Zogby’s new poll has Kerry up, 48-46 over Bush. The poll also has Bush’s job rating down to 46 percent, a decline of 5 points from Zogby’s mid-February reading. And Bush’s re-elect number, consistent with the Newsweek poll I have been discussing, is mired at 45 percent. Again, this underscores the extent to which recent gains by Bush, such as they are, do not reflect any real change in the public’s evaluation of the job he’s doing and whether he deserves to be re-elected.
Thanks for signing up!
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
tds-wwc-roundtable
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
-
May 26: DeSantis Stumbles Out of the Gate
Like everyone else, I listened to DeSantis’s botched Twitter Spaces launch, but then reached some conclusions about the trajectory of his campaign at New York:
Before long, the laughter over the technical glitches that marred Ron DeSantis’s official presidential campaign launch with Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces will fade. We’ll all probably look back and place this moment in better perspective. Political-media folk (not to mention DeSantis’s Republican rivals and Democratic enemies) tend to overreact to “game changing” moments in campaigns when fundamentals and long-term trends matter infinitely more. Relatively few actual voters were tuned in to Twitter to watch the botched launch, and even fewer will think less of DeSantis as a potential president because of this incident.
It mattered in one respect, however: The screwed-up launch stepped all over a DeSantis campaign reset designed to depict the Florida governor as a political Death Star with unlimited funds and an unbeatable strategy for winning the GOP nomination. The reset was important to rebut the prevailing story line that DeSantis had lost an extraordinary amount of ground since the salad days following his landslide reelection last year, when he briefly looked to be consolidating partywide support as a more electable and less erratic replacement for Donald Trump. For reasons both within and beyond his control, he missed two critical strategic objectives going into the 2024 race: keeping the presidential field small enough to give him a one-on-one shot at Trump and keeping Trump from reestablishing himself as the front-runner with an air of inevitability about a third straight nomination.
To dissipate growing concerns about the DeSantis candidacy, the top chieftains of his Never Back Down super-PAC let it be known earlier this week that they had a plan that would shock and awe the political world, based on their extraordinary financial resources (fed by an $80 million surplus DeSantis transferred from his Florida reelection campaign account). The New York Times wrote up the scheme without questioning its connection to reality:
“A key political group supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter-outreach push so big it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the kickoff Iowa caucuses.
“The effort is part of an on-the-ground organizing operation that intends to hire more than 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day, an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns….
“The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million.”
In case the numbers didn’t properly document the audacity of this plan, Team DeSantis made it explicit. The Times report continues:
“‘No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,’ said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. ‘This has just never even been dreamed up.’” …
At the helm of the DeSantis super PAC is Jeff Roe, a veteran Republican strategist who was Mr. [Ted] Cruz’s campaign manager in 2016. In an interview, Mr. Roe described an ambitious political apparatus whose 2,600 field organizers by the fall would be roughly double the peak of Senator Bernie Sanders’s entire 2020 primary campaign staff.
Clearly opening up the thesaurus to find metaphors for the extraordinary power and glory of their plans, one DeSantis operative told the Dispatch they were “light speed and light years ahead of any campaign out there, including Trump’s.”
Now more than ever, DeSantis’s campaign will have to prove its grand plans aren’t just fantasies. Those doors in Iowa really will have to be knocked. Thanks to Trump’s current lead, DeSantis will absolutely have to beat expectations there and do just as well in New Hampshire and South Carolina before facing an existential challenge in his and Trump’s home state of Florida. And while DeSantis had a good weekend in Iowa recently, picking up a lot of state legislative endorsements even as Trump canceled a rally due to bad weather that never arrived, he’s got a ways to go. A new Emerson poll of the first-in-the-nation-caucuses state shows Trump leading by an astonishing margin of 62 percent to 20 percent. And obviously enough, Iowa is where DeSantis will likely face the largest number of rivals aside from Trump; he’s a sudden surge from Tim Scott or Mike Pence or Nikki Haley or even Vivek Ramaswamy away from a real Iowa crisis.
Door knocking aside, a focus on Iowa, with its base-dominated caucus system and its large and powerful conservative Evangelical population, will likely force DeSantis to run to Trump’s right even more than he already has. The newly official candidate did not mention abortion policy during his launch event on Twitter; that will have to change, since he has a crucial opportunity to tell Iowa Evangelicals about the six-week ban he recently signed (similar, in fact, to the law Iowa governor Kim Reynolds enacted), in contrast to Trump’s scolding of the anti-abortion movement for extremism. DeSantis also failed once again to talk about his own religious faith, whatever it is; that will probably have to change in Iowa too. He did, however, talk a lot during the launch about his battle against the COVID-19 restrictions the federal government sought to impose on Florida even during the Trump administration. That will very likely continue.
The glitchy launch basically cost DeSantis whatever room for maneuvering he might have enjoyed as the 2024 competition begins to get very real — less than eight months before Iowa Republicans caucus (the exact date remains TBD). He’d better get used to spending a lot of time in Iowa’s churches and Pizza Ranches, and he also needs to begin winning more of the exchanges of potshots with Trump, which will only accelerate from here on out. All the money he has and all the hype and spin his campaign puts out won’t win the nomination now that Trump is fully engaged, and it sure doesn’t look like the 45th president’s legal problems will represent anything other than rocket fuel for his jaunt through the primaries. So for DeSantis, it’s time to put up or shut up.
