How much can we learn from early primary polls? Back in 2011, FiveThirtyEight Editor-in-chief Nate Silver set out to answer this question and found that early national polling is at least somewhat predictive of who will win the nomination, especially when the results are adjusted for each candidate’s name recognition.
Now, eight years later, FiveThirtyEight has collected more polling data, plus there are two more presidential election cycles — 2012 and 2016 — to look at, so we felt it was time to update the series. CONT.
Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight