Preview of April

The GOP: The Democratic race is much closer than the Republican, but the Republicans have winner take all races in many states while the Democrats do not. April has three such high stakes contests, Wisconsin's 42 delegates being decided this Tuesday and winner take all primaries in Delaware (16 delegates) and Maryland (38 delegates) three weeks later on the 26th. There are also two big states, New York on April 19th for 95 delegates and Pennsylvania on the 26th for 71 delegates. Pennsylvania can be winner take all, but I do not know what the threshold for that is.

Recent polling in Wisconsin favors Ted "The Snake" Cruz. There are four polls from late this month and Cruz leads in three, while Trump is the favorite in the other. The most interesting progression in he polls is from the Marquette Law School poll, which has polled the state six times since last August. Here are the leader and second place candidates in those polls.

August 2015: Walker 25, Carson 13
September 2015: Trump 20, Rubio 20
November 2015: Carson 22, Rubio 19, Trump 19
January 2016: Trump 24, Rubio 18
February 2016: Trump 30, Rubio 20
March 2016: Cruz 40, Trump 30

I should note that Cruz was in third place in the earlier polls this year, but the numbers look like nearly all of Rubio's support switched over to Cruz when Rubio quit.

The Dems: There are also four polls from late March dealing with the Wisconsin race. Bernie Sanders leads in three and Hillary Clinton leads in the other. All the Democratic races are proportional, so unless his margin of victory is much larger than it currently looks at around 5 points, he will gain some press and momentum but precious few delegates. After that, the Democrats have a caucus in Wyoming on the 9th, a style contest that usually favors Sanders, then the big prize of New York on the same date as the Republican contest, April 19th.

I will report again before the New York contest.

Thoughts on March 15

I call my system Confidence of Victory. I say the Pollster website from Huffington Post use Confidence of Lead, and I wish I had thought of that first. The thing is I am not at all confident of predictions made off of polls in primaries, so I can't attach numbers to anything tomorrow, but I get still give a basic sketch of each situation, starting with the big winner-take-all contest on the GOP side.

Florida: If the polls can be trusted, and it would take a Michigan level upset for them to be wrong, Trump has smacked down Rubio just as hard as he smacked down Jeb:( earlier this year. Nearly all the polls say Trump will get over 40% of the votes while Rubio will end up with less than 30%. If you have seen Rubio on the stump this last week, it looks like he talked to his numbers guys and he believed them.

Rubio the Savior is going down in the books with Lieberman's Joe-mentum, a truly sad showing.

Ohio: The polls say Kasich is a much better favorite son than Rubio, and the race for first in Ohio could go either way, Kasich or Trump. Sam Wang, the poll aggregator I trust most, says losing Ohio helps Trump because it could keep Kasich in the game longer, diluting the anti-Trump vote. if Kasich wins then drops out immediately, then Trump's path to the first ballot gets much murkier.

Illinois: The polling is very spotty, but Trump appears to have an advantage over Cruz. What the reaction from Trump voters to all the craziness there this month is anybody's guess, but I agree with the folks that say all publicity is good publicity for Trump, at least in the primaries.


The Democrats:  No winner take all contests tomorrow on the Democratic side, so wins and losses will not be as dramatic. I would not be surprised by a Sanders victory in either Illinois or Missouri. Florida looks like a lock for Clinton and if Sanders wins Ohio, that would be considered an upset.

Back on Wednesday with post mortem.

Early March: The national polls

I took a week off after Super Tuesday, mainly because I scheduled four midterms for a single week. I also got the feeling there wasn't much left to either race, but Sanders' win in Michigan and the escalating violence at Trump rallies makes me think I wrote off the nominations too soon.

The GOP: Where did Carson's support go? Right now, it looks like it went to Cruz and maybe Kasich, who finally polls above the None of the Above nationally.  As we will see tomorrow, the polls say he is in contention to win the all or nothing primary in Ohio.

As for Rubio, the national polls make him look stronger than he actually is. While Kasich could be a favorite son in Ohio, all the polls show Trump lapping the field in winner take all Florida.

I'm pretty sure we will have no more than three candidates before the next time I report, possibly only two. I really can't say who will be favored when it gets down to Trump vs. Cruz, even though now the ratio of support for Trump is an impressive 3:2. That would mean he would lead 60% to 40% if all the folks who supported other candidates split evenly, but I don't think that's the situation. For political junkies like me, we've already made up our minds, but a lot of the general public know how they feel about Trump and maybe Clinton, but the rest of the candidates are a blur. I will now go on the record saying Trump's support is not going to get to 50% in the average of national polls on the GOP side. He might lead Cruz, but I don't think he will lead Cruz + None of the Above combined.
  

