Reading the presidential polls this year–particularly on the Republican side of the ledger–it looks almost as though there are two elections going on. Romney has a comfortable (and growing) lead in Iowa and New Hampshire, and yet he’s not getting much traction in the national polls. The latest Gallup Poll has Romney mired in the single digits, well behind Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and a resurgent John McCain.
So shouldn’t the Romney forces be worried? They point to some historical data–interestingly, all involving Democratic contenders–that shows how important winning in Iowa and New Hampshire can be. (Or even just beating expectations, as Clinton did). These charts show where a candidate stood in the national polls before those two contests and where they stood after:
But that, of course, was under the old primary schedule. The big question this time will be what it means to have states like Florida and California right on the heels of those two early contests. Will that big burst of publicity give the winner a shot of momentum, or could he hit a wall if he doesn’t have the name recognition and money that it takes to compete in bigger states? We are truly going to be in uncharted waters, which gets back to the assessment that Newt Gingrich made last week–that he sees a 50-50 chance that the Republican field will still have as many as four contenders after the Feb. 5 megaprimary. In other words, will frontloading the calendar mean a longer, rather than a shorter primary season?
UPDATE: Over at CBSNews.com, director of surveys Kathy Frankovic tests the converse question: What do national polls tell us about New Hampshire and Iowa outcomes? Not much, she decides.