Dick Morris On The Undecided

I've been meaning to write this post for a week or more.

Last week, or maybe the one before, Dick Morris provided some fascinating insights on presidential election polls in one of his frequent appearances on Sean Hannity's Fox News program.

As a veritable flood of polls spew weekly, during the maneuvering over the debt limit, pundits spin the results to their particular viewpoint.

Many on the left note that no Republican challengers yet can outpoll Wonderboy. Those on the right take solace that the president's approval numbers are low and falling, his election poll results are below 50%, and it's still over a year before the election.

What Morris said is that 80% of those marked undecided in polls break for the challenger. He remarked that he used to tell Clinton this during his election campaigns, based on research Morris has done on elections stretching back to 1960.

As Morris describes it, undecided voters' dispositions toward a sitting president are like a spouse who is undecided on whether s/he'd remarry the other spouse. Simply being undecided at that point is effectively rejecting the incumbent.

Thus, most of the polls showing Republicans losing with numbers like 47% to 37% leave 16% undecided. Of those, more than 12% will go for the challenger, making the poll really 47% for Wonderboy vs. at least 49% for the Republican.

Something important to recall as the GOP field fills out and gets down to work for 2012. And clearly worrisome for Wonderboy.