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.
TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 19: Will Chaos of Chicago ’68 Return This Year?
A lot of people who weren’t alive to witness the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are wondering if it’s legendary chaos. I evaluated that possibility at New York:
When the Democratic National Committee chose Chicago as the site of the party’s 2024 national convention a year ago, no one knew incumbent presidential nominee Joe Biden would become the target of major antiwar demonstrations. The fateful events of October 7 were nearly six months away, and Biden had yet to formally announce his candidacy for reelection. So there was no reason to anticipate comparisons to the riotous 1968 Democratic Convention, when images of police clashing with anti–Vietnam War protesters in the Windy City were broadcast into millions of homes. Indeed, a year ago, a more likely analog to 2024 might have been the last Democratic convention in Chicago in 1996; that event was an upbeat vehicle for Bill Clinton’s successful reelection campaign.
Instead, thanks to intense controversy over Israel’s lethal operations in Gaza and widespread global protests aimed partly at Israel’s allies and sponsors in Washington, plans are well underway for demonstrations in Chicago during the August 19 to 22 confab. Organizers say they expect as many as 30,000 protesters to gather outside Chicago’s United Center during the convention. As in the past, a key issue is how close the protests get to the actual convention. Obviously, demonstrators want delegates to hear their voices and the media to amplify their message. And police, Chicago officials, and Democratic Party leaders want protests to occur as far away from the convention as possible. How well these divergent interests are met will determine whether there is anything like the kind of clashes that dominated Chicago ’68.
There are, however, some big differences in the context surrounding the two conventions. Here’s why the odds of a 2024 convention showdown rivaling 1968 are actually fairly low.
Gaza isn’t Vietnam.
Horrific as the ongoing events in Gaza undoubtedly are, and with all due consideration of the U.S. role in backing and supplying Israel now and in the past, the Vietnam War was a more viscerally immediate crisis for both the protesters who descended on Chicago that summer and the Americans watching the spectacle on TV. There were over a half-million American troops deployed in Vietnam in 1968, and nearly 300,000 young men were drafted into the Army and Marines that year. Many of the protesters at the convention were protesting their own or family members’ future personal involvement in the war, or an escape overseas beyond the Selective Service System’s reach (an estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada during the Vietnam War, and how to deal with them upon repatriation became a major political issue for years).
Even from a purely humanitarian and altruistic point of view, Vietnamese military and civilian casualties ran into the millions during the period of U.S. involvement. It wasn’t common to call what was happening “genocide,” but there’s no question the images emanating from the war (which spilled over catastrophically into Laos and especially Cambodia) were deeply disturbing to the consciences of vast numbers of Americans.
Perhaps a better analogy for the Gaza protests than those of the Vietnam era might be the extensive protests during the late 1970s and 1980s over apartheid in South Africa (a regime that enjoyed explicit and implicit backing from multiple U.S. administrations) and in favor of a freeze in development and deployment of nuclear weapons. These were significant protest movements, but still paled next to the organized opposition to the Vietnam War.
Political conventions are different today.
One reason the 1968 Chicago protests created such an indelible image is that the conflict outside on the streets was reflected in conflict inside the convention venue. For one thing, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey had not quelled formal opposition to his selection when the convention opened. He never entered or won a single primary. One opponent who did, Eugene McCarthy, was still battling for the nomination in Chicago. Another, Robert F. Kennedy, had been assassinated two months earlier (1972 presidential nominee George McGovern was the caretaker for Kennedy delegates at the 1968 convention). There was a highly emotional platform fight over Vietnam policy during the convention itself; when a “peace plank” was defeated, New York delegates led protesters singing “We Shall Overcome.” Once violence broke out on the streets, it did not pass notice among the delegates, some of whom had been attacked by police trying to enter the hall. At one point, police actually accosted and removed a TV reporter from the convention for some alleged breach in decorum.
By contrast, no matter what is going on outside the United Center, the 2024 Democratic convention is going to be totally wired for Joe Biden, with nearly all the delegates attending pledged to him and chosen by his campaign. Even aside from the lack of formal opposition to Biden, conventions since 1968 have become progressively less spontaneous and more controlled by the nominee and the party that nominee directs (indeed, the chaos in Chicago in 1968 encouraged that trend, along with near-universal use of primaries to award delegates, making conventions vastly less deliberative). While there may be some internal conflict on the platform language related to Gaza, it will very definitely be resolved long before the convention and far away from cameras.
Another significant difference between then and now is that convention delegates and Democratic elected officials generally will enter the convention acutely concerned about giving aid and comfort to the Republican nominee, the much-hated, much-feared Donald Trump. Yes, many Democrats hated and feared Richard Nixon in 1968, but Democrats were just separated by four years from a massive presidential landslide and mostly did not reckon how much Nixon would be able to straddle the Vietnam issue and benefit from Democratic divisions. That’s unlikely to be the case in August of 2024.
Brandon Johnson isn’t Richard Daley.
Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley was a major figure in the 1968 explosion in his city. He championed and defended his police department’s confrontational tactics during the convention. At one point, when Senator Abraham Ribicoff referred from the podium to “gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago,” Daley leaped up and shouted at him with cameras trained on his furious face as he clearly repeated an obscene and antisemitic response to the Jewish politician from Connecticut. Beyond his conduct on that occasion, “Boss” Daley was the epitome of the old-school Irish American machine politician and from a different planet culturally than the protesters at the convention.
Current Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, who was born the year of Daley’s death, is a Black progressive and labor activist who is still fresh from his narrow 2023 mayoral runoff victory over the candidate backed by both the Democratic Establishment and police unions. While he is surely wary of the damage anti-Israel and anti-Biden protests can do to the city’s image if they turn violent, Johnson is not without ties to protesters. He broke a tie in the Chicago City Council to ensure passage of a Gaza cease-fire resolution earlier this year. His negotiating skills will be tested by the maneuvering already underway with protest groups and the Democratic Party, but he’s not going to be the sort of implacable foe the 1968 protesters encountered.
The whole world (probably) won’t be watching.
The 1968 Democratic convention was from a bygone era of gavel-to-gavel coverage by the three broadcast-television networks that then dominated the media landscape and the living rooms of the country. When they were being bludgeoned by the Chicago police, protesters began chanting, “The whole world is watching,” which wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Today’s media coverage of major-party political conventions is extremely limited and (like coverage of other events) fragmented. If violence breaks out this time in Chicago, it will get a lot of attention, albeit much of it bent to the optics of the various media outlets covering it. But the sense in 1968 that the whole nation was watching in horror as an unprecedented event rolled out in real time will likely never be recovered.
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.