Gallup had a bit of presidential polling history today, noting that in the last nine presidential elections that were competitive, the candidate who was ahead in the polls in July did not end up winning the popular vote in November. Barack Obama has consistently led John McCain in its daily tracking poll for the past month but his average lead among registered voters has only been about 3 points, not too far from the margin of error. In looking back at elections since 1948, Gallup weeded out races where the winner were runaway favorites by between 16 and 36 points in July and who all won by double-digits in November except for Bill Clinton in 1996, who edged Bob Dole by a respectable 8.5 points. The other non-competitive races were Ronald Reagan-Walter Mondale in 1984, Richard Nixon-George McGovern in 1972, Lyndon Johnson-Barry Goldwater in 1964 and the Dwight Eisenhower-Adlai Stevenson contests of 1952 and 1956.
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