Like many other people, I was interested to see the latest national polls from
Rasmussen,
Zogby and
Gallup, all showing Hillary Clinton under 30%. Off-hand, this certainly looks like a big drop for Clinton. Kos proclaimed
"Hillary's sliding. Already." Here at MyDD,
Jerome wrote:
the trends are interesting.... and the trends do not favor Hillary Clinton. Looking back, do you remember when Hillary Clinton was in the 40's nationally in 2005? Or when she was in the high 30's in 2006? Not anymore, as she continues to trend lower. Welcome to 2007 and Clinton in the 20's:
In order to develop a sense of just how severe Clitnon's slide actually has been, I compiled an excel file that included every single national primary poll taken since the November 7, 2004 elections. Most of these polls can be found in
the Polling Report archives. Considering the large variance in how these polls were conducted, I labored to flatten out the difference between the polls as much as possible. This meant removing all polls that did not include Al Gore, because most polls had at least one question where Al Gore was included. It also meant removing all polls that only asked registered Democrats and / or only Democratic self-identifiers, since most polls sampled a universe that included both Democrats and non-Democrats likely to vote in a Democratic primary. This left me with 29 polls conducted over the past two years, which I grouped into pre-Obama and post-Obama polls, and which I also sorted by individual polling organization. You can see the results here:
National Primary Poll Compendium
The first thing I noticed during this exercise is that most of Hillary Clinton's supposed slide is actually an illusion. Most of the polls showing her over 40% in 2005 and early 2006 did not include Al Gore in the question and / or only polled Democrats. Since Gore typically gets around 12% in these polls, it stands to reason that Clinton would poll higher with Gore out of the question. Further, since Hillary Clinton also polls better among Democrats than she does among Democratic leaners, it stands to reason that she would do better when only Democrats were included in the sample. Overall, Clinton's poll mean is only down 5.8% since Obama entered the polling picture, and her polling median is only down 2.0%. Not only is that not a major drop-off, it might actually be less than many would expect given that Obama regularly polls in the high teens. In other words, Obama is either eating into Clinton's lead at the level one would expect, or less than one would expect.
A look at individual polling firms with trend lines shows an equally muddied picture. The long-term trends for Clinton across CNN, Cook, and Marist are flat, even when Obama enters the race. However, the long term trends for Fox and Gallup clearly show Clinton down post-Obama, while Rasmussen shows Clinton way down in their latest poll after showing her trending up from November to December. Once again, at least at this early stage, the point, the balance of evidence indicates that Clinton is down from her previous highs, but not down all that much.
Now, I am not going to say that this means Clinton has a more solid base of support than many assume, or that her slight downward trend won't accelerate in the coming weeks and months. Further, there is, at least, conflicting evidence showing her struggling in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which are most important than national polls. All I am saying is that the evidence shows reports of her terminal, downward spiral are greatly exaggerated. I know people like to point to Lieberman's slow, downward trend in 2003 as evidence that Clinton's lead is similarly illusory due to her high name ID, but in 2007 Clinton will be facing first-tier opponents who already have name ID around 70% or higher. This means that a Clinton slide is nowhere near as certain as Lieberman's was. Also, compared to Lieberman, Hillary Clinton is a much better campaigner, with a more natural base, and the ultimate superstar spouse in her corner. I expect the Clinton-Edwards-Obama competition will be quite competitive for a long time.
