Bush leads Kerry 47-46 among Minnesota RV’s in a head-to-head match-up, with 7 percent neither/other/no opinion, according to a USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll conducted Sept. 11-14.
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TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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December 18: Democratic Strategies for Coping With a Newly Trumpified Washington
After looking at various Democratic utterances about dealing with Trump 2.0, I wrote up a brief typology for New York:
The reaction among Democrats to Donald Trump’s return to power has been significantly more subdued than what we saw in 2016 after the mogul’s first shocking electoral win. The old-school “resistance” is dead, and it’s not clear what will replace it. But Democratic elected officials are developing new strategies for dealing with the new realities in Washington. Here are five distinct approaches that have emerged, even before Trump’s second administration has begun.
If you can’t beat ’em, (partially) join ’em
Some Democrats are so thoroughly impressed by the current power of the MAGA movement they are choosing to surrender to it in significant respects. The prime example is Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the onetime fiery populist politician who is now becoming conspicuous in his desire to admit his party’s weaknesses and snuggle up to the new regime. The freshman and one-time ally of Bernie Sanders has been drifting away from the left wing of his party for a good while, particularly via his vocally unconditional backing for Israel during its war in Gaza. But now he’s making news regularly for taking steps in Trump’s direction.
Quite a few Democrats publicly expressed dismay over Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, but Fetterman distinguished himself by calling for a corresponding pardon for Trump over his hush-money conviction in New York. Similarly, many Democrats have discussed ways to reach out to the voters they have lost to Trump. Fetterman’s approach was to join Trump’s Truth Social platform, which is a fever swamp for the president-elect’s most passionate supporters. Various Democrats are cautiously circling Elon Musk, Trump’s new best friend and potential slayer of the civil-service system and the New Deal–Great Society legacy of federal programs. But Fetterman seems to want to become Musk’s buddy, too, exchanging compliments with him in a sort of weird courtship. Fetterman has also gone out of his way to exhibit openness to support for Trump’s controversial Cabinet nominees even as nearly every other Senate Democrat takes the tack of forcing Republicans to take a stand on people like Pete Hegseth before weighing in themselves.
It’s probably germane to Fetterman’s conduct that he will be up for reelection in 2028, a presidential-election year in a state Trump carried on November 5. Or maybe he’s just burnishing his credentials as the maverick who blew up the Senate dress code.
Join ’em (very selectively) to beat ’em
Other Democrats are being much more selectively friendly to Trump, searching for “common ground” on issues where they believe he will be cross-pressured by his wealthy backers and more conventional Republicans. Like Fetterman, these Democrats — including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — tend to come from the progressive wing of the party and have longed chafed at the centrist economic policies advanced by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and, to some extent, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They’ve talked about strategically encouraging Trump’s “populist” impulses on such issues as credit-card interest and big-tech regulation, partly as a matter of forcing the new president and his congressional allies to put up or shut up.
So the idea is to push off a discredited Democratic Establishment, at least on economic issues, and either accomplish things for working-class voters in alliance with Trump or prove the hollowness of his “populism.”
Colorado governor Jared Solis has offered a similar strategy of selective cooperation by praising the potential agenda of Trump HHS secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as helpfully “shaking up” the medical and scientific Establishment.
Aim at the dead center
At the other end of the spectrum, some centrist Democrats are pushing off what they perceive as a discredited progressive ascendancy in the party, especially on culture-war issues and immigration. The most outspoken of them showed up at last week’s annual meeting of the avowedly nonpartisan No Labels organization, which was otherwise dominated by Republicans seeking to demonstrate a bit of independence from the next administration. These include vocal critics of the 2024 Democratic message like House members Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Ritchie Torres, and Seth Moulton, along with wannabe 2025 New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Josh Gottheimer (his Virginia counterpart, Abigail Spanberger, wasn’t at the No Labels confab but is similarly positioned ideologically).