Kerry should spend no time addressing Ralph Nader. Bush/Cheney should be the sole targets for our nominee.
Nationally, that is the job of Howard Dean, who managed to draw in progressive and liberal minded people to his campaign by reminding them that the Democratic party is the party of economic and social progress.
Locally, that is the job of progressive and liberal minded people who mistakenly backed Nader in 2000 and no understand that their mistake brought an extremist to office whose agenda was counter to every one of their values that they wished to express with their ill-conceived vote. Remind them that Ralph Nader’s candidacy gave us a president who has already rescinded and/or undermined the majority of environmental, consumer, and labor safeguards that make Nader’s committments in those areas pale in comparison. Also, remind them that Nader did not seek a third party like everyone assumed, but rather played electoral politics by focusing on only the nine swing states and that Pat Buchannan to his credit ran a national campaign.
Unrelated to the question is this: If someone is still unwavering in their support for Nader, implore them to responsibly vote by finding someone in a solid red state who wants to vote for Kerry and have that person vote for Nader on the basis that there will be a vote in a swing state cast for Kerry.
My friend is unwavering in his support for Nader and he and I have since made a deal. I will cast my vote in Idaho for Nader, whie he will cast his vote in Ohio for Kerry.
Events are out of our hands.
A missed warning and a terror bombing stateside, a serious stock market tumble, another round of massive layoffs, Iraq in flames — any of those things could get rid of Bush. Not much else.
I don’t think there’s much Kerry can do either way. His job right now is not to sell a new program. Just don’t fuck up too bad and be there when the dust settles.
If events don’t cause a Bush implosion, he will be re-elected. I think it’s that simple.
You all seem much more optimistic than me. I am very concerned that they are so close in the polls. What more could Bush do to lose public support? Given his wars, his attacks on the constitution and the nevironment, his appointments of radical judges, his cover-ups of 911 toxic contamination and intelligence failures…and Kerry is only 5 points ahead? Plus I am afraid that the more people learn about Kerry, the less they like him, so I fail to see how he will gain in the polls. I’m sorry to be negative, but I really want to win in November and I am trying to be a realist. I really hope Kerry will pick Edwards as a VP, because I think Edwards can provide the inspiring, exciting, and positive energy that this campaign desperately needs. I think he coulde get us a few points in every state, because he has a very diverse appeal. I hope our Democratic leaders are thinking about this, because there is just so much at stake!
Kerry doesn’t need to be tough on Bush. Kerry needs to show he’ll be tougher on terrorism than Bush.
Because of his record, Bush is in self-destruct mode. Remember it’s about competence.
Or, stated another way, it’s about incompetence, stupid – Bush’s stupid incompetence.
Kerry only needs to show he won’t be distracted by his own ideology.
Kerry should be defining himself right now. Tough on Bush, sure – but only to keep Bush on the defensive (where the Bush guys seem to flounder).
Kerry first needs to define himself, then when normal people start paying attention get tougher on Bush. Make calls for Bush to investigate the failures of his administration and accuse him of stonewalling when he does nothing.
I think Kerry needs to be tougher on Bush, too, and I think increased toucghness will help pull people away from Nader. If the Nader people see and hear Kerry saying the things about Bush which need to be said, they will be more enthusiastic about voting for him. I am disappointed right now in Kerry’s ads. The ones I’ve seen are too wishywashy and in the stye of Dukakis and Mondale. he needs to be slapping that 500 billion dollar deficet up against everybody’s eyeballs.
While polls are interesting to look at from time to time, maybe there is something else to talk about for the next five or so months until polls actually start to mean something. And let’s not forgot, a national poll means little, especially in a close race. As we all know, Gore won nationally last time and it didn’t mean anything.
I am still puzzled by the size of the Nader support. If it is centered in California, Mass., Vt. and other safe Blue states, it might not make a difference. But if Nader is picking up support again in Fla. or Ohio, Kerry, and America, will have a big problem on Nov.2.
I think its time that Kerry not only gets tough on Bush, he should also start peeling the bark off of Nader. This is no longer funny.
Not only does it show that Bush’s drop is not just a temporary dip, but it shows that the first $15-20 million that Bush spent on ads in all those swing states has amounted to something around nil.
Let’s hope that the rest of Bush’s ads over the course of the next eight months are just as effective.
reignman, are Hispanics *that* loath to vote for Kerry?
How awful for Democrats. I guess that gay-bashing and abortion-bashing keeps Hispanics with the GOP.
The problem for Kerry is that any comment he makes will be distorted by the media. So even if he makes a fantastic foreign policy or national security speech, the media will say that he was wearing mismatched socks, or that his suit is tailored.
The media doesn’t want Bush to lose. And unless that changes, he won’t lose.
One other thing:
in the 1980 election, 40% of those who voted for Reagan didn’t believe in the things he was saying, they just wanted Carter out of office.
another example: I was watching MSNBC, and they were talking about Bush’s declining popularity w/ hispanics, so the narrator of the piece surmised: who else are they going to vote for?
obviously, Kerry has to say was he is FOR as opposed to what he is AGAINST, or he will suffer from Perot syndrome.
yep.
This must be Bush’s lowest approval rating in a Zogby poll sunce taking office..