Why Polls Don’t Matter At This Point

The polls listed below should demonstrate to everyone why surveys regarding Presidential hopefuls mean little at this point.  For example, even though then-VP George Bush won his party’s nomination in 1988, Senator Howard Baker who was third in a 1987 poll never ended up running for President.  In 1999, Elizabeth Dole and former VP Dan Quayle dropped out of the running before the January 2000 Iowa Caucus.  The country never had a President Rudy Giuliani or a Republican nominee by the name of Giuliani.  Sarah Palin did not run in 2012.  Neither did Chris Christie nor Mitch Daniels nor George Pataki for that matter.  So why take a poll at this time?  Do they matter?  Do you see any of these candidates emerging as the front runner for the GOP nomination?

Incumbent Presidential Vote Totals

President Barack Obama, as of this post, received 60,892,345 popular votes in his Presidential re-election bid.  This was down from the 69 million votes+ he received in 2008.  This is not the first time an incumbent President who was   re-elected for another term received fewer popular votes in his next go around than in his previous election.  The last that this happened was in 1944 when Franklin D. Roosevelt received fewer votes in his fourth bid for the Presidency than in his third.  The last time before that?  Roosevelt once again in 1940.  Here are the victorious incumbent Presidents and their popular vote totals in back to back elections.

Andrew Jackson

1828:  642,533; 1832:  701,780

Abraham Lincoln

1860:  1,855,593; 1864:  2,218,388

Ulysses S. Grant

1868:  3,013,790; 1872:  3,598,235

William McKinley

1896:  7,102,246; 1900:  7,228,864

Woodrow Wilson

1912:  6,296,284; 1916:  9,126,868

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932:  22,821,277; 1936:  27,752,648; 1940:  27,313,945; 1944:  25,612,916

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1952:  34,075,529; 1956:  35,579,180

Richard Nixon

1968:  31,783,783; 1972:  47,168,710

Ronald Reagan

1980:  43,903,230; 1984:  54,455,472

Bill Clinton

1992:  44,909,806; 1996:  47,400,125

George W. Bush

2000:  50,460,110; 2004:  62,040,610

Barack Obama

2008:  69,498,215; 2012:  60,892,345

What accounts for the drop in Obama’s total from 2012 to 2008?