The Dems: And then there is the Democratic race. A lot of smart people said Sanders' early victories were not big enough to move forward to actually passing Clinton, but then Michigan happened. No smart person said Sanders could win Michigan or even make it close, because smart people rely on data they can trust, and no data said it was close.

Let me be clear. The complete systemic failure of all polling in Michigan does not mean all polls are complete crap. Primary contests can be very changeable, unlike the general election, where the bombardment of data for months tend to ossify people's positions. But right now, I'm not assuming much when polls put Clinton in the lead, especially if the lead is less than 5 points.

Tomorrow, the reports on the biggest races in both parties on Tuesday, especially the winner take all races in Ohio, Florida and Missouri.

Super Tuesday post mortem: The GOP

If I haven't admitted it before, I don't put much stock in polls being able to predict races in the primaries. Compared to the general election, where the number of polls is much higher and the predictive value much greater, numbers from primary polls are nearly useless because of two factors, small sample size of polls and a phenomenon I call Voter Churn. By the time November rolls around, the vast majority of people have made up their minds and big swings away from the mean or median polls are damned rare. But in primary season, a lot of people voting only started paying attention a few weeks before and voter loyalty is much lower. For that reason, I'm going to ignore the predictive value of the polls last night and instead look at the averages of the candidates' state averages. I do this because just taking the total votes cast overstates the strength of Ted "The Snake" Cruz due to his big win in the biggest state of Super Tuesday, Texas.  So here is the average of all states with primaries. (I ignore caucus states and so should you, as they are awful predictors of future success.)

Average of state percentages
Trump 36.4%
Cruz 23.6%
Rubio 22.0%
Kasich 9.8% 
Carson 5.9%
Others 2.3%

Here are my top lukewarm takes from these numbers.

1. Kasich can be proud of finally passing Carson before Carson finally quits.  The national polls still had Carson in fourth, and that's only because they poll people who really are paying attention yet.

2. Kasich should hold his head high and fade into oblivion, throwing his support to Rubio. Seriously, I do not understand why he hasn't quit yet. He had his alleged moment in the sun and he didn't get any warmer.

3. Where will the support for Carson go? I honestly have no idea. My guess is it helps Cruz first, Trump second and Rubio third, but this just a guess, and I hate guessing with no real numbers to back me up. It could easily be Trump first and Cruz second.

4. The Republican establishment are buying liquor in bulk. The old schoolers in the GOP hate Cruz more than Trump, but both of them are terrifying to the cocktail party crowd in the nicer suburbs of our dysfunctional capitol. Those two guys got 60% of the total vote and the GOP establishment is now making up its collective mind about which one they hate the least.

5. Cruz is worse for the GOP than Trump. On the East Coast, Cruz got beat like a red-headed stepchild. There are plenty of Republicans who will to use the power of the Senate to block aid to stricken areas, but Cruz does it the most. For a Democrat, running against Cruz is a dream.

6. Rubio isn't looking any better right now. There are a lot more caucuses than primaries over the next week or so, which means more chance for surprises, but in the primaries soon to come, Rubio only looks kinda sorta good in Puerto Rico. Watch Trump make fun of that win if it comes.

Tomorrow: a quick look at the Democrats on Super Tuesday.

The GOP: End of February and Super Tuesday

There was a lot of talk of what the ceiling is for Donald Trump, which might be around 40%. I am not convinced. The thing that does look possible is Cruz has a ceiling of around 20%, at least nationally. But these national numbers aren't great indicator of what happens at the state level.

Tonight, we will see a LOT of state level action.

Here are the races in order of information available, from least to greatest.

No polls at all in February: The caucus races got bupkiss in terms of coverage: American Samoa, Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Wyoming. If Trump loses any of these races, that's a strong talking point for anyone who beats him.

Just one poll: For me, just one poll is less reliable than no polls at all, and Arkansas's one early warning says Cruz has a lead. Maybe like Sanders, he has some regional appeal. If Cruz can't win Arkansas, it's a very bad sign for him. The other one poll states are Vermont and Tennessee, which both have double digit leads for Trump.

