I had planned on blogging about the imperfect use of polling data to determine who among the throng of GOP Presidential hopefuls will be included in next week’s Fox-broadcast debate. Unfortunately, I can no longer locate the article I was going to share that contained lots of facts and figures. (Lesson learned: save the link before I get distracted by other shiny objects). To summarize, national polling outlets use various methods to poll, creating a snapshot of the race that means almost nothing. How many of us really believe that Donald Trump won’t self destruct long before the New Hampshire primary?
I will go on to say that, beyond deciding the participants in this debate, national polling isn’t all that useful of a benchmark, even in the general election. If the Democratic nominee is doing particularly well in a large blue state like California, the large plurality may skew a national poll, but not accurately depict how well a campaign is doing overall. Because presidents are elected by the Electoral College where almost all states’ electors are decided on a “winner-take-all” basis, it doesn’t matter how large the candidate’s margin of support is in a given state. That state’s electoral votes will either be theirs or they will not.
Hopefully I can find the article soon. But in the meantime, Fox News has changed the rules of the debate a bit. Previously, Fox was holding two debate events. A coveted place in the prime-time debate would be awarded to the top ten best polling of the announced candidates for the GOP nomination. Another, earlier debate would have included any of the rest who polled above 1% in national polls. They have now changed the rules to include in the earlier debate the rest of the field. Here’s an article in Politico about the switch: Change to Fox Debate rules