From a strategic point of view, these militant centrists appear to envision a 2028 presidential campaign that will take back the voters Biden won in 2020 and Harris lost this year.
Cut a few deals to mitigate the damage
We’re beginning to see the emergence of a faction of Democrats that is willing to cut policy or legislative deals with Team Trump in order to protect some vulnerable constituencies from MAGA wrath. This is particularly visible on the immigration front; some congressional Democrats are talking about cutting a deal to support some of Trump’s agenda in exchange for continued protection from deportation of DREAMers. Politico reports:
“The prize that many Democrats would like to secure is protecting Dreamers — Americans who came with their families to the U.S. at a young age and have since been protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Barack Obama in 2012.
“Trump himself expressed an openness to ‘do something about the Dreamers’ in a recent ‘Meet the Press’ interview. But he would almost certainly want significant policy concessions in return, including border security measures and changes to asylum law that Democrats have historically resisted.”
On a broader front, the New York Times has found significant support among Democratic governors to selectively cooperate with the new administration’s “mass deportation” plans in exchange for concessions:
“In interviews, 11 Democratic governors, governors-elect and candidates for the office often expressed defiance toward Mr. Trump’s expected immigration crackdown — but were also strikingly willing to highlight areas of potential cooperation.
“Several balanced messages of compassion for struggling migrants with a tough-on-crime tone. They said that they were willing to work with the Trump administration to deport people who had been convicted of serious crimes and that they wanted stricter border control, even as they vowed to defend migrant families and those fleeing violence in their home countries, as well as businesses that rely on immigrant labor.”
Hang tough and aim for a Democratic comeback
While the Democrats planning strategic cooperation with Trump are getting a lot of attention, it’s clear the bulk of elected officials and activists are more quietly waiting for the initial fallout from the new regime to develop while planning ahead for a Democratic comeback. This is particularly true among the House Democratic leadership, which hopes to exploit the extremely narrow Republican majority in the chamber (which will be exacerbated by vacancies for several months until Trump appointees can be replaced in special elections) on must-pass House votes going forward, while looking ahead with a plan to aggressively contest marginal Republican-held seats in the 2026 midterms. Historical precedents indicate very high odds that Democrats can flip the House in 2026, bringing a relatively quick end to any Republican legislative steamrolling on Trump’s behalf and signaling good vibes for 2028.
omar-
I’d not seen your posts when I put mine up there. Consider it great minds running on the same track.
Given that I keep wondering what’s up with Colorado, I went looking. There are two polls out that show it a virtual tie. One is by Public Opinion Strategies, which is, by one report I saw, a Republican group:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/election/article/0,1299,DRMN_36_3188882,00.html
This shows Bush ahead 45-44 in a three way, among likely voters. It’s a small sample, with 500. Kerry has a 50-30 lead among independents in that poll, and a 36 point lead among Hispanics. With a Hispanic running for Senator. The same poll had Bush up 49-40 back in April.
ARG had Bush up 46-45 amng 600 likely voters.
Zogby, in data from earlier this September, had Kerry up by 1%.
When I see those three pointing in the same direction, I start thinking that Kerry really ought to pour in some resources there. I know I’ve said it before, but holding the Gore states and grabbing New Hampshire and Colorado (and ideally Nevada to create a buffer so he could lose a congressional district in Maine and either New Mexico or Iowa…) might end up being his winning strategy, if he can’t wrest Ohio or Florida from Bush.
He’s got to rally in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to make that one work.
correction, I meant all the GORE states, not all the bush states.
I think Colorado has to be added to the Cook’s # real battleground states considering the poll released today and the 2 polls released in august show bush up by an average of .33 percent and alot of people who are yet to decide.(who normally break for the challenger 2 to 1).
On the other hand I don’t think its a safe bet to assume Kerry will win all the Bush states. Many of those states were razor close last time, and probably will again.
Harris called the tie with their final poll in 2000 (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=130) . Their final ONLINE poll also called the tie (but I can’t find the link).
Cook Report indicates that Bush is probably up by about 5% on the whole at this point. And he reports only 9 real tossups….Five were Gore states in 2000, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. Four were Bush states in 2000, Ohio, Florida, Nevada, and New Hampshire.
If so, then Kerry does need Ohio or Florida for an outright win. Nevada and NH give, at best, a tie.
I’d really love to know more of what’s up in Colorado. I did see one report that seemed somewhat unsubstantiated that the proportional vote in Colorado was currently far behind in the polls.
Also, I agree with the comment upthread, that the close races thing cuts both ways. Yes, Kerry needs to hold all the Gore States and then some, which will be hard. But remember Bush has to win FL AND OH. I’ve seen plausible scenarios in which Bush wins FL, OH, and even MO, and still loses.
Considering Gallup’s definite GOP bias this year I imagine Kerry is doing better in Minnesota than that.
Not just this year. Remember they had Bush up by 13% two weeks before election day 00. Their CEO is a big GOP donor, and apparently they havent precicted an election correctly since George died in 84. I like Zogby and Rasmussen, both reputable in my opinion. And you get one dem and one republican so no one can complain.
Zogby’s running an online poll now, if you want to see wht thay are like for yourselves.
In any case, it seems to me that relying on a sample of land-line phone respondents is kind of a joke in 2004. Why even bother? And why does anyone even take those polls seriously?
thecreature – I think I have read that Zogby also uses email and some other methods to compliment the telephone polling. And that is true, they were the only ones who were right about the 2000 election. But isn’t it odd that all the other national polls were wrong in the same way–they all gave Bush the lead. I wonder why that was?
Gene, I believe I read that somewhere, but I really don;t remember where, nor do I rememebr what Zogby does differently.
But it’s worth noting that Zogby was the only poll in 2000 that called the tie.
What I’d like to know is why anyone would still use the telephone exclusively to do polling? I understand Zogby doesn’t do that, but others do — or am I wrong about that?
Polling data from the major pollsters within several days of the 2000 election show that nearly all showed Bush 2, 3, 4, even 6 pts ahead of Gore.
No, I’m not a statistician and haven’t had a stat course in decades, but to me this suggests some systematic error in the polling or analysis or filtering or all of the above.
What says Dr. Ruy T or other math types out there?
And, if it does suggest systematic error — we’ll discount poll rigging — might those same errors be operaing now?
Who knows? Da Shadow do.
U & Tony,
Excellent responses; Thank you. To be sure, if anyone thinks they can tell you who’s going to win based on current polls, they should have their head examined.
This election will be more event driven than any other in the recent past IMO – And even a last minute bombshell like what happened to GWB and the durnking driving charge in 2000 can upset the applecart.
The only thing I can say definitively today is that I cannot say anything definitive today regarding how this election will unfold.
Reality Check….the only poll that counts is the one on Nov 2.
FACT: In Election 2000 Americans were smart enough to vote +583,000 for Gore/Leiberman. It came down to Florida…we know the story.
FACT: In Election 2000 there were less Americans accessing the Web to crosscheck information and there were no political blogs.
FACT: In Election 2000 Bush/Cheney did not have a ABYSMAL performance record on the economy, jobs, healthcare, education, the environment, Iraq to be measured against.
FACT: For the past 4 years Bush has been misleading the public, distorting fact, and contriving false realities on virtually every major issue because Bushco has to rely on gross image manipulation and false perceptions to win in 2004. And, the US mainstream media ( with some exceptions ) is bending over backwards to help.
The Net Net: More Americans should be smarter in Election 2004 and see that Kerry/Edwards have a much better plan for America and Americans
George W. Bush, the “Excuse President’ is a miserable FAILURE, has NOT earned our TRUST, and will be FIRED on Nov 2.
Even TN and MO are close.
smooth-
Why think Kerry has a shot at Ohio or Florida?
