call the standing president an anti-Semite. Carly Fiorina is not rising in the polls, but with her numbers right now that non-politicians and None of the Above have 55% of the vote and all politicians combined have 45%. All the GOP House and Senate have been able to do is thwart Obama and the GOP base thinks they should be able to do more, probably through some Jesus magic since they can't override a veto. There were times early in the process when Mitt Romney flirted with going below None of the Above back in 2011, but being I have no data of him being in third place ever.

A popular left wing joke is that maybe George W. Bush was the smart one after all as we watch JeBush Bush make unforced errors one after the other. A slightly different hypothesis is that GWB actually liked the work of politics, meeting people and hearing what they want, doing his best to sell them on what he wanted to do. JeBush Bush looks miserable. I haven't seen anyone in the spotlight show less passion and more irritation since Fred Dalton Thompson, and that guy looked like he needed hourly enemas.

The leader under the None of the Above threshold is Ted Cruz, but right now his numbers look like they are just wobbling around. If someone gets above NOTA, I'll show them. If someone slips below NOTA, I'll show them in dotted lines for a few weeks, but if they can't pull out of the nose dive, they will vanish

Dems: Unlike with Trump's numbers, I wouldn't make much of the trends we seem to see in the Democratic nomination information. A lot less pollsters are asking, so the changes we see from week to week are more likely to be the standard random wobble polls are supposed to show. The story is about the same as it has been for awhile now. Clinton's lead is at least 2 to 1 nationally and the only Democrat other than Bernie Sanders who is even close to as popular as None of the Above is the undeclared Joe Biden.

I'll be back next Sunday.

Post #4:Week of August 15 to 21

GOP: Remember that thing that was going to kill Donald Trump's popularity? There's been about one a week for a while now. None of them have worked. Numbers wobble around, but his general trend is on the upswing. I thought conservative media going against him would put a dent in things, but a lot of talk radio is behind him.

Then there's JeBush Bush. The subtext of a lot of his coverage right now is that he's just not good at campaigning. The Very Serious People said that the Republicans were going to have a real chance with Hispanic voters if they nominated Bush or Rubio, but unless they have found the warehouse where all those Men In Black amnesia sticks are being stored, the party nationally is going to learn the same lesson the California party learned with Pete Wilson.

Here are the categories by popularity.

The Leader: Trump, obvs.

Tier #2: Right now, JeBush Bush and Ben Carson - King of the Jews - are actually above None of the Above. Scott Walker was genuinely in the race for second spot, but he has slipped and is now tied with None of the Above.

Tier #3: Here are the people around 5% to 6%: Rubio, Huckabee, Paul, Cruz and Fiorina. Two weeks ago, Fiorina was getting a lot of buzz, but this week was all buzzkill for her as reporters noticed she was hated by employees, stockholders and the board of Hewlitt-Packard, which is known as The Fiorina Hat Trick.

Tier #4: Three governors, Christie, Kasich and Perry, are around 3%. Kasich could be there because of lack of name recognition. Christie and Perry are there due to too much name recognition. You can stick forks in both of them. If you stick it in the fleshy parts, Christie won't notice. As for Perry, I'm not certain his central nervous system works at all.

The Bargain Basement:  Why in God's name are Santorum, Jindal, Graham, Pataki and Gilmore sticking around? A big explanation is Santorum 2012. He was a no hope candidate, but after Perry and Cain and Gingrich all flamed out, he was the last anti-Mitt Romney.

DEM: The Democratic race is simpler. Hillary has a big lead and Sanders is in second place. I wouldn't put that much stock in her seeming decline and his seeming rise, because we have very few polls compared to the Republican race, only 8 when the GOP has had 24. What we are seeing might just be drift due to a small data set.

The reason the Average of Others is as high as 2.8 is Joe Biden, who might wander over the None of the Above number soon. My position is that he will not be part of the graph until he declares or he passes Sanders. I don't expect either of those events, but time will tell.

We also have The Bargain Basement Democrats. I think Webb, O'Malley and Chafee are hoping some scandal brings Hillary low, but we've seen this story for over twenty years now and it's amazing people thing that e-mail will be her Waterloo.

I'll be back next week. I don't expect much in terms of drama, but you never no. The big tension in my mind is how long the Republican party can be this gleeful about committing suicide.

Week #3:August 9 to August 15

The GOP: No polls were taken this week of the Democratic nomination at the national level, while I found links through Pollster and Real Clear Politics to five national polls for the GOP nomination. All of these polls were taken after the debate on Fox News, where the main story was how Donald Trump was a pig and his popularity would have to plummet.

The Big Losers: I only show the marks for the candidates who have been above the level of None of the Above for at least a week, which as of this writing means Trump, Bush, Walker and Rubio. In terms of points lost, Bush is the worst with three points lost, Walker is next worst with 2.8 points lost and Trump gets the bronze, losing 1.4 points. In terms of how much what percentage of their support went away this week, only Walker's loss of 29.4% of his support can match the dreadful showing of some of the no hope also-rans listed here.

