The history of contested party nominations over the last 35 years show Republicans generally nominate the person who is the frontrunner the year before the primaries, while Democrats often choose from someone deep in the pack.
The Associated Press has the breakdown.
Read the article at the above link. To summarize, Republicans went with their early frontrunner in 1976, 1980, 1988, 1996, and 2000 (the years of contested nominations). Since the '72, '84, and '92 nominations weren't seriously at issue, this translates to a sweep for the early favorites.
Democrats picked their frontrunner in 1984 and 2000, but went with "dark horse" candidates many other times. McGovern in 1972, Carter in '76 and '80 (Ted Kennedy was the favorite in '79), Dukakis in '88, Clinton in '92, and Kerry in 2004 all trailed in the early polls. In '72, '76, '88, and '92, the eventual nominee was at 5% or less support a year or less before the primaries. (Kerry was within 1% of the early favorite - Lieberman - a year before the 2004 campaign, with 16% backing).
Earlier campaigns have little bearing on this, because candidates didn't start running so early and therefore polling wasn't conducted so far ahead of voting. Still, one must go back before the primaries became prominent in choosing nominees to find Republicans going with someone who wasn't favored going in.
This would be considered good news for Giuliani in the current Republican field, and bad news for Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side. Perhaps Tom Vilsack dropped out too soon? His support was roughly around where Carter, Dukakis, and Bill Clinton were early on (almost none), but their determination helped them overcome the deficit of support and win the nomination.
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2008 Presidential Race
Tags: campaign, Democrat, history, primaries, Republicans
Comments (1)
I would suggest to all of t... (Below threshold)1. Posted by Baggi | March 1, 2007 2:14 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I would suggest to all of the Rudy supporters out there not even to bother and go and vote. I mean, who can change the course of history?
Rudy is obviously going to win the Republican Primary. So really, you don't even need to bother to vote in the Primary, just wait to vote for him on election day, November of 08.
1. Posted by Baggi | March 1, 2007 2:14 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on March 1, 2007 14:14