A Polling-Based Forecast of the Republican Primary Field

By NATE SILVER
NYT

This is the finale of a four-part series (Part I, Part II, Part III) evaluating the utility of early presidential primary polls as forecasting instruments. My contention is that these polls have enough predictive power to be a worthwhile starting point for handicapping a field of candidates. In this article, we’ll see what they have to say about the Republican contenders for 2012.

Here is a chart summarizing the 28 scientific polls that have been conducted on the Republican field since the start of the year, covering a total of 23 different candidates or prospective candidates. (For the ground rules used to assemble this data, see Part III).

Name recognition figures are mainly taken from Gallup, and reflect an average of all of Gallup’s surveys since the start of the year. The exceptions are a handful of relatively obscure candidates whom Gallup has not yet polled on — in those cases the name recognition figures are estimates, and are indicated in red in the table. (Some of the polls were conducted in multiple versions with varying lists of candidates; that’s why the table shows, for example, that Mike Huckabee was included in 26.2 polls out of 28.)

(More here.)