Following the presidential poll results closely? Former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu suggests in the latest TIME that you shouldn’t bother.
Nothing distracts reporters like the polls. Every cycle, it’s the same mistake and the same foolish look. Four years ago, the leading names in national surveys on the Republican nomination were Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. They never made it to New Hampshire. Lost in the discussion of what a Thompson presidency might look like was the steady rebuilding of McCain’s momentum in September and October.
In a presidential primary, national polls are meaningless. Primaries unfold state by state. Yet the press covers the smallest perturbation in national numbers as if all Republican voters had turned their full attention to the campaign and were making their choice today. That’s simply not the world in which we live. Or want to.
Even in New Hampshire, where interest in the primary is deeper and more widespread than almost anywhere else in America, it’s a gradual process. Here as elsewhere, poll numbers are still as much a reflection of name identification as they are an understanding and support for policies and personality. Although activists have been committed for months and voters have been listening all summer, most of their decisions are made in December and January.
