Bush was in trouble. It was July 1988 and Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate for president, was on a roll after his party’s convention in Atlanta. A Gallup poll showed Mr. Bush trailing by 17 points. One month earlier, Mr. Bush’s top aides had gathered at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, deliberately out of sight and away from campaign headquarters, to review a thick binder of polling and focus group data. Mr. Bush not only overcame Mr. Dukakis’ summer polling advantage, but defeated him handily: by a margin of 53 percent to 46 percent.

Source: New York Times August 22, 2020 09:00 UTC