The Joy of Tracking Polls 8
By Neil Stevens Posted in 2008 | Elections | Fred Thompson | John McCain | Mike Huckabee | Mitt Romney | polls | rasmussen | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I can't be sure, but the movement in the last week of the Rasmussen tracking poll looks like a regression to the previous norms, although with a bump for Huckabee:
Yes, Giuliani's back to his stable quarter of Republicans, and Huckabee has fallen from his brief dalliance over 20%. Romney's remarkably steady at 13%, Thompson's back from a one day slide below 10% (his first and only time in single digits, meaning now only Giuliani has not polled that low).
It's amazing to me how close the pack is staying overall, though. It seems to me that barring some major event, nothing's going to change until somebody quits, but with everything so close, who's going to quit?
Oh, and what's also interesting is that because Giuliani and Huckabee are still moving in opposite directions, it just could be that some voters are shifting from one to the other, then back. Did the reports of Giuliani's affair being taxpayer funded cause a knee-jerk reaction toward the Baptist minister in the race? Maybe.
Romney only had an 8 pt lead on Rudy; 9 on McCain. I wonder if his decline in Iowa is spilling over into NH?
Unless you buy the notion that Romney has dropped 12-points in 3-days while no one else really benefited.
17% undecided too. Looks like they didn't push the undecided voters too hard.
Time will tell soon enough.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Everyone can say they are doing good enough.
Fred, whom I support, wants to be 3rd in Iowa, yet is currently less than 1% from that point, according to the average at RCP. Then he can say he did what he wanted, and will await SC. He should be in the top 3 there as well, then he will be in until Fed 5.
McCain will probably be in the top 2, or at least top 3 in NH, and then will do well in Michigan, then will sat until top 5.
Huck will be in the top 2 in Iowa and top 2 in SC as well, then even with no money, will not drop out until Feb 5.
Mitt, unless he loses Iowa and NH horribly bad, which does not look likely, will stay until Feb 5, because he has the money.
Rudy's plan basically does not even start until Feb 5- and the Florida race a week before that.
All of the above are basically worst case (not true worst case, that would mean they would poll like Alan Keyes would poll.) However, each candidate should do at least that good, if not much better. Therefore, no incentive to drop out before Feb 5. After Feb 5, then we should see a strong top 2 or 3, and then candidates 4 and 5 will either have no money left, or see the writing on the wall, and give a boost to the other candidates. Then, we should see someone take a lead.
Just my humble opinion.
If we're talking regression lines, over the course of your graph it looks to me like:
Romney is holding steady.
McCain steady to slowly dropping
Huck rising
Fred's down trend drop may have stablized and possibly beginning to change direction.
Rudy slowly trending down
Disclosure: I support Fred, Mitt and McCain in that order.
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The greatest single cause of Atheism today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips & then go out and deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds...unbelievable -DC Talk
Once winners and losers start to shake out the numbers will follow the winners.
As long as Huck and Mitt win at least one state they're probably both in through Super Dooper Tuesday - how long after that depends on how they do. Feb 5th has been Rudy's big day all along. JMac probably needs to do really well in NH to still have a pulse by then but I suspect both he and Fred will be around for Feb 5 as well.
By Feb 6th we'll start to know what the endgame for the race is going to look like.
Just an opinion - and we all know what body part they resemble.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.