Hillary Clinton’s national lead is slipping faster in 2016 than it did in 2008

www.washingtonpost.com

In 2008, Hillary Clinton saddled up for the Kentucky Derby on a thoroughbred that was a sure thing. Her campaign was the finest colt in Kentucky, at odds that barely made it worth betting on her. The race began, and she was up by a quarter mile. Then, as another jockey started to gain, she slipped out of her saddle. She was barely hanging on, bumping along against the dirt, bruised and struggling and still hanging in there a half-a-length back. And then she lost and grudgingly wished the victor luck in winning the Triple Crown.

So you have to figure that, when 2016 rolled around and everyone was saying, "No, this horse is a sure thing," she was a bit wary. But she got on. She ran strong. She did well. And now, in the final turn, there might be something wrong with the saddle.

If we compare where Clinton is now in theReal Clear Politics polling average, the 2016 picture and the 2008 picture aren't really all that similar. Nationally, she was doing much better in 2008 than she is right now, perhaps in part because the anti-Clinton vote in 2008 was still split between two people -- Barack Obama and John Edwards -- instead of just one. But that recent trend line, a function of two new national polls that were close after a bit of a lull, is not very good news.

In Iowa, Clinton is running a bit better than she did in 2008 -- though, again, she's dipped significantly recently. It wasn't until the last week in 2008 that she fell out of the lead. She eventually came in third.

She's doing far worse in New Hampshire than she did in 2008, thanks to New Hampshire being very much the home turf (and home demographics) of her main opponent. In 2008, her lead in New Hampshire evaporated after her Iowa finish, but she then managed to win anyway.

A critical point to take away from this -- a point that we've made often before -- is that voting changes polling. If you look at her national numbers after Iowa in 2008, she lost three-quarters of her lead after the caucuses -- but gained some of it back after her win in New Hampshire.

In 2016, there's also a big difference between the demographics in Iowa and New Hampshire and other early states, which are much less white. Bernie Sanders struggles with non-white voters, so we can expect to see more dramatic changes after these early states vote.

National numbers don't mean much right now. They're fickle. You can slip out of your saddle, you horse can stumble, and you can still win the race. But it can't be much fun to have it happen in two big races in a row.

Former president Bill Clinton spoke in New Hampshire on Jan. 4, his first speech in support of his wife, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, in 2016. (The Washington Post)

COMMENTS

Polls may actually underestimate Trump's support, study finds

www.latimes.com

Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential field in polls of Republican voters nationally and in most early-voting states, but some surveys may actually be understating his support, a new study suggests.

The analysis, by Morning Consult, a polling and market research company, looked at an odd occurrence that has cropped up repeatedly this year: Trump generally has done better in online polls than in surveys done by phone.

The firm conducted an experiment aimed at understanding why that happens and which polls are more accurate -- online surveys that have tended to show Trump with support of nearly four-in-10 GOP voters or the telephone surveys that have typically shown him with the backing of one-third or fewer.

Their results suggest that the higher figure probably provides the more accurate measure. Some significant number of Trump supporters, especially those with college educations, are "less likely to say that they support him when they’re talking to a live human” than when they are in the “anonymous environment” of an online survey, said the firm's polling director, Kyle Dropp.

With Trump dominating political debates in both parties, gauging his level of support has become a crucial puzzle. The Morning Consult study provides one piece of the solution, although many other uncertainties remain.

Among the complicating factors is this: The gap between online and telephone surveys has narrowed significantly in surveys taken in the last few weeks. That could suggest that Republicans who were reluctant to admit to backing Trump in the past have become more willing to do so recently.

Another issue is that not only can polls change over time, but Trump's support in pre-election surveys might not fully translate into actual votes. He has not invested as heavily as some of his GOP rivals in building the kind of get-out-the-vote operation that candidates typically rely on, particularly in early voting states.

Some of the polls that show heavy support for Trump have also shown him doing better among self-identified independents who lean Republican than among regular GOP voters. At least some of those independents may not be in the habit of voting in primaries and caucuses, which could make a robust turnout operation even more necessary.

On the other hand, a candidate of Trump's level of celebrity may simply not need much of a get-out-the-vote operation. No one really knows.

Another complication is that most polls made public this year have been of people nationwide, not of voters in the states that actually hold the first primaries. In Iowa, which will kick off the election season with party caucuses on Feb. 1, Trump has slipped into second place, trailing Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the majority of recent polls.

In New Hampshire, which holds the first primary, on Feb. 9, Trump leads, but less dramatically than in national polls. In recent weeks, he has averaged a bit more than one-quarter of the vote there.

Still, the Morning Consult experiment sheds considerable light on an issue that has puzzled pollsters for months.

The firm polled 2,397 potential Republican voters earlier this month, randomly assigning them to one of three different methods -- a traditional telephone survey with live interviewers calling landlines and cellphones, an online survey and an interactive dialing technique that calls people by telephone and asks them to respond to recorded questions by hitting buttons on their phone.

By randomly assigning people to the three different approaches and running all at the same time, the researchers hoped to eliminate factors that might cause results to vary from one poll to another.

The experiment confirmed that "voters are about six points more likely to support Trump when they’re taking the poll online then when they’re talking to a live interviewer,” said Dropp.

The most telling part of the experiment, however, was that not all types of people responded the same way. Among blue-collar Republicans, who have formed the core of Trump's support, the polls were about the same regardless of method. But among college-educated Republicans, a significant difference appeared, with Trump scoring 9 points better in the online poll.

The most likely explanation for that education gap, Dropp and his colleagues believe, is a well-known problem known as social-desirability bias -- the tendency of people to not want to confess unpopular views to a pollster.

Blue-collar voters don't feel embarrassed about supporting Trump, who is very popular in their communities, the pollsters suggested. But many college-educated Republicans may hesitate to admit their attraction to Trump, the experiment indicates.

In a public setting such as the Iowa caucuses, where people identify their candidate preference in front of friends and neighbors, that same social-desirability bias may hold sway.

But in most primaries, where voters cast a secret ballot, the study's finding suggests that anonymous online surveys -- the ones that typically show Trump with a larger lead -- provide the more accurate measure of his backing.

"It’s our sense that a lot of polls are under-reporting Trump’s overall support," Dropp said.