We’ve seen Trumpmentum give way to Cruzmentum, heard rumors about the ascent of Marcomentum, and even seen Gilmentum try to force its way into the mix.
But what if the story heading into the New Hampshire primary is nomentum?
On the eve of Tuesday’s vote, polls of the Republican race there have remained steady for weeks. They show Donald Trump with a double-figure lead. They show a cluster of distant challengers—Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Jeb Bush—competing for second place. They’ve showed Rubio mounting a charge but stalling; Kasich sneaking into contention but halting; and no one but Trump demonstrating the strength to win.
Poll-watchers have questioned the reliability of these surveys. For one, they’re notoriously volatile and late-breaking. “New Hampshire is a hard state to poll. For one thing, the post-Iowa bounces may not be fully ‘priced in’ yet,” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver wrote Thursday. The same goes for surveys that reflect any post-debate effects from Saturday night’s momentous encounter between Rubio and New Jersey governor Chris Christie—as of Monday afternoon, there had only been one poll of the state conducted entirely after the debate.
Trying to capture all of this news within a short period of time is one reason why these measures are prone to err. It’s fruitless to rely on just one of them for insight. And even when they’re considered as a group, like the RealClearPolitics average, they’re best viewed as a snapshot of a campaign.
“Keep in mind, polls are meant to show the state of the race at the time they are conducted,” The Huffington Post’s senior polling editor, Natalie Jackson, wrote this weekend. “It’s interesting just to see how and why opinions may have changed so quickly, or what went wrong when polls don’t anticipate the outcome. Polls are not predictive.”
Rather, they’re tasty data points, best dashed with a few grains of salt.
Here’s what they’ve reflected in New Hampshire: A clue of who the frontrunner is, and absolutely no clue who’s in second. The latter candidate was supposed to represent the “momentum” in the race, but there’s no statistical evidence that such a thing exists.
Instead, the state is witnessing a historically clustered contest. Dr. Eric Ostermeier, author of the University of Minnesota’s “Smart Politics” political data website, passes along two unique numbers about the New Hampshire primary to THE WEEKLY STANDARD: This year could be the first time five Republicans have finished with 10 percent of the vote—the RCP average shows Bush, currently in fifth place, with 10 percent—and it’s also the most crowded field in memory.
“The 2016 cycle marks the largest number of notable (non-fringe) GOP candidates who are still in the race as of the New Hampshire primary with nine, including [Jim] Gilmore,” he emails. The previous mark was eight in 1996—the only time in the GOP’s Granite State primary that the victor has captured less than 35 percent of the vote. It’s “quite possible” that will happen again this year, Ostermeier says.
Good luck finding the momentum in that.
