How much of Clinton’s advantage is built on name recognition? Gallup take a closer look national name recognition numbers for the presidential field and cross references the results. They find that Clinton’s lead is partially built on name recognition, but by no means entirely so:
Candidate
All Dems
Familiar with the top 3
Unfamiliar with one or more of the top 3
Clinton
48%
43%
53%
Obama
25%
30%
17%
Edwards
13%
13%
10%
And thus, once again, the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory is proven to be partially correct (it had already been proven in Iowa, and nationally among undecideds). Clinton’s lead is indeed somewhat, just not entirely, inflated by the tendency of low-information voters to break her way. Among those who know all candidates, she leads by 13% over Obama. Among those who are not familiar with the “top three” candidates, she leads by 36%. Overall, her advantage among those not paying as much attention to the campaign account for about 10% of her current 23% lead in national Gallup polls.
However, the point we all need to remember is that while polls that push undecideds, low-information voters, and unlikely primary voters are all slightly inflating Clinton’s advantage, Clinton is still in front even when one removes all of those advantages. The main reason for this is that she has a higher favorability ratio, and higher overall strongly favorable numbers, than any other Democrat running for President. The chart on the right, produced by Pew, shows this. Even among Democrats who know Obama, Edwards and Clinton enough to form an opinion of them, Clinton still boasts a higher strongly favorable opinion (38% to 30% for Obama to 23% for Edwards) and a higher overall favorable ratio (88%-12%, versus 83%-17% for both Obama and Edwards). So, even if Edwards and Obama were to entirely catch up with Clinton in name recognition, they would continue to trail Clinton in national polls because Clinton has fewer unfavorables and a higher overall strongly favorable number. And it is very, very unlikely that will change before the start of the primary and caucus season, since Clinton’s edge was built up through a long-term, sixteen relationship with the base. There is nothing Obama and Edwards can do before Iowa to counter that advantage entirely.
So, in summary:
National polls are inflating Clinton’s lead through her advantage among voters unfamiliar with the top candidates, undecided voters who are pushed to make a choice, and less likely primary voters / caucus goers both nationally and in early states like Iowa. I can prove all of that now. It isn’t just “theory” anymore.
Clinton is ahead even after these factors are accounted for, and is probably still ahead outside the margin of error. While it is impossible to know for certain how far ahead she still is, a good guess is that the above factors collectively cut her lead in half. However, that still means her advantage is at least 8% nationwide, and thus outside the margin of error for almost all national polls.
National polls don’t really matter that much, anyway. Clinton’s national advantage, which seems highly unlikely to disappear before the start of the primary season, means that she is the only candidate who can potentially survive early state losses and still have a change to win the nomination. While everyone else has to win either Iowa or New Hampshire, and Edwards probably has to win both, Clinton can still be the nominee as long as she finishes second in each state, and as long as Obama does not win Iowa.
So, this pretty much closes the book on the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory. The three points above provide the long and the short on how large Clinton’s national lead is, where that lead comes from, and what that lead means in determining the nominee. The rest is still dependent on the primary calendar, and the results in early states. Keep your eye on Iowa and the New Hampshire projection tables. As long as Clinton stays ahead of all three of Obama, Edwards and Richardson in at least one of those categories, she is still the favorite for the nomination, and thus the presidency. This is now the 92nd consecutive day she has held that position, and given the trends in Iowa, her grip on that position it appears to be strengthening.
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