On August 15, the Commission on Presidential Debates said the only polls it will look at, to determine who may be invited to the debates, are these five:
1. ABC/Washington Post
2. CBS/New York Times
3. CNN-ORC
4. Fox News
5. Wall Street Journal/NBC News
It is believed this is the first time the Commission on Presidential Debates has specified which polls count.
I think this may actually have been deliberate. Johnson polls the best in all of these. Seems like the commission members are anti-Trump and are really trying to do what they can to get Johnson onstage without seeming obvious. It’s polls like Monmouth and NYT where he’s down around 5-6%.
Wait, you mean they’re trying to help Trump: he does better with more people on the stage, and Johnson pulls more from Hillary.
It will be interesting to see where Johnson/Weld end up. They are around 9% in four-way polls and do slightly better when Jill Stein isn’t included.
The ultimate deal maker or breaker may come down to how the commission handles the margin of error for the polls. If Johnson gets 12% in a poll that has a margin of error of 3.5%, you could argue that he has met the threshold. If he gets 18% in a poll that has a margin of error of 3.5%,you could argue that the hasn’t met the threshold. If they ignore the margin of error altogether, they are making decisions based off of poor science.
This is actually a rather meaningless and misleading on the part of the CPD, none of these institutions conduct their own polling. They contract out their polling to other organizations, thus not even the Commission on Presidential Debates will know who is to conduct these polls until after they have been contracted for by the various news agencies in question.
BradleyinDC…. And McMullin and Castle pull from Trump. Trump’s already doing atrocious on his own. If he keeps up with the crap he’s been doing he’s going to fall even more. Johnson will hit a ‘crossing the chasm’ point and Trump will ultimately hit a collapsing point where the people that are backing Trump just so Clinton doesn’t win, will drop Trump for Johnson. This will come when Johnson hits about 20% – 25%… After that Trump’s support will fall to his realistic actual support level of 10%. This will also allow people backing Clinton just so Trump doesn’t win to move over to Johnson too, because they’ll no longer fear Trump. Thus Clinton falls to 30% or so.
Nope this was used in at least last election. 2012 was all the same polls except Gallup instead of CNN.
AMcCarrick, “McMullin and Castle pull from Trump” except they’re not going to be in the debates or under consideration for them–I don’t even think they’ll be on the ballot in enough states to meet the other criterion.
“Trump’s already doing atrocious on his own” No disagreement there. I *hope* the rest of your analysis is right, but I stand by correction: at this point in the polls, adding Johnson reduces Hillary’s lead.
the debate commission is a joke and so is the %15. All candidates on enough ballots to win(270 electoral votes) or in a nationally recognized party, should be allowed in the debate.. winning one or two states could throw the election into the house. So the %15 is arbitrary..Along with Trump and Hillary should be Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and Darrell Castle. No other candidates are in a national party or on more then three ballots….just my two cents..
“Nationally recognized party” could be arbitrary unless we’re talking about FEC recognition or some such.
And the EC-majority standard is understandable, but again it’s harsher than necessary. A ticket can’t finish any worse than third if it wins 1/4 of the electoral votes (which rounds up to 135, presuming nobody starts enforcing Section 2 of the 14th Amendment and reduces any state’s US House representation and matching electoral votes for denying or abridging the right to vote). And third place would get that ticket into the House’s selection process if no ticket actually wins a majority.
Thanks to commenter “X”. In 2012, did the Commission on Presidential Debates announce ahead of time which polls it would use, or did you mean that in 2012, that happens to be the polls that were used but they weren’t announced ahead of time?
Poking around the internet archive of the CPD web site, the first mention I can find of the polling companies used in 2012 appears on April 17, 2015. Given that Gallup hasn’t done any polling, it was an easy prediction that Gallup would be swapped out for CNN/ORC. Picking those particular pollsters had nothing to do with Trump or Johnson.
The most recent poll for Johnson from all of them:
8% ABC/WaPost
10% NBC/Wall St.
12% Fox
9% CNN/ORC
12% CBS/NYTimes
10.2% average.
Joe – they should at least compromise. All candidates on enough ballots to get to 270 electoral votes get in the first debate. 5% threshold for the VP debate, 10% threshold for the 2nd Presidential debate, 15% threshold for the 3rd presidential debate.
Will there be a Prez winner in Nov 2016 with even 25 percent of the popular votes ???
—
ABOLISH all of the Electoral College stuff and ALL of the EVIL rotted stuff connected with the E.C.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — including PRIVATE debates inviting whom ever the sponsors wish.
Jim — your suggestion makes a lot of sense, and is a reasonable balance between third parties who have significant support (i.e., Johnson and Stein), and those who are truly fringe.
Demo Rep,
Posting in random caps has never led to a person being taken more seriously.
I do think it’s a positive that the CPD laid down a stated performance metric. It removes ambiguity with people citing some far-flung poll with Johnson getting 16% in it.
@Will Fenwick: Have the media sponsors of these polls been changing their polling company suppliers during this election season? Or have they been using the same pollsters consistently?
I agree with a earlier post, if a candidate is on the ballet and catch the 270 votes should be invited.why do we let a commission tell us who we can put on stage. If they are so confident buck up a take on all challengers.
Any ticket on the ballot in all 50 states plus DC should be in the debates regardless of polling data.
Really all of Clintonesta’s cohorts. Well, Well, Well, so much for free press when Clinton owns half of them. I don’t give a damn. I am writing in Bernie Sander’s name on the ballot whether he is named or not. There is no way I would ever vote for Trump or Clinton. TO FN MORONS OF HISTORY!!!!
I don’t think anybody should be allowed to run on the presidential ballot, unless they competed and won in the primary!
Well, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Gloria LaRiva competed in 2016 presidential primaries and won, so that would make 5 debaters.