What can May polls say about November?

CBS News

Updated 5:50 p.m. ET

(CBS News) General election campaigning between Mitt Romney and President Obama is underway, and if history is a guide, polls conducted in the month of May aren't necessarily a predictor of where the race will be in late October. In past years in which an incumbent was running for re-election, the leading candidate in polls conducted around Memorial Day only sometimes came out on top.

In some years, the race changed quite a bit between May and November. For example, a CBS News Poll conducted in late May 2004 found John Kerry leading President George W. Bush by eight points - 49 to 41 percent. President Bush was suffering from growing public concern about the war in Iraq and the prisoner abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Kerry led Mr. Bush in most polls until September, but throughout the fall the polls showed a race that was neck and neck. Mr. Bush won re-election by 3 points.

Although President George H. W. Bush's re-election bid was ultimately unsuccessful, he was ahead in the polls in May 1992, beating Bill Clinton by 8 points. President Bush received 35 percent of voters' support, compared to 27 percent for Bill Clinton and 26 percent for Ross Perot in a CBS News Poll.

President Bush's approval rating was the lowest he had ever received up until that point, but voters' views of Bill Clinton were low as well - just 15 percent favorable and 40 percent unfavorable. Throughout the summer, Bill Clinton's support rose steadily; from July onward, Mr. Bush trailed Clinton in the polls

The race could change, in part, because for voters, the presidential race is still months away and most won't focus on the election until the party conventions at the end of the summer.

However, in some elections, May polling reflected a race dynamic that would carry through until November. A CBS News poll from May 1996 showed President Bill Clinton with a lead over Republican challenger Bob Dole, 54 percent to 38 percent. And polls conducted in June 1980 and 1984 were accurate indicators of who would ultimately win those elections. A CBS News/New York Times Poll from June 1980 found challenger Ronald Reagan with a double digit lead over incumbent President Jimmy Carter - 43 percent to just 28 percent for Mr. Carter and 17 percent for John Anderson. Mr. Reagan led challenger Walter Mondale by a large margin in June 1984 as well - 50 percent to 35 percent.

(Watch guests on CBS News' Hotsheet Live program on video below talk about the historical contexts in May polling.)

[jimo48]

Any network that can only give 19 seconds of coverage to the Catholic response to the Obama Health mandate, and hours on the Pope's butler has got its head royally up where the sun don't shine! If the purpose of NEWS is to be objective and non-biased, than be that way and act responsibly. Until then, I shall not be able to TRUST any network polling because I have already pre-determined it is biased....just like ALL your news reporting. Time to wake up and smell the coffee CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and especially MSNBC!

[USSR--is---barack]

You mean these self serving polls by CBS News and The Times they manufacture to prop up Obama and deceive the public?
They are meaningless whether in May or November.

[ProtectAmericanJobs]

I consider myself an independent voter, but going back to the Reagan days and with the only exception having been Perot, I've always voted Republican. All this single-minded, left versus right, ideological one dimensional bull has got to go! This is the problem with our country. It shouldn't be about Democrats or Republicans! It should be about Americans, especially our elected officials, doing the right thing for our country and it's citizens.

Both parties have sold out the bulk of the American citizens, who they're supposed to represent, by allowing the "out-sourcing" floodgates to open wider and wider without taking any sensible measures to stem the tide. (Under Clinton jobs to China, Under Bush I & II influx of illegals or cheap easily abused labor into the US and jobs to Mexico/NAFTA) Our leaders are elected by the Citizens of the United States of America to represent the interests of those citizens and the country itself. They are NOT elected by the Global Market Place or foreign citizens!

We need whoever wins the next election to Start Protecting American Jobs and do whatever it takes to bring back the jobs they let go. They've got to give us somebody who will stand up for the American people.

We need to bring manufacturing back to the United States of America and both parties are ignoring tariffs as a way to level the playing field, raise money and bring jobs back home. Let's guess why. Oh that's right, tariff is a dirty word. Hum, maybe it's that our so called leaders (political leaders) are beholden to the same people who are exporting our jobs.

I guess we should keep letting Corp Boards, Wall Street, CEOs and Foreign Lobbyists promote sending US jobs to countries where they work for slave wages, no benefits, no OSHA safety standards or no real environment regulations. How's that been working for us?

The so called "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field. Companies may have made higher profits by "out sourcing", but they've been putting middle class Americans who are a good part of the world's customer base out of work. I'm not a lefty or member of any union. I run a business that employs over 20 people and produces products that are purchased by customers that do manufacturing and packaging. I'm just an average Joe, but I've been saying this for more than 10 years now. If I can see it, so can our so called leaders (political leaders) who are beholden to the same people who are exporting our jobs.

We need to add tariffs that are proportionate to the inequities in wages and regulations in the country where the goods were produced and or where we're importing them from. We could then use the money raised by these tariffs to help companies build state of the art manufacturing plants here in the USA, which would create more jobs here at home for US citizens, which would then in turn increase our income tax revenue.

Bringing manufacturing back to the US not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.

These so-called "free trade agreements" have to go. It was obvious when they were passing these agreements as to what was going to happen and sure enough it did. Our leaders had to have known this as well when they were passing these bills. It's just common sense.

We also need to bring customer support services back to the United States of America and staff them with employees who are US Citizens.

The "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field! The whole idea of the tariffs is so we can pay our factory workers a decent wage and not be blown out by these other countries where they don't play by the same rules.

We may have to pay a bit more for products made here in the USA by US citizens, but at least we'll still have jobs and a future for our children.

The bottom line is that "Our Government" has to protect American industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.

[ProtectAmericanJobs]

They have to stop fighting with each other and get things done that are in the best interests of the citizens of the United States of America, who are the peolpe that elect them and the people and country that they are supposed to represent!

[gep1955]

Since the network media is in the tank for Obama, here's some real news they will never show...

The Democratic presidential candidate who won 42 percent of the vote in the Arkansas primary against President Obama has filed a suit against the state party, claiming it "stifled" voter enthusiasm by saying he was ineligible to win convention delegates, then withheld his fair share of them.

[spiceman22]

Fact Check! MASS was 3 billion in the red, and four years later, MASS had a 2 billion dollar rainy day fund. That is not mediocre. Obama has put the American people in more debt and any president, because he is the predator. Romney served as Governor without pay, and intends to do the same as President.

[marychgo]

The fact that these early polls tell us very little that's important does NOT mean that your preferred presidential candidate is surely going to be elected. They simply mean that, if you want your preferred presidential candidate to be elected, perhaps you ought to go out and do something to make that happen!

[Jaylah54]

"...if history is a guide, polls conducted in the month of May aren't necessarily a predictor of where the race will be in late October. In past years in which an incumbent was running for re-election, the leading candidate in polls conducted around Memorial Day only sometimes came out on top."

All of which is a verbose way of answering the headline question:

"What can May polls say about November?"

Not a damned thing.

[nonpolitico]

Well only 6 more months , and all the flim flam will be history, US will still have $Trillion debt, and I guess that the middle class will be poorer while the benefit largesse will have attempted to swing it for Obama!
Look back in 10 years and see if 2012 made any difference!

[retiredgustav]

I, along with most people are a lot better off than when bush left office. Or have we forgotten the direction our country was headed then.