Polls for the week ending December 27, 2011

2008 Iowa Caucus Results by County

We're a little delayed thanks to the holiday but here's our weekly look at the national polls.
Last week's GOP nomination polls ended on December 17, and we have new data for this week's polls!
Last week we saw Newt Gingrich drop 4%, Mitt Romney holding on with his usual 20ish percent, and it was Michele Bachmann with the surprising gain of 3.2% overtaking Rick Perry. 

This week Gingrich is still in the lead, but that little green line of his is still going down, while the Romney purple line inched up. Ron Paul takes a completely unimpressive third place, a good 10-14 points behind the leaders.
The data for PPP is so far off from the other polls that I looked back at their last set of numbers. The last data from them was in early November, and even then their numbers were completely different (in Gingrich's favor) from the other polls conducted that week. It makes me want to toss their numbers out personally. If we pull out the PPP numbers, Gingrich's national average is 25.75, and Romney at 25.5. And we've got ourselves a horse race!

On to "First in the Nation" Iowa Caucuses-
For the last two weeks we have seen a drastic change in numbers coming out of Iowa. Prior to the Fox News televised debates we had Gingrich 30%, Romney 20%, Paul 11%, Perry 8%, Bachmann 9%, Santorum 5%, Huntsman 2%, and Cain still in the race with 5%.
But then two days later there was news that a new Rasmussen polls had Romney in the lead at 23%.
But then Cain dropped out of the race, and the polls all changed. Gingrich dropped by 13%, Ron Paul jumped ahead 8%, and everyone saw movement all over the place.
But it is Ron Paul that needs to be looked at carefully. Last week he had only 11%, and now he's up to 19.3%.
And then after Cain dropped out, and we had the Iowa debates, we found Gingrich, Paul, and Romney are all within 2 points of each other, and Michele Bachmann started sending out emails saying she was winning Iowa! 

So here we are exactly one week away from the Iowa caucus, and things have changed again!
Ron Paul is in the lead! It isn't a strong lead, but he is definitely in the lead. Romney is hot on his heels, and Gingrich has dropped into no man's land. And Michele Bachmann? 5th place.
Because I'm starting to feel incredibly skeptical about any and all data out of PPP, I'm redoing the numbers, dropping their data. It moves Ron Paul to 22, and Mitt Romney to 21.5. Considering the margin of error on these polls, I'd say we don't really know who is going to win in Iowa! It will be either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, but I think the numbers have been too volatile to really say that with any confidence.

Now for the Live Free state of New Hampshire-
Last week Romney was in the lead, but he had dropped just a skosh.
Now looking at this week's numbers-

How about we just call it for Romney now?

Should you believe the polls?

Washington Monument Source: E. McBride

The polls can be misleading at times and dead-on accurate at others. This week there are conflicting polls in several major publications.

A Bloomberg News poll shows Cain at 20 percent, Paul at 19 percent, Romney at 18 percent and Gingrich at 17 percent among the likely attendees with the caucuses that start the nominating contests seven weeks away. This information was cited in an article entitled "Romney Two-Way Race Now Republican Four-Way Race in Iowa." According to the poll, participants were 2,677 registered Republican and independent voters in
Iowa ages 18 or older, of which 503 said they would definitely or probably participate in the January 2012
Republican caucus. It does not cite the intentions of the other 81% of respondents.
Meanwhile, Salon.com published a story on the same day saying that Romney is the "inevitable nominee they all can't stand."  And cites a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll where Romney has 32% of the votes.Salon.com focuses on comparing Romney to Bob Dole in 1996, GW Bush in 2000, and McCain in 2008, who all maintained significant leads throughout the campaign trail and primaries. It also mentions the significant differences in this race as compared to years previous. In the past the contenders had pointedly different campaign platforms, and were not appealing to the same base. (For instance, Pat Buchanan's extremist points of view as compared to Bob Dole's moderate appeals. Or Ron Paul's base versus the McCain base in 2008.) This race is different as the three leading candidates- Romney, Cain, and Gingrich, are pulling in close to 70% of the base combined, and are not significantly different in policies (as compared to the considerably more conservative Santorum and Bachmann who only have 3% of the base combined). In other words, if just one of the big 3 were to surge forward in one of the first primaries it could completely change the rest of the race. But that's just Salon.com's point of view. Don't forget Bloomberg has Ron Paul at 19% in Iowa!
At the same time Real Clear Politics has a story citing a Public Policy Poll  putting Gingrich into first place with 28%, Cain in second place with 25%, and Romney "sliding" into third with 18% .PPP surveyed 576 Republican primary voters from November 10th to 13th. The margin of error for the survey is +/-4.1%.
In an almost humorous twist, Real Clear Politics is running the following poll in a widget next to the article-

(click on image to enlarge)

What does it say? In a Bloomberg poll (the same Bloomberg who above has Romney at 18% in Iowa), Romney is leading at 40% in New Hampshire.

So can you believe polls? Or accept them with a grain of salt?