primary poll scatter plots for each candidate

[Mr. Morden]

While I don't think the national polls mean very much, since everything's going to be decided by the early primary states, this page is nonetheless pretty interesting:

http://www.pollster.com/charles_franklin/national_support_for_2008_pres.php

It features graphs that plot the support of each of the candidates (including those who've now dropped out) in national primary matchups, using all of the public polls from the last 2+ years.  There are a few interesting trends.....like the fact that Kerry's support has been in decline at a nearly constant rate over the last two years.  It's also interesting how, while Romney is still a distant 3rd of 4th in every national GOP primary poll, he's made steady gains over the last two years.  He's now up to the high single digits, whereas two years ago, he was essentially at zero.  Of course, he's going to have to speed up his ascent if he wants to catch Giuliani and McCain!

[Mr. Morden]

Clinton making big gains:

http://www.pollster.com/TopDems.php

Giuliani and Gingrich rising, as McCain and Romney are flat:

http://www.pollster.com/TopReps.php

[Mr. Morden]

Thanks. 

I couldn't figure out how to post images.

[Mr. Morden]

Update:





Giuliani's lead continues to grow, but Obama's the one who's really taking off right now.  Gingrich's numbers keep going up (slowly), even though he isn't running.

[Mr. Morden]

Update:





The Democratic race has gotten kind of boring, but on the GOP side, look at Thompson's momentum vs. Giuliani and McCain's negative momentum.

[Mr. Morden]

They've added scatter plots for the early primary states:

[Mr. Morden]

Pollster.com has put up a special "McCain collapse" plot that shows that McCain's numbers in the early primary states have fallen harder than his national numbers:

[Mr. Morden]

As this latest plot shows, the candidate with the most negative momentum in the national GOP polls right now is Fred Thompson.  Given the current trends, might McCain actually retake second place in the national polls before the end of the year?

[Mr. Morden]

You mean if all the trendlines were to continue in exactly the same direction they are now through January?  Well yeah, but I don't know that they're all going to keep going exactly as they are now for that long.  Not sure that Huckabee can keep gaining at his present rate for that long.  But McCain and Thompson are close enough that I was thinking their trendlines might cross again before the year is out.

[Mr. Morden]

I agree that Romney is the most likely to win (though I think it's close between him and Giuliani).  But there's no way that Romney is going to take the lead in the national polls until after he wins Iowa and/or New Hampshire.  I'm not thinking that far out in the future.  Just saying that, in the short term, I think Thompson might very well drop below McCain in the national polls.  Of course this is a state-by-state by contest, so the national polls ultimately don't mean anything about who's going to win the nomination.  It was just an observation.

[Mr. Morden]

McCain has indeed passed Thompson (just barely) for second place in the national polls, at least for now:



Might Romney actually pass Thompson for 3rd place before the year is over?  I think he might.  Meanwhile, the Dem. race remains far more static and boring, with the Clinton-Obama-Edwards-Richardson ordering having remained for some time now.

Some of the craziness in the early primary states:

Huck-mentum in Iowa:



Thompson meltdown into 6th place in NH:



Complete clusterf#@k in SC:



Huck-mentum and Mitt-mentum in FL:

[Mr. Morden]

Holy cow, Huck-mentum!  With the recent national polls, Huckabee's a few tenths of a percent ahead of both McCain and Thompson in the national poll trendline, meaning he's now (barely) in second place:



I probably wouldn't have believed you if, even as recently as a month ago, you'd told me that Huckabee would soon be in 2nd place in the national polls.  One can only imagine where he'll be in the national polls if he actually wins a primary.