Enough polls to paint a fair picture: Texas shows a lead for Cruz, somewhere in the high single digits, say 7% to 9%. In Oklahoma, Trump should win by 10 or so.

Everywhere else: Trump should win the rest of the states going away. He appears to have about a 20 point lead in Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Virginia.

For John Kasich, his great hope is to beat Ben Carson everywhere. Catching up to Cruz or Rubio in any race tonight is a long shot. I would not be surprised to see him suspend his campaign after tonight. As for Carson, it all depends on the fraudsters running his book tour. If they think there's still a positive return on investment, his "candidacy: will continue.  

When it comes to the stages of grief, I'm hovering between depression and acceptance over Trump's apparent inevitability now. I'm heartened to see his negatives so high in the general election, but concerned when I remember how high his negatives were among Republicans when this all started. It's my view that whatever negatives Clinton has, she is a much tougher and more seasoned campaigner than anyone Trump faced on the GOP side, and I wouldn't be surprised to see big right-wing money donors do hit pieces on Trump before this thing is well and truly over.

But barring a miracle, the GOP nomination race is all over but the sobbing.

Polls for today's contests: The Republicans in South Carolina, The Democrats in Nevada

The GOP: Polling companies have been working hard getting numbers for today's primary in South Carolina, the first big test after New Hampshire for the Republicans. There have been eighteen polls in the past ten days and while there have definitely been outliers, the general trend agrees on this rough picture.

1. Trump should win. If anyone gets within ten percentage points, it should be counted as a moral victory.

2. Rubio and Cruz are in a tough battle for second. The only way this race can be considered an upset is if one of them is ten percentage points higher than the other.

3. Kasich and Jeb:( are in the hunt for the fourth and fifth spots.

4. The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson should be a non-factor in sixth.

Here are the numbers Nate Silver tweeted last night.

Trump 31
Rubio 20
Cruz 20
Jeb:( 11
Kasich 9
Carson 8

Here's my best guess.

Trump 36
Rubio 19
Cruz 19
Jeb:( 10
Kasich 10
Carson 7

 Basically, I'm bullish on Trump in comparison to Silver's numbers and ever so slightly bearish on everybody else. If I have a slight advantage here, my numbers add up to 100 and his add up to 99.

The Dems: No chart for the Democratic caucus because there were a total of three polls this month, which is a pathetic number. Worse than that, one of the three polls is from Gravis Marketing, a company in which I have no faith whatsoever.

Here's what the three polls say: It's a dead heat, Hillary leads by a point, Hillary leads by six points. The last numbers are from Gravis.

My best guess is it will be close and it can't be considered a real upset in either direction unless the gap is more than five points. If it's Hillary by five or more, I will publicly apologize to Gravis Marketing and I will still continue to mistrust them.

Back with the post-mortem tomorrow.

The national polls:Second week of February

 The GOP: We are in the midst of a polling drought after the New Hampshire results. The Republican race was polled only four times this past week and the Democrats only three.

Can these numbers be trusted? I would say the numbers at the top are currently correct. Trump has a big lead, Cruz is in second and Rubio has been damaged by his debate performance from before New Hampshire.

On the other hand, the number below None of the Above are a mess. Ben Carson has been ahead of Bush and Kasich for months, and that was his result in Iowa, but he was a complete non-factor in New Hampshire and is not above None of the Above in South Carolina. He says South Carolina will be a decision point. Right now, I'd say we won't have The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson to kick around anymore after Saturday.
  

The Dems: The average of three polls is not something I'm willing to call a trend. Sanders is now as close nationally as he has ever been, but if you see that sudden peak for Hillary at the end of November, that was a three poll week as well.

With any luck, there will be more numbers to work with next weekend. I'll be back next Saturday, certainly with an update on South Carolina for the Republicans, hopefully with some reliable numbers on the Nevada caucuses for the Democrats.

The New Hampshire polls:Final post before tomorrow's election

 The GOP: If the polls are anywhere near accurate, both the Republican and Democratic races for first place will have no drama and the media will have to invent any drama out of whole cloth. On the other hand, the race for second and the allocation of delegates in the Republican primary could have some drama.

Political junkies such as myself are still flapping our gums about Rubio's bad showing at the weekend's debate, but so far the tracking polls are not showing any significant downward movement on his part. While this average of polls puts him in second, it wouldn't really be an upset if either Kasich or Cruz catches Rubio. As long the spread between second and fourth is no more than five points and if all of them are over 10%, no one can claim victory. That said, if Kasich wins second, the press will pay him much more attention than they have so far.

