Professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, one of the leading academic analysts of American politics, sends along the following update on the polls:
John Kerry and George W. Bush remain tied in the race for president both among Americans registered to vote and among likely voters according to a nationwide survey from the American Research Group, Inc. In the ballot preference between Kerry and Bush among registered voters, 48% say they would vote for Kerry and 45% say they would vote for Bush. When Ralph Nader is added to the ballot, 47% of registered voters say they would vote for Kerry, 44% say they would vote for Bush, and 2% say they would vote for Nader.
Among registered voters considered likely to vote in November, Kerry is at 47% and Bush is at 46% in a two-way ballot. With Nader in the race, Kerry is at 46% and Bush is at 46% among likely voters and Nader is at 2%.
The results presented here are based on 1,005 completed telephone interviews conducted among a nationwide random sample of registered voters. Of the total sample of 1,005 registered voters, 800 are likely voters in November. The interviews were completed October 2 through 4, 2004. The theoretical margin of error for the total sample of registered voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion is evenly split. The theoretical margin of error for the sample of likely voters is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion is evenly split.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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March 28: RIP Joe Lieberman, a Democrat Who Lost His Way
I was sorry to learn of the sudden death of 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman. But his long and stormy career did offer some important lessons about party loyalty, which I wrote about at New York:
Joe Lieberman was active in politics right up to the end. The former senator was the founding co-chair of the nonpartisan group No Labels, which is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign on behalf of a yet-to-be-identified bipartisan “unity ticket.” Lieberman did not live to see whether No Labels will run a candidate. He died on Wednesday at 82 due to complications from a fall. But this last political venture was entirely in keeping with his long career as a self-styled politician of the pragmatic center, which often took him across party boundaries.
Lieberman’s first years in Connecticut Democratic politics as a state legislator and then state attorney general were reasonably conventional. He was known for a particular interest in civil rights and environmental protection, and his identity as an observant Orthodox Jew also drew attention. But in 1988, the Democrat used unconventional tactics in his challenge to Republican U.S. senator Lowell Weicker. Lieberman positioned himself to the incumbent’s right on selected issues, like Ronald Reagan’s military operations against Libya and Grenada. He also capitalized on longtime conservative resentment of his moderate opponent, winning prized endorsements from William F. and James Buckley, icons of the right. Lieberman won the race narrowly in an upset.
Almost immediately, Senator Lieberman became closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The group of mostly moderate elected officials focused on restoring the national political viability of a party that had lost five of the six previous presidential elections; it soon produced a president in Bill Clinton. Lieberman became probably the most systematically pro-Clinton (or in the parlance of the time, “New Democrat”) member of Congress. This gave his 1998 Senate speech condemning the then-president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal as “immoral” and “harmful” a special bite. He probably did Clinton a favor by setting the table for a reprimand that fell short of impeachment and removal, but without question, the narrative was born of Lieberman being disloyal to his party.
Perhaps it was his public scolding of Clinton that convinced Al Gore, who was struggling to separate himself from his boss’s misconduct, to lift Lieberman to the summit of his career. Gore tapped the senator to be his running mate in the 2000 election, making him the first Jewish vice-presidential candidate of a major party. He was by all accounts a disciplined and loyal running mate, at least until that moment during the Florida recount saga when he publicly disclaimed interest in challenging late-arriving overseas military ballots against the advice of the Gore campaign. You could argue plausibly that the ticket would have never been in a position to potentially win the state without Lieberman’s appeal in South Florida to Jewish voters thrilled by his nomination to become vice-president. But many Democrats bitter about the loss blamed Lieberman.
As one of the leaders of the “Clintonian” wing of his party, Lieberman was an early front-runner for the 2004 presidential nomination. A longtime supporter of efforts to topple Saddam Hussein, Lieberman had voted to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his campaign rivals John Kerry and John Edwards and other notable senators including Hillary Clinton. Unlike most other Democrats, though, Lieberman did not back off this position when the Iraq War became a deadly quagmire. Ill-aligned with his party to an extent he did not seem to perceive, his presidential campaign quickly flamed out, but not before he gained enduring mockery for claiming “Joe-mentum” from a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.
Returning to the Senate, Lieberman continued his increasingly lonely support for the Iraq War (alongside other heresies to liberalism, such as his support for private-school education vouchers in the District of Columbia). In 2006, Lieberman drew a wealthy primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who soon had a large antiwar following in Connecticut and nationally. As the campaign grew heated, President George W. Bush gave his Democratic war ally a deadly gift by embracing him and kissing his cheek after the State of the Union Address. This moment, memorialized as “The Kiss,” became central to the Lamont campaign’s claim that Lieberman had left his party behind, and the challenger narrowly won the primary. However, Lieberman ran against him in the general election as an independent, with significant back-channel encouragement from the Bush White House (which helped prevent any strong Republican candidacy). Lieberman won a fourth and final term in the Senate with mostly GOP and independent votes. He was publicly endorsed by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, among others from what had been the enemy camp.
The 2006 repudiation by his party appeared to break something in Lieberman. This once-happiest of happy political warriors, incapable of holding a grudge, seemed bitter, or at the very least gravely offended, even as he remained in the Senate Democratic Caucus (albeit as formally independent). When his old friend and Iraq War ally John McCain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Lieberman committed a partisan sin by endorsing him. His positioning between the two parties, however, still cost him dearly: McCain wanted to choose him as his running mate, before the Arizonan’s staff convinced him that Lieberman’s longtime pro-choice views and support for LGBTQ rights would lead to a convention revolt. The GOP nominee instead went with a different “high-risk, high-reward” choice: Sarah Palin.