The second to last Florida poll list at RealClearPolitics shows Kerry up 0.3%. The last Ohio poll shows Kerry down only 3%. Rasmussen apparently shows Ohio deadlocked. Both of those suggest that the states are still within his reach. With the hurricanes right now, I’m not sure how much faith I put in any of the Florida polling.
If neither of those two go Kerry, then I see two other promising lines of attack. In both, he goes for New Hampshire. In one, he also goes for Colorado, which has been surprisingly close in what polls have appeared. Colorado, New Hampshire, and the Gore states gives him the win. In the other, he also gets Nevada. Nevada, NH, and the Gore states creates a tie, which might be enough to get Edwards elected as VP, depending on how the Senate races break.
What other Bush 2000 states look vulnerable? I’ve not given up yet on Missouri, Arkansas, or West Virginia, though odds seem against in those three.
But Kerry really *has* to hold Pennsylvania and New Jersey, pretty hmuch has to hold Wisconsin and Iowa, and can’t afford to lose all of Maine. (If he gets NH, then if Maine splits, and he gets Colorado, losing Maine’s other three votes don’t matter.)
So…my view of the battleground is Bush attacking Kerry on Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maine; Kerry attacking Bush on Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Nevada.
Bush has some more ripe picking right now, but both have ways of making things work out for them. The debates will be big. World events will be big. We’ll see.
Smooth Jazz:
Good questions. If you look at the state polls coming out now, they show the race very close. A few show Bush outside the MOE in Ohio and Flordia, most show him inside the MOE (and closer to tied). In other words, both states are far from done deals. Indeed, Gore was supposedly done in Ohio and pulled his resources, but ultimately came in much closer than polls. Almost all current polls also show CO basically tied, and Nevada within the MOE.
The downside for Kerry is that he has to win a lot of close races. That, I think, is the fundamental reason Democrats are nervous. But, as some have pointed out, this cuts both ways: Bush will be in real trouble if he can’t win FL or OH, even if he picks off one of the close uppwer-midwest states.
That’s one reason why this race is still too close to call. The other reason is that we don’t have a clear idea what’s going to happen with voter turnout. 1998, 2000, and 2002 were all surprises from a polling perspective because the turnout models were wrong. For example, when initial results came in from NC during the afternoon of the election in 2002 the old turnout models suggest a Democratic pickup.
At the same time, polling is getting less and less reliable. Some of the reasons have been discussed here and elsewhere: cell phones, the fact that people no longer want to answer polls, answering machienes, and so forth. This drives my colleagues who study American politics crazy, because their data just isn’t as good as it used to be.
Given all that, I predict either a Bush blowout, a Kerry blowout, or a tight election on the first Tuesday of November :-).
Charlie,
VG analysis but you forgot to point out the following: That all GWB needs to do is hold serve, win all the states he won last time and he’s back in – especially given the fact that the census has given him 7 more electoral votes vis-a-vis 2000.
My question to you is: Given the polling data that you’ve seen, what makes you think that Kerry has a shot at either OH or FLA, since they are the most logical swing states to switch from red to blue. Please note: taking NH will not even cover the census adjustment in the electoral college.
If you respond, please do not flame me with Bush Hating propaganda. A logical, reasonable response would be appreciated.
Kerry may in fact wind up winning several “Gore” states that are now tilting toward Bush. But he will have to expend vital resources in time and money to do so, thus preventing those same resources from being devoted to competing elsewhere–CO, NC, OH, MO, FL, etc. He should have shorn up Wisconsin and Minnesota and Iowa by now–and he hasn’t. Certainly it’s not too late, but having to work these states hurts the overall effort–for Kerry, and importantly, for Senate and Congressional races where Kerry-Edwards’ time and effort could help a lot. T.J.
CDB,
Perhaps as well as the +9 for Kerry the Strib polled among LVs?
Considering Gallup’s definite GOP bias this year I imagine Kerry is doing better in Minnesota than that.