While Jeb:( averages less than 10% this month, the size of the None of the Above gives him a good chance to be over the threshold if those people stay home or their votes break just about evenly, which means he'll get some delegates. It will definitely be an interesting story if he is not fifth, either by passing one of the people above him or getting caught by Chris Christie, who peaked in December then went right back into the invisible crowd.

As for moral victories, if the second place candidate is within ten points of Trump, that won't be good news for America's Favorite Birther™, whose national poll numbers slipped after his second place showing in Iowa last week.

The Dems: Here it is ALL expectation games. If Bernie wins by 20% or so, any positive spin from the Clinton is just hooey. I would set a 15% loss for Hilary as the Beat Expectations threshold, and a 25% win by Sanders brings us into the ass-whuppin' territory.

Wednesday: back with the post-mortem.

The national polls:First week of February

The Dems: As usual, outlier polls grab headlines, and the Quinnipiac poll from this week showing a two point lead for Clinton got some serious buzz.

This is why I like looking at the average during the primaries and the median during the general.

The sharp peaks and valleys in this poll are almost entirely due to weeks with very few polls to sample. The real story is a steady improvement for Sanders since mid-October and a slight drop in Hillary's numbers over roughly the same time period. The thing that makes me wonder is the steadiness of the None of the Above at about 10%. This can either mean lazy pollsters or possibly some malaise in the Democratic base.

The GOP:  One of the problems with reporting on polling weekly is lagging breaking news events like Rubio's robotic performance in last night's debate. I get my polling data from two sites, the left leaning Pollster run by Huffington Post and the right leaning Real Clear Politics site. It is not their fault that every poll is from before the debate. We will have some idea in the polling from New Hampshire which I will report tomorrow whether Rubio will see a slip or his main attacker Christie will climb.

The story of the polls this week before the Saturday fracas was Trump losing Iowa and Rubio making a strong third place showing. Trump's number took their worst plunge since late November, and the previous drop can be attributed to small sample size. With Trump losing and Ted 'The Snake' Cruz and Rubio gaining, this may become a real three man race. My friend Jodi, who has a stronger constitution than I do, tells me Limbaugh is now attacking Trump. Rush isn't the superstar he once was, but it does say there are chinks in The Donald's armor. It's pretty much a given he will have a strong showing in New Hampshire this Tuesday, so we will see how his numbers change.
 What I said about the None of the Above vote for the Democrats goes double for the Republicans. It's either a sign of dissatisfaction or a sign of lazy polling. Since the Democrats have only two candidates left, dissatisfaction is to be expected. Given how many choice the Republican voters have left, their None of the Above vote hovering at about 10% is a worse sign.

Tomorrow: The last report on the New Hampshire polls.  

New Hampshire polls: The last week of January

The Dems: The story on this side is simple. It's a two-person race and Sanders appears to be pulling away. His median lead in all January polls is 11 points and that increases to 16 points when looking at the five polls in the last week. I'm sure the press will play down a victory in New Hampshire for Bernie, but it looks like it will be a comfortable win a week out.

The GOP: As I said last week, the drama in New Hampshire is not for first place, but for finishing over 10%, the threshold for delegates. I Apologize for how difficult it is to read the log jam for second place, but right now its Kasich at 11.9% and Cruz and Rubio tied at 11.6%.

Numbers I think are more relevant is how many times in January these five candidates polled above 10%, which tells a slightly different story. Each of the five candidates will be list with two numbers, the percent of the polls in January where their numbers were over 10%, and the same question, but only taking into account the polls in the past week.

Ted 'The Snake' Cruz: 79% for the month, 80% past week
Marco Rubio: 71% for the month, 40% past week
John Kasich: 64% for the month, 60% past week
Jeb:(: 29% for the month, 40% past week
Chris Christie: 29% for the month, 0% past week

These numbers would suggest Ted 'The Snake' Cruz is most likely to stay over the 10% threshold and Chris Christie is in serious trouble. We have one more week of polls before votes are cast on the 9th, so I will have another update next week.

Tomorrow: post-mortem in Iowa!

The Iowa polls:Final post before tomorrow's caucuses

 The Dems: Bernie Sanders has made a race of Iowa, according to the opinion polls, but both the monthly average numbers and the median polls says it's still advantage Clinton. The average lead is higher than the median lead, largely due to one crazy outlier that gave Hillary a 29 point lead, but the median lead has been steadily consistent:

Entire month's median lead: 2 points for Clinton
Last two weeks' median lead: 2 points for Clinton
Last week's median lead: 2.5 points for Clinton

Of course, tomorrow is the proof of the pudding.

The GOP: The point the media has been drumming home this month is Nobody Likes Ted Cruz. By Washington standards, he is just as much of an outsider as Trump, Carson or Fiorina. That said, he did a great job in Iowa making it a two-man race once the numbers of The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson tanked back in November. But the average poll in January gives Trump about a 3 point edge.

The median lead for the Republicans has not been as consistent.

Entire month's median lead: 2 points for Trump
Last two weeks' median lead: 5 points for Trump
Last week's median lead: 3 points for Trump

Both races are proportional, so all four candidates should get delegates. The big question is about organization, especially Trump's. News stories agreed in December he had no organization to speak of, but in January, he clearly paid for some boots on the ground, though stories disagree on how good that organization is.

Tomorrow, it's a report on the New Hampshire numbers, Tuesday a re-cap of Iowa and Wednesday, the national polls.

I've been keep tabs for quite a while. Now the shit gets real.

New Hampshire polls:Third week of January

The Dems: Sanders still has a comfortable lead in New Hampshire. The average for January is a 10.2 point lead, the median poll says 9 points. The Confidence of Victory method would give Bernie a 98% chance to come in first, but historically New Hampshire splits the delegates proportionally in both the Democratic and Republican contests; for the Democrats, the threshold to get delegates is 15%. For the Republicans, it is 10%. On the Democratic side, this means Martin O'Malley is shit out of luck. 15% for him would be a miracle.

The GOP: There is no drama for the first place finish like there is in Iowa, but the second through sixth contest has drama because of the 10% threshold. If the polling data is a fair indication, Rubio, Kasich and Cruz will have enough with Jeb:( and Christie will coming up short. But there is the idea of the confidence interval (or as it is known colloquially, the margin of error) and every one of the five guys in this pack has a measurable chance to succeed or fail.

I will admit that I always thought Trump would have faded by now, but he plays the media like a violin and his voters have not been turned off by anything he has said or done so far. Chuck Grassley introduced him to a crowd in Iowa, and though Grassley didn't endorse him, if the old school Republicans will be seen on the same stage with him, it's a sign the establishment is moving forward in its stages of grief. Bob Dole made a statement condemning Ted 'The Snake' Cruz - it looks like the 'nobody likes him' meme isn't an overstatement - and said Trump would be better than Cruz.

Here's a tiny piece of math the establishment could cling to. In this polling data, the two main outsiders add up to 41.9% and the four establishment Republicans add up to 41.8%. (I'm not counting Fiorina and Carson anymore, as their campaigns show no signs of life.) The thing is no one has really mounted an Anyone But Trump campaign effectively, so even when people drop out - and I expect several people to drop out after Iowa and New Hampshire - even voters whose first choice was someone traditional might switch over to Trump or Cruz, the least palatable candidates in the eyes of the establishment.

To quote Nassim Taleb, a writer I intensely dislike, this does look like a Black Swan event.

The Iowa polls:Third week of January

 The GOP: Donald Trump has a lead over Ted 'The Snake' Cruz in the average of polls in January. His lead is 1.3 points in the average and of the ten polls taken in January, Trump has the lead in six. His lead in the median polls is 1.5 points. I consider it a good sign when average and median are close to agreeing.

A lot of GOP races are winner take all, but Iowa is proportional. Unless there is a huge upset, both Trump and Cruz together should get the lion's share of the delegates and the difference in number between them will be minimal.

The Dems: Clinton is drawing away from Sanders in recent polling. Her lead in the average is 4.6 points, but only 3 in the median. This is due in large part to one big outlier that says she's ahead 59 to 30. The best poll for her other than this one gives her a nine point lead. It's very rare that an outlier like this is accurate.

The Democratic party process in Iowa is more convoluted than the Republican, the Feb. 1 caucus being just the first of a three step process.

Tomorrow, a report on the New Hampshire numbers.

The New Hampshire polls:Second week of January

The Dems: It was a good week for Bernie Sanders, two new polls both showing him with a lead in New Hampshire. So far there have been five polls of the Democratic race in the Granite State in January and four of them say Sanders is leading. Because it is a two person race, my Confidence of Victory method can be used on the median poll to say Bernie would have an 80% chance of winning if the election were held on the day the poll was taken. Of course, these numbers can change as we get closer to election day.

