A SurveyUSA poll of Florida LV’s for TV stations in six cities conducted Sept. 12-14 has Bush at 51 percent, Kerry at 45 percent with 3 percent undecided, in a head-to-head match-up.
Kerry Lags by 4% in Nevada
Bush has 51 percent, Kerry has 47 percent, with 2 percent undecided in a head-to-head SurveyUSA poll of Nevada LV’s conducted Sept. 11-13 for KVBC-TV Las Vegas.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 17: A Closer Look at the “Uniparty” Fable
RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York:
Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by calling (relative) moderates “DINOs,” “ConservaDems,” or — back when maximum resistance to George W. Bush was de rigueur — “Vichy Democrats.”
Today the term “Uniparty” has come to denote the idea that Democrats and Republicans are actually working for the same evil Establishment enterprise, their loudly proclaimed differences being a mere sham. This contention was the culmination of a five-page letter Marjorie Taylor Greene recently sent her Republican colleagues calling for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s removal, unless he changes his ways instantly. She wrote:
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership.’ This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority …
“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party – we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also leaned heavily into the Uniparty idea in his recent speech introducing running-mate Nicole Shanahan:
“Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democrat and Republican duopoly that gave us ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns, mandates, agency capture, and censorship. This is the same Trump/Biden Uniparty that has captured and appropriated our democracy and turned it over to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and their other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against Uniparty rule from both ends of the traditional Right vs. Left political spectrum.”
The Uniparty claim is ridiculous, of course, as FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley demonstrates:
“[O]ur current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
Kennedy’s subscription to the Uniparty notion is understandable on two points. The first is that his candidacy is vastly more likely to tilt the 2024 presidential campaign in the direction of one of the two major-party candidates (likely Donald Trump, according to most of the polling) than to actually succeed in winning the presidency. Maintaining that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Trump running the country is essential to maintaining RFK’s appeal as November approaches and the futility of his bid becomes clearer. Second, Kennedy’s pervasive conspiracy-theory approach to contemporary life lends itself to the argument that the apparent gulf between the two major parties is a ruse disguising a sinister common purpose.
MTG’s Uniparty contention also reflects dual motives. In part she is simply echoing Trump’s weird but useful contention that he’s an “outsider” battling a Deep-State Establishment that secretly controls both parties, which is pretty rich since he dominates the GOP like Genghis Khan dominated the Golden Horde. But there is a marginally more legitimate sense in which key elements of the two parties really are in line with each other on isolated issues that happen to obsess Greene, such as aid to Ukraine. If you are a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail.
The same is true of other implicit Uniparty claims, particularly those made by progressive pro-Palestinian protesters who adamantly argue that the need to smite “Genocide Joe” Biden for his pro-Israel policies outweighs all the reasons it might be a bad idea to help Trump return to the White House (including the fact that Trump is palpably indifferent to Palestinian suffering). If the two parties do not appear to differ on your overriding issue, then the fundamental reality of polarization can fade into irrelevance.
So we’re likely to hear more Uniparty talk even as Democrats and Republicans head toward another highly fractious election with very high stakes attributable to their differences.
So what if Iraq HAD WMD and a way to deliver them. . . so did Russia for so many years. So why didn’t they zap us when they had the chance?
Because we have the enormous power to retaliate, that’s why. Therefore, it dosen’t wash that Saddam would’ve delivered WMD to the USA.
WMD was nothing but a pretext from Bush and Co. to grab a significant oil producing country AND scare the heck out of us so he can do what he pleases in the name of national security.
Big John
Sorry, I intended to paste the address, but the site wouldn’t let me . It is:
http://www.electoralvote.com
Bush won Nevada by just under 4% in 2000.
Bush 301,575 49.52%
Gore 279,978 45.98%
What in the world is the MoE for these polls, especially the FL one. I have trouble believing Bush surged that much so fast. I could believe Bush is up, but within or just barely outside the margin. Also, I agree with the general sentiment that if millions of people don’t have TV or electriticity or are generally displaced, polling is worthless for another couple weeks in the sunshine state.
