FOX pundits wrong: undecideds do break for challenger

Written by Gabe Wildau

Published

As polls have consistently shown the presidential race too close to call over the last several weeks, conservative commentators have sought to discredit the so-called “incumbent rule” -- the conventional wisdom that undecided voters tend to break towards the challenger in the final days of an election. In fact, this piece of conventional wisdom appears to be true.

Here's what conservative pundits have said:

  • FOX News Channel TV and radio host Tony Snow: Well, the fact is, that's one of those bits of conventional wisdom that didn't happen to be true. If you talk to people who have been doing presidential polling, just the opposite tends to happen. People tend to break hard for an incumbent in the final days of a campaign. ... So, yeah, I think the one thing you have to keep in mind is, that is one piece of conventional wisdom you can just throw away. The idea they always break toward the challenger -- simply not true. It's not borne out by any recent presidential history, and I don't think this election is going to be any different. [FOX News Channel, FOX News Live, 11/1]
  • FOX News Channel contributor Pat Caddell, who called the incumbent rule “a great canard”: “The axiom that the undecided voters break for the challenger is not the way it works. Nobody's gone back and studied the numbers.” [FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 10/26]
  • Weekly Standard executive editor and FOX News Channel contributor Fred Barnes: "[U]ndecideds generally don't go ... against the incumbent. I know this is a cliché that's been thrown around a lot. I think it's utterly a myth." [FOX News Channel, Special Report with Brit Hume, 10/22]

But, despite the conventional wisdom on FOX News Channel, several expert analyses have found that undecideds do, in fact, tend to break for the challenger.

Chris Bowers, a blogger for MyDD.com, compared poll data with actual election results for 283 incumbent elections between 1992 to 2004; he found that undecided voters broke decisively for the challenger. Bowers's analysis showed an average of 66 percent of undecideds breaking for the challenger, compared with 34 percent for the incumbent. For presidential races only, the break was even sharper: 86 percent for challengers versus 14 percent for incumbents.

Bowers' research was actually an update of a study published in the February 27, 1989, issue of The Polling Report in which Nick Panagakis, a trustee of the National Council of Public Polls, analyzed the final polls for 155 separate races involving incumbents. Panagakis's survey included “both general and primary elections, and Democratic and Republican incumbents. Most are from the 1986 and 1988 elections, although a few stretch back to the 1970s.” He concluded: “In 127 cases out of 155, most or all of the undecideds went for the challenger.”

Writing on the The American Prospect's website, Guy Molyneaux -- senior vice president of the polling firm Peter D. Hart Research Associates and partner in the firm's political division, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group (disclosure: Media Matters for America commissioned Garin-Hart-Yang to conduct a national survey in April 2004 concerning public attitudes toward mainstream and conservative media), analyzed poll results for the last four incumbent presidential elections -- 1996, 1992, 1984, and 1980 -- and found results that support Panagakis's and Bowers's findings:

There have been four incumbent presidential elections in the past quarter-century. If we take an average of the final surveys conducted by the three major networks and their partners [ABC/Washington Post; CBS/New York Times; and NBC/Wall Street Journal], we find that in three of these the incumbent fell short of or merely matched his final poll number while exceeding it only once, and then by just a single point (Ronald Reagan). On average, the incumbent comes in half a point below his final poll result.

YearIncumbentFinal Poll (in percent)Actual Vote (in percent) 1996Bill Clinton5149 1992George H.W. Bush3737 1984Ronald Reagan5859 1980Jimmy Carter4241

The numbers for challengers look quite different. In every case, the challenger(s) -- I include Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 -- exceeded their final poll result by at least 2 points, and the average gain is 4 points. In 1980, Ronald Reagan received 51 percent, fully 6 percentage points above his final poll results.

Pollster John Zogby also believes that undecideds break for the challenger, according to an October 3 Philadelphia Inquirer article:

“Undecided voters had made up their minds about the incumbent; in my last poll, a majority was willing to look at someone new. But their thinking was, 'Who is this tall guy, anyway?' But now Kerry has set the table for getting back to parity,” Zogby said, and undecideds generally break for the challenger. They broke for Reagan late in the 1980 campaign.

For raw data comparing preelection polling and election outcomes for presidential elections since 1936, click here.