The GOP: On the Republican side, all the interesting horse race stuff is the battle for second through sixth.  The worst poll numbers for Trump this month give him 25% support, the best numbers for anybody else are two polls that give Rubio 15%. Those two polls give the Florida senator a strong hold on second, but the most recent polls are showing a surge for John Kasich, now in third passing Ted 'The Snake' Cruz. The other notable movement is a slump for Jeb:(, who can't get anything right this campaign. Unless there is a miracle turnaround in the next few weeks, and Jeb:( is just not a miracle kind of guy, I would expect the people who gave serious cash to Jeb:( will want a partial refund by the time the New Hampshire results are tallied.

Tomorrow: the national polls.

The Iowa polls:Second week of January

The Dems: Last week, the data set used to discuss the situation in January was only two polls, which for me is the absolute bare minimum. It is now up to five polls, a more robust sampling, and the story has changed very little. Hillary leads in three of the five polls, Bernie leads in the other two. Every poll has both candidates getting 40% or more, none has anyone getting 50% yet. For O'Malley, one outlier poll has him at 8%, the rest have him between 3% to 5%.

So the average of the five polls now has Hillary with a 0.6 point lead. Since this is effectively a two candidate race, I can use my Confidence of Victory method and give Hillary about a 70% chance to come out ahead using the median poll, where her lead is 42% to 40% in a poll of 504 likely voters. As more polls come in, these numbers are very likely to change, but in what direction I cannot say.

The GOP: We could say Iowa effectively looks like a two person race, but I am reluctant to use the Confidence of Victory method when the top two candidates account for barely over half the responses, unlike the Democratic side where the top two candidates get about 90%. The January numbers are now based on six polls, and the respective positions of the four top candidates have not changed in any appreciable way, with Ted 'The Snake' Cruz still holding a slim half a point lead over Donald Trump. A story on the fivethirtyeight.com website rates the Cruz ground game as much better than Trump's, but for a news organization that prides itself on using math well, the method used for this story is slipshod.

A number that looks unimportant that I still find interesting is the slowing rate of decline for The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson in Iowa. In New Hampshire, his numbers are down among the no-hopers, but in Iowa he is still dominating establishment guys like Christie, Kasich and Jeb:(, all of whom are in the race for second in the Granite State. Once again, the ground game can make a big difference in Iowa, where turnout is tiny compared to New Hampshire, so I would actually be surprised if the polls are a perfect predictor of the candidate's relative positions when The Voters of the Corn actually come out on February 1st.

Tomorrow, the numbers from New Hampshire.

The Iowa polls:First week of January

 The Dems: Let's start with the most dramatic news. It's only the average of two polls, but Hillary's 16 point lead in the Iowa polls has slipped down to zero. I always have to add the warning that polls don't do a great job of predicting caucuses, but if I'm asked to pontificate, it now looks like it's all about organization and enthusiasm. It's my assumption Hillary has an organizational advantage and Bernie's folks have the enthusiasm.

I'm confident there will be more polling data by next week, but right now this is the most dramatic polling news of the new year.

The GOP: The dramatic story last month was the remarkable rise of Ted 'The Snake' Cruz in Iowa. News reports in December said Trump had no organization in Iowa, but more recent reports say that problem has been fixed. The numbers are a little hard to read on this graph without clicking on it to expand it, but Cruz does have a slim lead of 28.3% to 27.8% based on the average of four polls. Ben Carson continues to slide, but his numbers are still twice as high as his nearest trailing competitors Chris Christie and Jeb:(. It's only three weeks out, and it looks like it would take a miracle for anyone other than Trump or Cruz to win this thing.

More polls next weekend.

The New Hampshire Polls:First week of January

 The Dems: It is the prejudice of an old man for me to think New Hampshire is more important than Iowa, but if I may defend my position, Iowa will be a test of the most committed campaign's ability to get out their loyalists, while New Hampshire is about getting out a substantial percentage of the voting age population.

There were only five New Hampshire polls in December and so far, there are only three in January. The story hasn't changed much since the change from November. Bernie Sanders holds a small but steady lead over Hillary.

The GOP: Just as the press is giving more coverage to the Republican race, and of course Donald Trump in particular, there were more polls of their contest in December and in January than there were polls of the Democratic race.

