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.

National polls: Second week of December

 Politicians vs. non-politicians: The two weeks prior to this had only three polls each. This week has nine polls. Given that much data, I think we can spot some trends.

The advantage the non-politicians (Trump, Carson, Fiorina) have over the rest of the GOP field shrunk a little. Given Carson's extended slump and Fiorina's hovering around 3%, I think these numbers could tighten up even more. Of course, Trump is still getting good news in the polls, but so are Cruz, Rubio and occasionally some of the folks in the back of the pack, notably Chris Christie in New Hampshire.

I would also like to say I predicted in mid-November that the advantage for non-politicians would continue a downward turn by Chanukah, and now that it's Chanukah, I can a small victory in a very mild prediction.

The GOP: There is some jockeying for second place, but Donald Trump is still the national leader. For the first time, Ted 'The Snake' Cruz is in second all by himself, Marco Rubio in third and Ben Carson is in fourth. I would not be surprised to see Carson slip under the None of the Above threshold by the middle of next month, if not sooner. (Count this as a prediction made.) To give a sneak preview of the features starting this week, his numbers in Iowa are bad and his trend in New Hampshire actually sucks.

The Dems: If we ignore the last two weeks due to small sample size, right now the national trends are minimal, Hillary and Bernie down slightly, None of the Above and O'Malley up, but also just slightly.

New features this week: It is my experience from 2011-12 that the national polls give a rough idea, but the state polls are where the real action is.  Accordingly, I will be publishing three times a week starting tomorrow.

Sundays: Still the same stuff I've been doing since August, national poll averages for the week for the GOP and Dems, as well as tracking the Non-politicians vs. politicians on the Republican side.

Mondays: Monthly averages for the top candidates in New Hampshire in both parties.

Tuesdays: Monthly averages for the top candidates in Iowa in both parties.

As a teaser, I can say that each state has bad news for at least one front runner.

Tune in tomorrow!

Post #18: The last week of November

I think what I am about to do is taught in Marketing 101 as Big Mistake #1, but I'm about to slam my product this week. There were only three polls released, largely because of the holiday, and because the data set is so small, we see some big swings that I can't recognize as real just yet. There may be more polls released on Monday and Tuesday that change the numbers, but if that's the case, we won't see them until next Sunday.

The GOP chart has the three huge changes, with Trump going up 6.3 points to his highest level ever, while Ben Carson drops 7.3 points into a tie for third and fourth place with Ted Cruz. (I think more polls will come in and Dr. Carson drop won't be as severe, but I do think the general downward trend will continue.) We also have a 3.3 point drop in None of the Above, the one result I can clearly explain.

I never name individual polling companies unless I plan to speak ill of their product, and that is the case this week with Gravis Marketing, a name I remember from 2011-12 with no fondness. While some companies are lazy about the undecided, Gravis is either dogged in their persistence or they make numbers up. I find the second explanation more likely. In any case, their poll results added up this week to show that -2% of the the GOP electorate is undecided at this juncture. It could be rounding error and it could be a bullshit poll. I think I have already said which I think is the more likely scenario.
 

Non-politicians vs politicians: Given that Carson dropped more than Trump rose, and add to that a small loss by Carly Fiorina, The gap between the totals for the politicians and non-politicians showed a rise for the politicians for the second consecutive week. Yet again, I don't trust these numbers completely.

The Dems: The explanation for the drop in None of the Above is the same as above, crazy low levels of N.O.T.A./Undecided from Gravis Marketing. It also shows big gains for Hillary and O'Malley and a small tick down for Sanders. I would not be surprised to see a course correction next week for all those numbers.

And as I just said, more numbers next week.

Post #17: The third week of November

 The Dems: This week, we will go from the easiest things to explain to the most difficult.

The graph is obvious. Hillary has a commanding lead, Sanders is clearly in second and O'Malley is gaining ground slowly. None of the Above is slowly descending from the peak value when the pollsters stopped asking about Biden and the actual candidates Chaffee and Webb dropped out.

O'Malley is actually on a Sunday talk show this week (ABC's This Week), so he might get a boost. His average percentage in the polls this week is an anemic 3.1%, but that is more than Christie, Kasich, Paul, Huckabee, Gilmore (snicker), Santorum, Jindal, Graham or Pataki. The first three guys on that list of losers are also on the Sunday shows, as are Ben Carson and Marco Rubio.

More of the obvious liberal bias of the media.

Non-politicians vs. Politicians: Here's the next simplest thing to explain. This was a bad week for non-politicians and a relatively good week for several people who have held elected office. As we will see in the next graph, None of the Above took a fairly big hit, though not big enough for Jeb:( to rise above it.
 

The GOP: Front runner Donald Trump had a small slip last week, but it could very likely just be a statistical wobble. His nearest contender Ben Carson is on a three week slide that seems real. From pyramid grain storage to belt buckles to a crazy re-alignment of all of New England in a map his campaign is using, Carson just keeps stepping in it. These aren't the results of gotcha questions, this is just reporting the stuff that comes out of his mouth and from his official campaign. I wish I could say he's clearly toast, but saying demonstrably wrong things is not enough to sink a campaign in 2015.

At least so far.

I do not count as the media, but I will admit bias. I have always thought that as Carson and/or Trump started slipping, the angriest politician would pick up the slack, and I predicted it would be Ted "The Snake" Cruz. I have given his graph a bright orange color, a dotted line and big triangular markings in honor of my nickname for him. This week, it looks like a dead heat for third between him and Marco Rubio, but in reality, Rubio leads 11.3% to 11.1%. The trends aren't crystal clear and a lot of crazy shit can happen in this race, but I expect Cruz will be no lower than second by the end of December.

