We're a year from the actual election. We don't even know who the candidates are actually going to be (though Clinton seems pretty darned likely). A war, a terrorist attack, a downturn in the economy, an upturn in the economy, a dozen different national crises, personal scandals, or on-stage gaffes could make the numbers swing wildly.
So running polls about who will win in November 2016 is … well, it's filler and clickbait. Heck, it's probably premature to be obsessing over the primary polls in both races, except to take bets on the rises and falls of the various GOP candidates.
A Year Out, Ignore General Election Polls
“The Doctor Is In As Carson Ties Trump In GOP Race, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Carson Tops Clinton By 10 Points In General Election” That was the headline on a press release for the…
Yeppers, right up until Iowa and New Hampshire.
I'm wondering how much the GOP race will echo the last Presidential election cycle– with Jeb playing the part of Romney.
+Stan Pedzick And, arguably, Iowa and New Hampshire are both such outliers that they can be largely ignored, too — except that the media refuses to let go of the stories there.
+Lorne Lehrer That's been my thought for some time. The problem is that Mitt was always running in second through the GOP circus in 2012, with contenders to him rising and then flaming out. Jeb! has been in the low doldrums for a while, and, if anything, has gone down in the polls. He's got very deep pockets, but sooner or later some of that money is going to start shifting (most likely, at this point, to Rubio).
+Dave Hill yes, but on the GOP side you could see one or two drop before going into South Carolina two weeks later (due to their funders moving on to the ones that did good) which should put the nail in the coffin of any southerners campaigns that do not do well.
Then Nevada at the end of February, another tiny hurdle, followed by Super Tuesday (March 1) which should bring the GOP field down to 4 or 5.
+Stan Pedzick Honestly, I doubt if there will be more than 2 or 3 by Super Tuesday.