A Time magazine poll reported on August 6th concluded “Just as the Democratic Party convention gave the Kerry campaign very little “bounce” in the polls, so have last week’s elevated terror alerts had only limited impact on an electorate already largely decided, according to the latest TIME poll. Senator John Kerry leads President Bush among likely voters by a margin of 48% to 43%, with Ralph Nader running at 4%.”
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
-
April 26: Kennedy Now Taking As Many Votes From Trump As From Biden
Polls are showing a subtle but potentially important shift that I discussed at New York:
For a while there, the independent ticket of ex-Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan seemed to be taking crucial votes away from Democrat Joe Biden, at least as indicated by comparing three-way and five-way (with Cornel West and Jill Stein) polls to head-to-head matchups of the incumbent and Donald Trump. Now, even as Biden has all but erased his polling deficit against Trump, he’s getting some more good news in surveys that include other candidates.
Two recent major national polls show Biden running better in a five-way than a two-way race. According to NBC News, Biden moves from two points down to two points up when the non-major-party candidates are included. In the latest Marist poll, Biden leads Trump by three points head-to-head and by five points in a five-way race. Since left-bent candidates West and Stein are pulling 5 percent in the former poll and 4 percent in the latter (presumably taking very few votes from Trump), you have to figure Kennedy is beginning to cut into the MAGA vote to an extent that should get Team Trump’s attention. And it has, NBC News reports:
“Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’s confident that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will pull more votes away from President Joe Biden than from him — a net win for the Republican’s candidacy.
“’He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine,’Trump wrote on Truth Social late last month. ‘I love that he is running!’
“Behind closed doors, however, Trump is less sure. A Republican who was in the room with Trump this year as he reviewed polling said Trump was unsure how Kennedy would affect the race, asking the other people on hand whether or not Kennedy was actually good for his candidacy.”
Politico notes that Kennedy is drawing higher favorability numbers from Republican voters than from Democratic ones, which could indicate a higher ceiling for RFJ Jr. among Trump defectors. And it’s generally assumed from his past performances that there is a lower ceiling on Trump’s support than on Biden’s; he needs to be able to win with significantly less than a majority of the popular vote, as one Republican told Politico:
“’If the Trump campaign doesn’t see this as a concern, then they’re delusional,’ Republican consultant Alice Stewart said. ‘They should be looking at this from the standpoint that they can’t afford to lose any voters — and certainly not to a third-party candidate that shares some of [Trump’s] policy ideas.’”
One likely reason that Kennedy could be appealing to Republicans is the residual effect from the positive attention he received from conservative media when he was running against Biden in the Democratic primaries; his identification with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories also resonates more positively on the right side of the political spectrum than the left. So it’s in the interest of Team Trump to begin telling the former president’s sympathizers that RFK Jr. is actually a lefty, and that started happening recently, as the New York Times reported: “Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pointed in particular to Mr. Kennedy’s views on climate change and the environment, writing on his social media site that Mr. Kennedy was more ‘radical Left’ than Mr. Biden.”
The idea, of course, is not only to discourage potential Trump voters from drifting toward the independent candidate, but to encourage potential Biden voters to consider a Kennedy vote.
If Kennedy continues to draw votes from both Biden and Trump, each of their campaigns will need to make a strategic decision about how to deal with him: Do you ignore him and count on the usual fade in support afflicting non-major-party presidential candidates as Election Day nears, or do you attack him as too far left (if you’re Trump) or too far right (if you’re Biden) and try to make him a handicap to your major-party opponent? The more aggressive approach has become common among Democrats seeking to intervene in Republican primaries (or in the recent case of the California Senate race, a nonpartisan top-two primary) by loudly attacking candidates they’d prefer to face in the general election, encouraging Republicans to flock to the supposed menace to progressivism. This kind of tactic — if deployed with some serious dollars — could have an effect on Kennedy’s base of support.
Certainly Trump seems to be considering it. With his usual practice of saying the quiet part out loud, Trump opined: “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden, because he’s frankly more in line with Democrats.”
Trying to minimize losses to Kennedy and maximize opposite-party votes for Kennedy could become a routine practice down the stretch. Where and by whom this strategy is pursued will depend in part on where RFK Jr. is ultimately on the ballot. Right now he has nailed down ballot access in just two states, Utah and Michigan. CBS News reports the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is close to securing a spot on the November ballot in a number of other states:
“Kennedy’s campaign says it has completed signature gathering in seven other states in addition to Utah and Michigan — Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nebraska and Iowa.
“The super PAC supporting Kennedy, American Values 2024, says it has collected enough signatures in Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina.”
Coping with Kennedy could become a game of three-dimensional chess between the Biden and Trump campaigns. But if it begins to look like RFK Jr. has become an existential threat to Democrats or to Republicans, you can bet they’ll go medieval on him without even a moment’s hesitation.
Well, I won’t be satisfied unless his numbers go back up to the 92% he registered just after 911.
So How to do it. Well, he should lead the whole Republican Convention down to the Hole at Ground Zero, prostrate themselves on the cold ground, and beg forgiveness (Fundi Style) for his failure to take care of his responsibilities after the August 6th warning from the CIA memo. If they beat their breasts long and loud enough, sing lots of songs about how they’ve been forgiven and made whole and all that, raise their arms to the heavens — and then produce bin Laden and burn him at the stake down in the hole — I think that would turn the trick on jacking up their numbers again.