The race for first place has no drama at all, but there is a fierce competition for second through sixth. Right now, Marco Rubio is alone in second at 13.3% in an average of four polls, while four candidates - Ted 'The Snake' Cruz, Jeb:(, Chris Christie and John Kasich - are all within spitting distance of one another at around 10%. I am breaking the rules I set for myself to mention everyone above None of the Above, but the crowd between 3% and 5% - Rand Paul, The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina - don't show any signs of gaining any traction.

Tomorrow: The earliest polls from Iowa.

The National Polls: End of December and First Week of January

 The GOP: Welcome to January, only three weeks from the shit getting real. While I am keeping the basic schedule for the time being - national polls Sunday, New Hampshire pools Monday, Iowa polls Tuesday - once we get close to votes being cast, the schedule will change. One thing that is changing is we are losing the Non-Politicians vs. Politicians graph. We all know the non-politician that matters is Trump. No point in lumping him in with also-rans like Carson and Fiorina.

I didn't report last week because there was a polling drought during Christmas week, and the first week in January is only slightly better. I absolutely do not consider any change from the grid point before this one a trend. The only thing that looks clear is Trump is in first nationally and Ted 'The Snake' Cruz is in second. The top four here are the top four in Iowa, except that Cruz is ahead of Trump. In New Hampshire, Carson is not in the picture, but Jeb:(, Kasich and Christie are above None of the Above. More details in the next few days.

The Dems: Is this a trend for Bernie Sanders? I would say it's too soon to tell until net week. The polling drought affected both parties, so I don't completely trust the most recent numbers.

On the other hand, I will give a teaser that Sanders does look like he has some good news in the early states. To find out more, come back tomorrow and Tuesday for New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively.

The Iowa Polls:Fourth Week of December

 The Dems: Only one poll tracking Iowa has been registered since last week, and it gave good news to O'Malley and Clinton, both taking a few points from Sanders. Overall, the relative positions remain steady, with Clinton holding on to a double digit lead over Sanders, while O'Malley trails far behind, still hoping to get ahead of None of the Above.

The GOP: My standard operating procedure is to track the candidates who are doing better than the None of the Above average, and I will admit to fudging those rules in two cases. I should ignore O'Malley on the Democratic side and should give some credit to Jeb:(, who is now at 5%, slightly above the 4.6% number for None of the Above number for December. Here are my reasons for the inconsistencies.

1. On the Democratic side, there is so little data to track, adding O'Malley to the mix doesn't make the graph any harder to read.

2. Jeb:( is not making a surge, the NotA has taken a plunge. Jeb:( has actually gone down, from 5.5% in November to 5.0% in December, not even half the very weak numbers of The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson.

As for the leaders, the news gets better and better for the two de facto front runners, Donald Trump and Ted 'The Snake' Cruz, while Rubio and Carson are slipping slightly.

This will be the last report on the blog in 2015 and on Sunday the 3 of January the weekly reports will begin again. I wish all my readers a Happy New Year and the polling starts to get serious, especially in the first two states to report.

The National Polls:Fourth Week of December

 Non-politicians vs politicians: This week, I start with graph of the sum of Trump/Carson/Fiorina vs. Everybody Else, ignoring the None of the Above. You don't have to be a fan of the original Ghostbusters to see that The Streams Have Crossed. Technically, the non-politicians have the slenderest of leads at 50.1% to 49.9%, but you get the idea. As of now, Donald Trump is THE non-politician. Ben Carson is in fourth place nationally, but he is re-defining the term "campaign in disarray", while Carly Fiorina's numbers are in the Old Dead Animal category.

 The GOP: Here is how I look at this graph.

1. Donald Trump is obviously leading, but I don't know what the ceiling of his upward trend is, or even if the trend is truly still upward.

2. Ted 'The Snake' Cruz has a true upward trend. I can't say that with certainty about anybody else whose numbers are above the None of the Above threshold.

3. The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson is still falling, though the rate of change this week was less than worst tumbles this month.

Here's what I know about the stuff I don't show.

1. Chris Christie and Jeb:( are in a flat-footed tie for fifth/sixth place. The Christie camp should spin this as good news. The Jeb:( camp... I have no idea how bad things are there, and I worked at failed start-ups in Silicon Valley back in the day.

The Dems: No real change from last week worth mentioning. I get the feeling Iowa is going to be much more important to the Democratic nomination that it will be to the Republicans, unless Trump takes an absolute pounding.

Tomorrow, the New Hampshire numbers.