2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hypothetical GE match-up polling is meaningless at this juncture. [View all]Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Just as some polls show Clinton beating Trump and others show her losing to Trump. And I don't give a rip about any of them, no matter who they have in the lead--all are worthless.
All cherry picking aside, the overarching point stands. Hypothetical general election match-up polls are historically misleading...to put it mildly.
McCain beats Clinton by 1 and Obama by 5:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106981/gallup-daily-obama-49-clinton-45.aspx
Dukakis vs. Bush:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/26/us/dukakis-lead-widens-according-to-new-poll.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/us/poll-shows-dukakis-leads-bush-many-reagan-backers-shift-sides.html?pagewanted=all
Kerry led Dubya in a majority of polls up until September:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2004/president/us/general_election_bush_vs_kerry-939.html#polls
Dubya led Gore in polls right up until election day.
George H.W. Bush had big leads over Clinton in early polling of '92. It wasn't until July that Clinton first took a lead in polls.
Even Bob Dole led Bill Clinton in polls...though, in that case, I'm referring to polls taken more than a year before the election. Throughout '96, there wasn't ever much doubt that Clinton would win re-election.
Early polling had Carter defeating Reagan. Actually, late polling did, as well. But times were different. There was only 1 debate between the 2, and that was a week before the election (Reagan got a big bump following that debate).