: Tough questions…What the numbers say…
I’ve tried twice (a low figure) to interest reporters in the Mayer predictive model of primary campaigns and my use of it to suggest that reporters spend more time covering policy during the pre-primary period.
Silence.
I suspect the reason is the reporters think I’m crazy. After all, everyone knows that the primaries are competitive races based on the candidates’ performances and strategies, and each race builds on the other leading to a winner. The model, however, says this isn’t true.
Like any predictive model, this one could fail. But, considering its consistency (correct since 1980), I’m sticking with it. The question arises: Why is the model so consistent? I think we can find the answer in the Central Limit theorem: “the average (or sum) of a large bunch of measurements follows a normal bell-shaped curve even if the individual measurements themselves do not” (re: John Allen Paulos). That’s pretty much the same as saying: you can’t see the forest for the trees.
The forest in this case is the national Gallup poll charting the preferences of likely voters. The trees are the individual state polls. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, many journalists continue to think that winning in Iowa, New Hampshire, or any other given state is necessary to win a nomination. They continue to believe that charting such wins and losses indicates momentum.
(What would it mean, in terms of journalistic practice, if these things turned out to be misleading or false?)
I think the Mayer model demonstrates that the Central Limit theorem works even in a complex political system. Voters in the aggregate confirm the national polls with their votes because the national polls accurately represent the normal distribution of voter preference. The individual state polls, then, constitute too much detail, i.e. detail that is not predictive of the larger primary system.
The tricky part this year: statistically, there is no front runner yet. For the model to work, someone needs to emerge, i.e. take a lead that exceeds the margin of error.
If this doesn’t happen, we will technically have (in a non-pejorative sense) chaos.
UPDATE (22 Oct. 11:11 a.m.): Jay Manifold responds.
One obvious question is whether, in those years covered by the Mayer model, the winner not only led in the polls but had a statistically significant lead, which in most polls would require at least a 5% margin over the 2nd-place candidate(s) (I note that a poll described at http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr031010.asp shows Clark with such a lead, but it’s a couple of weeks old now).
But whether or not this is the case, I think the real lesson to be drawn is that the primary process, irrespective of its many (to my mind) undesirable features, “works” extremely well in the sense of faithfully reflecting voter preferences.
This is all the more remarkable in that many delegates are still not chosen by caucus or primary; Walter Mondale, for example, would have obtained the Democratic nomination in 1984 even had he lost most of the early primaries, because the party leadership in various states had already appointed numerous delegates committed to him.
Jay– I checked Mayer’s article from PS and did not find a specific answer to your question (although this data may show up in othere…he’s been writing about this model since 1996). He does note that, in most cases, the winner of the last Gallup poll had also been leading for nearly a year before the Iowa vote. It would be interesting to find out just what the MoEs were.
And I agree with your observation that the primaries validate voter “preference.” Mayer agrees, too.
But what I question in my use of Mayer is how that preference is formed since the model indicates to me that the pre-primary period is the true “race.” Hence, my interest in the quality of press coverage during that time.
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Mayer predictive model of primary campaigns
Rhetorica is trying to get one or more reporters interested in the Mayer predictive model of primary campaigns. I think at least one reporter ought to give it a chance just to see if it works….