Pataki -46.7%
Santorum -41.8%
Perry -37.8%
Jindal -31.4%

All of these candidates are currently below 2% support, so they might see an uptick, but they are miles away from mattering right now and heading in the wrong direction.

The Big Winners: I am loath to write it, but numbers are numbers. Carly Fiorina jumped into the top half of the candidate list, going from 1.3 to 6.4, which puts her in seventh place overall. As the dotted purple line shows, Marco Rubio finally has a week with positive momentum, getting back to 8.0. The guy who is currently in third and looks like the next candidate to break out over the None of the Above mark is Ben Carson, currently at 8.8, up from 5.4 the week before and his best showing yet.

With Trump still cruising along and Carson and Fiorina getting a boost, the percentage of GOP voters in love with a non-politician has jumped from 28.7 points at the end of last month to 38.6 points as of this Sunday. With Fiorina got some press saying Hillary has no accomplishments - a lot of chutzpah for a businesswoman who tanked a Fortune 500 company - Ben Carson calling Obama an anti-Semite and Trump just being Trump, I wouldn't be surprised if their share of the vote goes up again next week.

Can Ben Carson get above None of the Above? Can JeBush Bush stay above None of the Above by defending what his brother did in Iraq? Can Jim Gilmore, the only declared candidate not invited by Nancy Reagan (?!) to the CNN battle royale next month, take a hint?

The answers to these questions and more next Sunday.

Post #2:Week of August 2 to August 8

 The Republicans. Second verse, same as the first.

What will kill Trump?

All these polls are taken before the debate on Thursday night, so next week's numbers will be a solid sign of how much of an effect being rude to Megyn Kelly will have on Trump's numbers.

I can point with some pride to a sentence I wrote last week: "The thing most likely to kill his candidacy would be someone in the conservative media attacking him." Well, Fox News has made him a pariah and Erick Erickson uninvited him from the Redstate get-together this weekend. (Erickson getting upset about a guy having Neanderthal views about women is either ironic, shameless or clueless on his part, possibly some combination of the three.)

I have decided to use dotted lines for candidates whose numbers have sunk below None of the Above. I think there's a good chance Scott Walker will rise again, while Marco Rubio's numbers put him in the middle of the pack wobbling at about 5% trying to break out. Next week's numbers could see a breakthrough for one of them.

The Democrats. Like with the Republicans, None of the Above is rising slowly but steadily. This could be a sign of disaffection with the candidate field or just a sign that some pollsters are lazier than others about getting a choice from the respondents. The big unshown factor is Joe Biden, who is polling just below None of the Above even though he hasn't announced. If he breaks through, the None of the Above vote might slip under 1%.

Back next week with Trump's fall from grace. Or not. It's an easy mistake to underestimate the asshole vote in the GOP nomination process.

Post #1:The week of 26 July to 1 August

Welcome to my new blog tracking the candidates for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations. We are six full months until people will vote in primaries or participate in caucuses that add even one delegate to their totals, but I've decided to begin recording what I fully admit are nearly meaningless numbers every Sunday.

I'm not a fan of the "both sides do it" meme, but there are folks in both parties who have decided to run for president for no reason understandable to sentient beings. Instead of writing a single paragraph about Jim Webb or a deep think piece about What It All Means should Carly Fiorina's support should actually creep up to 2% in the average of a week's polls, I will always display the None of the Above number in the graph, and only people who have had a week above that number will get any electrons here.

The Republicans. It was a bad week for the people predicting Donald Trump's death. In so many ways, he is a throwback candidate, and like other 1980s favorites Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhies, he is remarkably difficult to kill. He is old and angry and has very little restraint, which means he mirrors his core constituency very well. He could be compared to Herman Cain in 2012, but Trump is much more media savvy. Cain was brought low by rumors of infidelity. Trump, like his fellow horror throwback Gingrich, has actual confirmed cases in infidelity. He has many skeletons in his closet from the standpoint of his base - earlier liberal positions, hiring illegal immigrants, working closely with organized crime - but if they are brought forward by the "lamestream media"(probably the best neologism from conservatives this century), they will not be trusted. The thing most likely to kill his candidacy would be someone in the conservative media attacking him. Barring that, losing actual races that matter could bring him the feeling of shame for the first time in his seven decades on the planet. I cannot predict what might happen then.

Both JEBush Bush and Scott Walker had small and statistically insignificant polling dips this week. The noticeable move was Marco Rubio taking a dive and None Of the Above having a small surge. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz are all ahead of Rubio this week, but all are below None of the Above, so I don't have to track them yet.

Yay, I guess.

The Democrats. The press hates this story because there is no damned drama at all. Bernie Sanders is very popular with the left leaning segment of the Democratic Party - spoiler alert, that includes this blogger - but she has a huge lead and is well above 50% support. The one other Democrat that has even a ghost of a chance of getting above None of the Above is Joe Biden, and he doesn't even have an exploratory committee. This just goes to show that pollsters can be assholes just as big as Maureen Dowd, but none of them get a paycheck directly from The New York Times.

Back next week. I admit it has similarities to paint drying, but on the plus side, geezer pop culture references.