Do National Polls matter when it comes to a Presidential Primary?
If a candidate is smart, they will focus on campaigning to win each state's Delegates and focus less on the national polls, which can swing dramatically over the course of an election. From General Presidential campaigns, we know that winning the national polls early in the race means very little. John Kerry was beating Bush in 2004 up until the summer when the Swift Boaters attacked. That's a bit of a bad example, but it is an example of rapid national poll change due to a nationally known issue. The same national poll changes occurred during the Primary race between Obama and Clinton, but for a much different reason.
Is it really worth spending so much energy watching each national poll and the momentum? Each side touting 3-5% changes each week which is barely outside (and sometimes not even) the margin of error? Or is it better to see how each state is perceiving a candidate?
Each region and each state is concerned with a different set of issues and these regional issues are important to the voters. They are going to see how a candidate connects with them these issues. Not that there aren't national issues across all regions, because there are, but when you have a very well known candidate vs. a relatively low-profile candidate (and even less nationally known contenders), you're going to see national poll results that reflect that.
When you have a candidate connect with each state and region, you will see poll results like we see in Iowa and NH. That's when the people get to know the candidates and I think until that happens in more states, the National Polls won't mean as much.
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