There were some gains among the also-rans this week, as should be expected when Trump, Carson and None of the Above all decline. Christie had a bad week the week before this and slipped to 1.6%, but bounced back to 2.9% over the most recent seven day average. This keeps the New Jersey governor in the race for sixth place, hoping to pass Carly Fiorina, still at about half the support of Jeb:(, which is about half the level of Cruz and Rubio.

Have I said there are too many people in this race? Did I mention Jindal dropped out?

Okay, I said it and I mentioned it. There's nothing interesting to say about either of those facts, so let me repeat my modest predictions for the coming weeks.

1. Ben Carson will likely continue to slip.
2. Ted Cruz is most likely to gain as Carson and/or Trump lose ground.
3. I don't see any particular trend for Trump or Rubio at the moment.

I wish I could say Trump's closing of the mosques idea and his desire for a Muslim database will finally be the crazy shit wake-up call to his sleepwalking followers that his presidency would be a truly awful idea, but I honestly have no idea what will get people off the crazy train.

More next week.

Post # 14:Week of Oct. 24 to 30

GOP: Welcome to November! We are thirteen weeks and one day away for actual votes being cast, which is to say the start of this blog is as far away in the past as electoral reality is away in the future.

Once again... my bad.

Not much changed this week. Ben Carson showed the most improvement while the other lines on the graph - Trump in a commanding first place, Marco Rubio is third and Jeb:( all show very modest improvement. Just below the radar, we are seeing signs of Peak Ted Cruz in fifth place, but my view is that it's still way too early.

This clearly isn't 2011. Is it 2007? It always helps to have a baseline comparison, and folks who look at polls are giving up on the idea that 2015-16 looks anything like 2011-12. That year, Romney was the mainstream choice of party leaders and the voters didn't warm up to him at first, if they ever truly did. We had Michele Bachmann winning the Iowa Straw Poll - effectively and mercifully killing this little piece of early bullshit - and after that glitch, the rise and fall of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as the erstwhile Not Romneys.

Obviously, we don't have this kind of turnover this year, so folks who look at charts for fun are now wondering if this is more like 2007, when both parties had to get new candidates. Twelve months away from the general, the heirs apparent were Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, neither of whom made it to the finish line. Maybe that's our baseline model.

If we are looking at a 2007 type race, who should stick around?  The eventual winners were the second place guy on both sides, Barack Obama and John McCain. The Lamestream Media (the best turn of phrase from the right wing this century) were hoping for a horse race and claimed there were a lot of Hillary voters that were deeply pissed and Obama was in trouble, but that was bullshit. It was McCain who wasn't on top of the Crazy Wing, even after he put Crazy Winger Sarah Palin on the ticket.

If we use that model, only Hillary, Sanders, Trump and Carson have a ghost of a chance.

That would say the GOP will nominate someone from The Very Crazy Wing.

When you use the phrase "Crazy Wing", doesn't this show your inherent bias, Professor? No, it does not, you imaginary sea lion.

Many folks to the left of any Republican senator think they are listening to what right wingers hear if they pick a talk show radio host or two and skim through Fox News.

These people are mean well, but they are wrong.

The information the most loyal Republican primary voters are getting is batshit crazy. If it's like 2007, everyone below second place should quit, which means either Trump or Carson will get the nod. My guess at this point is that Carson will not have the stomach for months of scorn and tough questions and Trump will get even worse when he is in second place.

Oddly enough, the guy whose "outsider" bona fides are best is Ted Cruz. His claim to outsider status is that while he is in fact in Washington DC, but everybody hates him. Given the temperature we are getting from the GOP base right now, I think he should definitely stay in.

Other people below his numbers think they must stay in to make sure there particular vision for the party will come to pass.

All of them should walk away. I give the group of Huckabee, Paul, Fiorina, Christie, Gilmore, Graham, Jindal, Santorum, Kasich and Pataki a total sum of 0.0% chance to get the nomination. I think Rubio, Bush and Cruz might climb from the depths. I have no such view for the rest.

Now, let me say I am a liberal, which means I try to deal with reality. In the words of Science Guy Bill Nye, I can be swayed by evidence.

Currently, there is no evidence for the bottom ten GOP candidates. They are all equally dead meat. 

 Non-politicians vs. politicians: Yet again, the non-politicians made gains among the currently decided at the expense of the people who have actually held elected office. Governors have positioned themselves as "Washington outsiders" forever, but they aren't nearly as outside as Trump, Carson or Fiorina. A lot of think pieces are wondering if presidential politics will now be Insider vs. Outsider races instead of Dem vs. GOP.

(A plus point for my side of the aisle. Lawrence Lessig makes some very good points, is an outsider and has exactly fuck all of a chance to win. The left is not as in love with the circus as the right is.)

But simply put, we've handed out the fun-sized Snickers bars to the future socialist kiddies and teh Crazy Wing in the GOP is still with us and still metastasizing.

Maybe the GOP insiders will suck it up, hire someone smarter than they are to make their best candidate palatable and face Hillary or Bernie in the general election.

Maybe. It's possible. I just wouldn't put any money on it unless I was getting a fantastic payoff, at least 5 to 1.

For people who like it in clean numbers, I think it's at least an 83% chance right how that Trump, Carson or Cruz will get the nod, and about 17% for anybody else.
 

The Dems. My original intent was only to track candidates that could stay about None of the Above, but the Democratic race is so quiet, I can easily track Martin O'Malley without having it resemble the messy scramble of the GOP. I made one prediction last week after the multiple dropouts, and that was None of the Above making the big gain. That was so obvious I deserve little credit, but I also said the NotA would slide back down by Thanksgiving, which obviously remains to be seen.

More next week.