Voters’ summer flings with candidates typically don’t last [View all]
By James Pindell GLOBE STAFF JULY 10, 2015
As self-described socialist Bernie Sanders and reality television star Donald Trump surge into second place in the Democratic and Republican presidential contests, some may wonder what’s happening to American politics.
The answer: It’s nothing new.
For the past three decades, there has been a rhythm in presidential politics. Every four years, in the summer before Iowa and New Hampshire vote, some candidate comes out of nowhere, surges in the polls, gets buzz, and then eventually returns to nowhere.
This is what UCLA professor Lynn Vavreck dubs the “discovery, scrutiny, decline” pattern. Party activists discover a shiny new candidate as an alternative to the race’s front-runner, usually when the campaign is just beginning. The insurgent faces press scrutiny and then, typically, declines.
“It is not unlike products that debut and get people to try them out,” said Vavreck. “But what news coverage giveth, news coverage taketh away.”
Four years ago, everyone was talking about former Minnesota US representative Michele Bachmann. From April to June 2011, Bachmann had picked up 8 percentage points in a University of New Hampshire poll. She was in second place behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. She would go on to perform so badly in the Iowa caucuses that she didn’t even make it to the New Hampshire primary.
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