Rove should make sure he acquires a really grand pipe organ for this scene, plus lots of red and orange lights for a massive light show. We are taling about the lord really speaking through the mouths of the Republican Party here, and it’s got to have massive production values.
Don’t!! Don’t you raise those debate expectations again! That was the single most stupid thing the Gore campaign did in 2000: They practically declared their candidate Plato reborn. And then Gore gave his ghastly performance. I still believe he lost it right there, within 1 1/2 hours on October 3rd 2000. (“Can I have the last question?”) He recovered until election day, but as we all know it wasn’t enough.
So please, please let’s all presume Kerry will be a stiff, boring, sad figure, no match for this amiable, charming chap that is the President. Shall we?
Bounce!!!!…. me thinks that this elections aint about bounce. Dont be too surprised if the market isnt too concerned with what Bush has to say.
Lets face it, what can he say? what can say that he has not yet said? If Bush brought new policies to the table, who would believe him?
I think that those who are going to vite for Bush have alrewady been counted. In this regard, I would be surprised to see any significant bounce.
If significant bounce does occur, it would be an indictment on the peoples of america. My mom have ofter said that I should never let the same dog bite me twice. How many times would we allow Bush to promise and never deliver? How many times would we allow him to speak in abstracts with nothing definitive to say? How many times would we allow him to spew rhetoric with a smirk?
I am keen to hear his proposals for his next term in office. I am not even interested in hearing how to plans to handle the iraq situation, or Iran or north Korea. I dont want to hear anything about foregn affairs or any such subject. I just want to hear these great and glowing and powerful proposals to heal America and get the economy on a proper footing.
His current proposals have the economy going like a car with a shaky spark plug. One minute its going, next its chugging along, next its smoking.. you just cant ever sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. So I am waiting and listening with both ears to hear his new plans for 2005 and beyond. I know it will be a plethora of jokes and lies.
I agree that his jab at Kerry did place Kerry between a rock and hard place but I thought to myself that kerry handled that issue many times before and hence it wasnt worth the energy. However, I hope kerry will learn something from Bush’ ploy and that is… “Set the Agenda”. That exactly what Bush is attempting to do. He is seeking to keep Kerry defending and hence never having a chance to attack and make Bush defend.
Its not rocket science, so I hope his handlers recognise the ploy and do everything to diffuse it. Personally, Bush has enough on his plate for Kerry to keep attacking, literally everyday. I dont think he is doing it tho.. but if he thinks that he needs to, he has enough issues on which to push Bush back on the defensive.
In any event, I hope that Kerry never allows this to happen again in this season. I hope that the simply pushes Bush all the way back to Texas..
Cheers
If Bush gets less than a 15 point bounce he’s dead. Typically, the bounce fritters away in a week or two anyway, and then we’re into debates. Even taking into account the lowered expectations for Bush’s performance, I’m still thinking he won’t unravel, but Kerry will be very impressive. The rest of the bounce will turn take a nose dive and Kerry will be going into the election in very good shape.
Bush should get AT LEAST a 15 point bounce coming out of the Republican Convention. After the convention it will obviously become clear that George Bush’s outstanding leadership should be apparent to most americans. If he doen’t get this bounce which is of course the usual it will mean he is in trouble. (Fellow Dems, I am of course kidding).
Allow me to be the first to predict that George Bush will get a 15% bounce from the Republican National Convention. This is based on historical data involving incumbent Republican presidents who did not win the popular vote in their first election for president. If he does not get the historically predicted 15% bounce, consider the convention a failure for all involved.
I have to agree that responding to Bush’s “question” wasn’t strategically a good idea. Effectively, Kerry validated Bush’s decision to go to war, removing one of the major potential criticisms of the administration. But dodging a question that the Bush campaign would have continued to ask – and more importantly continued to point out that Kerry wasn’t answering would have been just as bad, if not worse.
Maybe we misunderstood, and he really said “we’ve turned to the coroner…”
the question is… where on earth is the corner… any reasons why kerry responded to Bush’s question on Iraq? I thought he had given that response many moons ago… why did he allow Bush to lead him into that question?
Is anyone thinking that Kerry is getting ahead of Bush too fast? Does anyone think that he might soon find his peek and then start to tumble back down the other side?
Cheers
Of course we have the convention comming up with a week of listening how great the economy is and getting better. His choir got quite a jolt last week with the news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I think Georgie is taking a page from Herbert Hoover who promised a “Chicken in Every Pot” just before the depressiion of the 30’s. “Vote For Me Everything Is Just Around The Corner”.
All the Kings horses and all the Kings men can’t seem to put “Humpty Dumpty” together . Most of the news media have become shills for GW. Maybe the electorat isn’t so dumb after all.
The website 2.004K.com lists national and state polls. Of the most recent 32 polls listed, Bush leads in two, one (Arkansas) is a tie, and Kerry leads in the other 29. Moreover, the two in which Bush led (one poll each in Florida and Ohio) have since been supersed by polls which show Kerry leading in both states.