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.

South Carolina GOP polling

Usually, my posts have information from both primary races, but for the rest of February, we have the situation that the two parties will not be holding their contests on the same day in either South Carolina or Nevada. The GOP has their South Carolina primary next Saturday and the Democrats caucus in Nevada that same day. There has only been one poll this month in Nevada - a Republican poll that shows Sanders and Clinton tied - so I will wait until there are at least two polls that can be averaged.

There has been a lot more polling of the Republican race in South Carolina, and right now the news looks good for Trump. He doesn't look to be in a tough race until Super Tuesday, and in a five-way race, he's going to be tough to beat. Carson is technically the sixth guy in the race and he's still in fourth place in national polls, but in states that are soon to make up their minds, the voters show that they know he's on a book tour, not a presidential campaign. He won't quit until Armstrong Williams thinks there is no profit in the continued book tour, but he does not look like a factor anywhere.

As I said, Carson is still in fourth place in national polls, but Bush and Kasich have overtaken him in South Carolina, much the same way they were in the race for second in New Hampshire. The four also-rans are taking more shots at each other than they take at Trump, and with the Supreme Court now front and center, it would be a great time for other GOP candidates to take a few shots at Trump's favorite judge, his older sister Maryanne Trump Berry, who sits on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and has a strong pro-choice record in her decisions. This sounds like a perfect question for push polling, the kind of rat-fucking at which Karl Rove excels. The thing is, this story is 100% true, so it doesn't have to be a whisper campaign. The opposition research teams for his opponents really screwed the pooch in last night's debate.

Tomorrow: the national polls for both parties.

The New Hampshire Primary:Warming up the leftovers

My work schedule did not allow me time to discuss the numbers earlier today, but waiting nearly 24 hours after the tabulations has some advantages.

The Democrats: Bernie's win was about the size the polls expected, but folks watching the upcoming primaries suggest that his win was not big enough.  I'm not going to nitpick numbers with these folks, but I do expect some momentum for Sanders after New Hampshire. Hillary has problems of her own, most notably the investigation of the e-mail server stuff, so I certainly can't say it's a lock for either candidate. The national polls on average say Hillary is still the favorite, but the next few weeks will tell how much of a favorite.

The GOP: Let's review some of the stuff I though would be surprises in my preview on Monday.

Trump's margin of victory: Completely in line with what was predicted by the polls when you factor out the none of the above.

No more than a five point spread between second and fifth: Kasich is 5.2% above Rubio, so that's a mild surprise.

Jeb:( in fifth, Christie in sixth: Bush actually caught and passed Rubio, which is a real surprise. The polls after the debate did not give a clue to how much the dissatisfaction with Rubio's debate performance would matter, and I know a lot of people who think this is his doom.  I'm not going there just yet, but a few weeks of sinking polls and bad performances in the rest of the February contests in South Carolina and Nevada should sink him.

Let's also look at some non-surprises that count as news.

Fiorina and Christie call it quits: Christie had promised he would go to South Carolina no matter what happened in New Hampshire, but he's lied before. While neither of them really ever had a chance, they do represent about six points now up for grabs.  I expect that will help the Establishment Trio - Kasich, Jeb:( and Rubio - more than it will help the Nihilist Twins, Trump and Cruz. Carson is only holding on because someone think he can still make money on his book tour by being in the debates.  It should also be noted he is still in fourth place in the national polls, but given his stank performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, that just can't last.

Scrutiny for Kasich: To call Kasich a moderate is to declare words no longer have meanings, but of the Establishment Trio, he's the one that hasn't shown disastrous campaigning skills.  This may only be due to his lack of exposure. It's a given that lack of exposure ends as of yesterday.

There are a lot of factors now, more than I can sort out as a hobbyist. A lot of pundits now think Trump is inevitable. I will reserve judgment on that. A lot of people think Kasich is doomed because he has so little money. That is a very minor problem in the post Citizens United era. All he needs is one billionaire who has had enough with Rubio or Jeb:( and his money problems are a thing of the past. I will say that Trump losing in February in South Carolina or Nevada will be real trouble for his campaign, and my crystal ball is currently on the fritz when trying to look as far ahead as Super Tuesday.

My view is that no one should buy any champagne yet. It's still a long slog and the favorites are nowhere near inevitable yet.

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.  

Iowa caucus post-mortem

The Dems: Hillary won! Bernie beat expectations! Bullshit happened at caucus sites!

I am sure at least two of those things are true. The most interesting take I heard from another poll aggregator, Professor Sam Wang of Princeton, is that Bernie needed to win by at least ten to be viable. I'm not sure I agree Iowa has that much effect on the rest of the races, but I respect Wang and we will see how this plays out.

I'd also like to give O'Malley props for dropping out. There are so many hopeless candidates still walking around with no clue that they are dead meat. 

The effect on New Hampshire: Sanders has a big lead and I don't see Clinton spinning this into anything like the kind of positive story she needs to move forward there. South Carolina and Nevada are where she needs to do well.

The GOP: Cruz won! Rubio beat expectations! Trump is an old ugly loser!

I am sure that all of those statements are true. By the way I counted the average of the pools from the last week, only Cruz and Rubio did better than expected - Cruz by about 3 points and Rubio by a remarkable 8 - and everyone else did worse.

For the GOP, winning Iowa is no predictor of getting the nomination or winning the presidency. The guy who did both is George W. Bush in 2000. Reagan lost Iowa in 1980 to George H.W. Bush and Bush lost to Dole in 1988. As for just winning the nomination and not winning the presidency, Dole won in 1996 and Romney tied Santorum (?!) in 2008.

If I'm going to give props to O'Malley, it's only fair I do the same for Huckabee. A concession speech that includes the sentence "the voters are sick of me" get high marks for honesty. He put out a campaign video that used parody lyrics of Adele's Hello and people who disagree with him politically excoriated it, but I'd like to say it was an honest comment on how exhausting it must be to campaign when everything is going nowhere. You are literally out in the cold giving it your all and getting so little back can't be fun.

The effect on New Hampshire: Just like on the Democratic side, I would be surprised if this changes things much. Trump has a big lead and the folks in the Granite State are historically unmoved by the results from Iowa. From my point of view, the big story is who finishes above 10%. The two ways I would spin it are:

1. If New Hampshire isn't a hy-uge win for Trump, somewhere in the neighborhood of a 20% lead over second place, it's a loss. Anyone who gets under 10% in New Hampshire has to considered quitting very seriously.

Next week, we start looking at Nevada and South Carolina. The road show moves on.

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!