After Barack Obama’s victory over Lieberman’s candidate, the new Democratic president needed every Democratic senator to enact the centerpiece of his agenda, the Affordable Care Act. He got Lieberman’s vote — but only after the senator, who represented many of the country’s major private-insurance companies, forced the elimination of the “public option” in the new system. It was a bitter pill for many progressives, who favored a more robust government role in health insurance than Obama had proposed.
By the time Lieberman chose to retire from the Senate in 2012, he was very near to being a man without a party, and he reflected that status by refusing to endorse either Obama or Mitt Romney that year. By then, he was already involved in the last great project of his political career, No Labels. He did, with some hesitation, endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. But his long odyssey away from the yoke of the Democratic Party had largely landed him in a nonpartisan limbo. Right up until his death, he was often the public face of No Labels, particularly after the group’s decision to sponsor a presidential ticket alienated many early supporters of its more quotidian efforts to encourage bipartisan “problem-solving” in Congress.
Some will view Lieberman as a victim of partisan polarization, and others as an anachronistic member of a pro-corporate, pro-war bipartisan elite who made polarization necessary. Personally, I will remember him as a politician who followed — sometimes courageously, sometimes foolishly — a path that made him blind to the singular extremism that one party has exhibited throughout the 21st century, a development he tried to ignore to his eventual marginalization. But for all his flaws, I have no doubt Joe Lieberman remained until his last breath committed to the task he often cited via the Hebrew term tikkun olam: repairing a broken world.
The last 2 polls in NJ prior to this show a 5-8 point lead for Kerry in NJ. Q* is showing a 3 point lead for Kerry, whereas they earlier had it a tie, so Kerry has picke dup 3 points.
There are plenty of reasons to believe NJ will be closer than in 2000. But Gore won by 16 points. Kerry can give up half of that and still win.
SJ — nice work desparetly spinning.
Rawls posted an interesting Missouri poll from surveyusa.com.
In looking at it, there’s an interesting data point; on page 9 of 25 of the doc, it indicates that voters who identify themselves as Military/Veterans (I couldn’t find anyhting in this doc that elaborated on how they asked about that category) the two candidates were 48-48.
It’s only a data point, but if connected with others, it might suggest the interesting conclusion that Veterans/Military are less subject to the smaears on Kerry’s record than the non-veterans/military identifiers.
I dunno about you Smooth, but every poll I’ve seen from NJ shows Kerry ahead by 8-10 points.
Frankly, I feel sorry that you fell for Bush’s “blue feint.” Last time it was CA, this time NJ. This is a classic Bush tactic. Like when he campaigned (for governor) in strongly Democrat El Paso, but lost El Paso County anyhow.
> If Kerry is barely tied in NJ, he is NOT tied nationally.
The operative word being “if.”
Hi Ruy,
Just thought I’d bring this to the attention of your board: We’re still in it in Missouri.
I wish the Kerry / Edwards campaign would come to Missouri instead of writing us off. Its a neck and neck race here and we could use some coattails.
http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_Elections/MO041005wpresvgovysenx.pdf
A bit more detail:
Coldeye gives the “nearest integer” figure from Rasmussen’s homepage. The “daily snapshot” in the Premium Members’ area has a Bush lead of 0.3%, down from 0.9 yesterday; but in the 16 Batleground States Kerry is actually up by 1.5.
RV: 48% Kerry and 45% for Bush ?
LV: 47% Kerry and 46% Bush?
That does not sound like a tie to me. It sounds like a slim lead. But I am no polling or statistics expert.
I understand it is difficult for Republicans to face the fact that Kerry is improving in the polls as the Quinnipiac Poll points out.
Smooth-
I’m sorry, New Jersey has just as much a chance of going for Bush as Georgia does for Kerry. There’s no chance it will happen.
Also, Rasmussen also has the race finally tied again. It remains to be seen whether Kerry will regain the lead in that poll as well.
Today’s Rasmussen tracking poll has Kerry pulling into a tie with Bush for the first time since the Repub convention.
Bush’s approval rating declined significantly as did his ratings on the economy and Iraq.
Oh well, Here we go again: The Mass/NH based ARG poll with the obligatory Kerry “lead”. Read my bytes: If Kerry is barely tied in NJ, he is NOT tied nationally. To Wit:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x11375.xml
(Note: Click on the Oct 6 link)
Quinnipiac University
Oct 6, 2004
Polling Results
October 6, 2004 – Debate Gives Kerry 3-Point Edge In New Jersey, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; But Voters Say Bush Acts More Like A Leader
Democratic challenger John Kerry has moved into a very narrow 49 – 46 percent lead over President George W. Bush among New Jersey likely voters, with 2 percent for independent candidate Ralph Nader, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
This compares to a 48 – 48 percent Bush-Kerry tie among likely voters, with 2 percent for Nader, in a September 21 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe- ack) University.
Among registered voters backing President Bush, 82 percent say they are voting more for the President. Among Kerry supporters, 42 percent say they are voting more for the Democrat while 52 percent say they are voting more against Bush.