Still, NV is good news, 4 points is probabbly w/i MoE. Kerry needs to do another trip out to Vegas and the Vegas burbs to help the house candidate there (get some $) and raise the spirits of his Nevada campaign.
I would say Kerry needs NH WV and then try to get either FL or OH for good measure; right now, it looks like FL is a better bet than OH.
Looks like Nevadans definitely want the nuclear dump in their state. I’m beginning to think may be we deserve this moron as the president.
and more good news, A judge threw Nader off the ballot yet again.
Anyone know a URL that has a good discussion of why RoboPolls suck?
I got into an extended and heated argument with a local TV station’s news director over his use of Survey USA in the last mayor’s race.
The Poll was off by over 12% in the event and prior to the last polling round, was off by a similar margin from a highly respected normal poll
About what states are needed. If Kerry were to win all the Gore 2000 states, and Bush retain all the Bush 2000 states, then Bush wins 278-260.
Using that as a baseline, if the only change is Kerry winning Ohio, he wins 280-258. If Wisconsin also changes (to Bush), Kerry still wins 270-268. So…Kerry doesn’t need to win both Florida and Ohio, assuming he can hold all of the Gore states, or that he loses no Gore state worth more than 10 electoral votes. [That is, if he gets Ohio, he can lose any one of Minnesota, Iowan, Wisconsin, Maine, Oregon, or New Mexico.]
Florida is worth 27 electoral votes, so if Kerry were to win there, that would add another 7 electoral vote buffer.
And he has the lead in New Hampshire, which also gives him another 4 electoral votes.
So…Going back to Nevada….If Kerry can keep Pennsylania and Michigan and pry away either Florida or Ohio, there’s a good change Nevada won’t matter.
But…if the only changes from 2000 are Kerry getting New Hampshire and Nevada, the election ends up deadlocked at 269, throwing it to the House and Senate to pick President and VP. If the Dems can pry away the Senate, that could well leave us with a Bush/Edwards tandem. That’s not what I’d prefer, but better a half loaf than nothing, so I want Nevada to go Democratic.
The Florida poll must favor northern Florida, since that’s the part that isn’t evacuated/reeling re: the hurricane. It’s also the more GOP-heavy part of the state. It’s a crappy poll.
Florida polls can’t be worth much right now, with the hurricane and all. (If South Florida got evacuated this week, but the Panhandle’s evacuating this week, I’d expect gains for Kerry next week based solely on who will be home to answer their phones.) The NV results are unfortunate, but we don’t need that state to win: we do, I think, need either CO or WI or BOTH FL and OH.
I think this poll is worthless, with all the hurricane stuff the past two weeks, does anyone realistically believe an accurate poll would come out of that mess at least until Ivan blows past.
Never mind. I just checked, and there are no RV figures. I wish to hell they would stop taunting us with figures that are likely imaginary.
What is the percentage of Registered Voters?
Nader is back on the FL ballot. So, it probably is worse for Kerry. And yet, I know we will win. I took a poll in the mirror this morning and Kerry is doing fine. Thank you zanex.
Two things to point out:
(1) all of these polls report likely voters, which isn’t necessarily incorrect, but does employ certain assumptions about voter turnout.
GOTV efforts, obviously, can make a huge difference, and this is an area in which the Dems have been losing ground to the GOP over the last two decades. Hopefully the DNC is developing an effective field machine, gathering corps of volunteers to phone Democratic voters less likely to vote (i.e., those below the median income) as well as undecided voters on election day and offer rides/baked cookies/lemonade etc.
(2) in the FL poll for the SAME RESPONDENTS there is quite a bit of ticket-splitting, as Castor (D) is ahead of Martinez (R) in the Senate 49 to 45.
Now this suggests to me that there remains about 5-6% of voters in FL who are seriously in play.
In general, Kerry needs to make better use of local politicians who are (sometimes) more popular than he is in their states–not merely FL but elsewhere, esp. in swing states that have popular Dem governors, i.e., AZ, WI, MI, PA, NC, etc. I know that some coordinated campaigning has been done, but not nearly enough. And there are some governors (e.g., Mike Easley in NC) who do not seem to want to share the stage with Kerry.