Why was Dukakis leading Bush by double digits in the summer before the election?

[Matty]

The economy was still going fairly strong, and Reagan was still pretty popular.

[Phony Moderate]

Not sure entirely, but probably because he seemed like a fresh face and few yet knew just how inept he was at campaigning. His huge lead seems surprising to us today, but the electorate was much more flexible back then. The Obama-Romney polls in the year leading up to election day 2012 were never a world away from the actual outcome. 

[buritobr]

Why was Bush Jr leading Al Gore in the summer before the election? The economy was still going fairly Strong, and Clinton was still pretty popular.


Well, when a party tries to return to the power after 8 years, it is usual this party start leading and the incumbente party increase in the final days. Maybe the voters think "I want change" and in the few days before the election "oh, I am not sure".

Humphrey closed the gap in the final month in 1968. Carter was leading by double digits in 1976 and Ford closed the gap. As it was mentioned, Bush not only closed the gap in 1988, but widened the gap in his favor after that. Bush Jr was leading in the popular vote in the summer of 2000. Obama had a 10 point margin over McCain before the election.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Dukakis did a number of things right up through the convention.  He selected Bentsen as his running mate, he ran a non-ideological campaign, and there were Republicans unhappy with the way Bush 41 dispatched Bob Dole in the primaries. 

Several things happened.  The Willie Horton flap, a hypothetical question about mandatory saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and other things opened Dukakis up to attacks on his sense of patriotism and his judgment.  He could have survived these attacks if he had answered them promptly, but he didn't, and by the time public opinion hardened, key swing voters came to believe that the preppy Bush was more of their kind of guy.  Then, too, in a non-ideological election, Dukakis's resume was dwarfed by Bush 41's resume; he had the most impressive resume of any Presidential candidate since Eisenhower in terms of depth of experience. 

Some of the trends that enabled the Democrats to come back from their weakest position in Presidential politics in their history to the point where they could regularly count on entire regions of the country to be their "base" hadn't come to fruition in 1988.  The revolt against the Fundamentalist Christian Right by moderate Republicans hadn't really begun yet; they viewed Bush 41 as one of them.  The nation was not as liberal on racial matters as it is today, and the high profile given to Jesse Jackson by the Democratic establishment was a turnoff to a number of swing voters, many of the nominal Democrats, that Dukakis needed.  The culture war had not yet started, and it was a conflict that most folks would have viewed as a GOP plus in 1988.  People forget that in 1988, it was a big deal if they carried more than DC and one state, and an even bigger deal if a Democrat carried several states in a region.  Put it this way:  Michael Dukakis's 45% was the HIGHEST percentage of the vote a Democrat received (with the exception of Carter's 1976 50% total) from 1968 until 1996, and that includes Clinton's 1992 victory (43%). 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

He had gotten more publicity.  Not to mention that campaigns almost always get closer in the last weeks before the election.  (Not many of you may remember this, but John McCain did in 2008, Gore did in 2000, etc.)

[MATTROSE94]

He had gotten more publicity.  Not to mention that campaigns almost always get closer in the last weeks before the election.  (Not many of you may remember this, but John McCain did in 2008, Gore did in 2000, etc.)

Pretty much this. Usually elections tighten up towards the end of a campaign.

[Heimdal]

Dukakis early lead can probably be attributed to several factors.

One being the fact that the Republicans had been in power for the last eight years. Even though the economy was healthy and Reagan was popular, a lot of people wanted new leadership in the White House. In that respect there are similarities to the election in 2000.
 
Another factor was that George H. W. Bush didn’t have the “People touch” like Ronald Reagan. Bush was an old fashioned patrician Yankee. That wasn’t an issue for FDR (who had a similar background), but the electorate of the late eighties was less deferential, and more drawn to candidates with (real or imagined) hardscrabble backgrounds. The genius of the 1988 campaign was of course that the GOP managed to define the son of Greek immigrants as an out of touch elitist. If the Democrats had been able to run a decent campaign they could probably have countered that.

A third factor was the Iran-Contra affair. I am not certain how implicated George Bush was in that scandal. He was however associated with it, simply because he was the Vice President.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Because until that ad about Dukakis in the tank meaning reaffirming the GOP dominance in the Cold War era, voters were ready for change. Tax cuts for rich wasn't working, and the Iran Contra gave Dems the senate.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

He had gotten more publicity.  Not to mention that campaigns almost always get closer in the last weeks before the election.  (Not many of you may remember this, but John McCain did in 2008, Gore did in 2000, etc.)

Pretty much this. Usually elections tighten up towards the end of a campaign.

Even Bob Dole experienced a late surge. Way too late to make a real difference, but at least he did reach 40%

[m4567]

Polls don't mean a whole lot before october.

[sg0508]

The Democratic primary also got far more publicity.  Dukakis overall got more publicity and while Reagan was overall still popular, many Americans wanted change. 

The 80s was actually a time when many moderate republicans started to abandon the GOP once it became more about "trickle-down economics" and Corporate America. 

[Reaganfan]

Not sure entirely, but probably because he seemed like a fresh face and few yet knew just how inept he was at campaigning. His huge lead seems surprising to us today, but the electorate was much more flexible back then. The Obama-Romney polls in the year leading up to election day 2012 were never a world away from the actual outcome. 

I agree with the electorate being more flexible. I believe the 2004 election result (286-252) for Bush would have been a much, much larger victory had it been 1984 or 1996 for example.

[Bojack Horseman]

I'd wondered this myself when I read that Carter actually led Reagan in the polls up until the one debate they had in 1980.