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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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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February 12: 2024 Lessons for Democrats That Are Relevant Right Now
I’m on record as suggesting that Democrats not waste too much time on recriminations over 2024 while the wolf of Trump 2.0 is at the door. But there are some lessons relevant to the challenges right before them, and I tried to discuss at few at New York:
The ritualistic “struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party” that ensued after the Republican election victory of 2024 was cut somewhat short by the brutal realities of the real-life consequences of letting Donald Trump regain power with a Republican-controlled Congress and all sorts of ridiculous claims of an absolute mandate to do whatever he wanted. But, in fact, while factional finger-pointing might have been are a self-indulgent luxury an opposition party living under the MAGA gun can’t afford, there are some lessons from the election results that are important to internalize right now. Here are a few.
Mobilizing the Democratic base isn’t enough to stop Trump
For much of the 2024 campaign, a lot of observers believed that the only way Trump could win was if Democrats failed to mobilize their party base, either out of complacency or because key constituencies were disgruntled with Joe Biden (and, to a lesser extent, with Kamala Harris once she became the presidential nominee). An enormous amount of money, time, and effort went into securing maximum turnout among young, Black, and Latino voters on the theory that if fully engaged, they’d win the day. And in the end, these constituencies did turn out reasonably well (a bit less than in 2020, but more than in 2012 or 2016). Trouble was, too many of them voted for Donald Trump.
No, Trump didn’t win Black, Latino, or under-30 voters overall, but his performance in all those groups improved significantly as compared to 2020. Among Black voters (per AP Votecast, the most reputable exit poll), he doubled his percentage of the vote, from 8 percent to 16 percent. Among Latinos, his percentage rose from 35 percent to 43 percent. And among under-30 voters, his share of the vote jumped from 36 percent to 47 percent. Meanwhile, the GOP advantage in the Donkey Party’s ancient working-class constituency continued to rise, even among non-white voters; overall, Trump won 56 percent of non-college-educated voters. The Democratic base fractured more than it faltered. And there were signs (which have persisted into early 2025 polling) that defections have made the GOP the plurality party for the first time in years and one of the few times since the New Deal.
While rebuilding the base (while expanding it) remains a crucial objective for Democrats, just calling it into the streets to defy Trump’s 2025 agenda via a renewed “resistance” isn’t likely to work. Many former and wavering Democrats need to be persuaded to remain in their old party.
Trump really did win the two most essential arguments of the 2024 election, on inflation and immigration
Republicans have massive incentives to pretend that all their messages struck home, giving them an argument that they enjoy a mandate for everything they want to do. But the honest consensus from both sides of the barricade is that demands for change to address inflation and immigration were the critical Trump messages, with doubts about Joe Biden’s capacity to fulfill the office and Kamala Harris’s independence from him exacerbating both.
What we’ve learned in 2025 is that Trump has considerable public backing to do some controversial things on these issues. A 2024 poll from Third Way showed a majority of swing voters agreed that excessive government spending was the principal cause of inflation, a huge blow to Democratic hopes that rising costs could be pinned on corporations, global trends, supply-chain disruptions, or, indeed, the previous Trump administration. But this wasn’t just a campaign issue: Trump took office with some confidence that the public would support serious efforts to reduce federal spending and make government employees accountable. And the fact that (so far) his approval ratings have held up despite the chaotic nature of his efforts to slash federal payrolls is a good indication he has some wind at his back, at least initially.
If that’s true on inflation, it’s even truer on immigration, where solid majorities in multiple polls support (in theory, at least) the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. If the administration was smart enough to limit its deportation campaign to those convicted of violent crimes, it would have overwhelming public support. But Democrats should fully accept they didn’t just lose votes on this issue in 2024: They lost an argument that persists.
That is why it is critical that Democrats point to evidence that Trump’s own agenda (particularly his tariff policies) will revive inflation that had largely been tamed by the end of the Biden administration, while focusing their immigration messaging on vast overreach, inhumane excesses, and ethnic profiling of Latinos by Team Trump in its efforts to deport immigrants.
Swing voters are not moved by constitutional or “threat to democracy” arguments
Joe Biden in his 2024 presidential campaign (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Kamala Harris as his successor) put considerable stock in playing on public concerns about the threat to democracy posed by Trump as evidenced by his conduct on January 6, 2021, and his lawless behavior generally. While these arguments found traction among voters already in his corner, there’s little evidence they mattered much at all to the voters who decided the election in Trump’s favor. Indeed, a considerable percentage of voters worried about a broken political system viewed Trump as a potential reformer as much as an insurrectionist or autocrat.
At the moment, most office-holding Democrats and (more quietly) many Republicans are aghast at how Trump has gone about pursuing his agenda early in 2025, with a blizzard of executive orders, a federal funding freeze, and a blank check issued to eccentric billionaire Elon Musk to disrupt federal agencies and intimidate federal employees. Again, Trump is drawing on long-standing public hostility toward the federal government and to the size and cost of government as a spur to inflation and a burden on taxpayers. Fighting him with alarms about his violation of legal and constitutional limitations on presidential power is unlikely to work with an electorate unmoved by Trump’s earlier scofflaw attitude. Voters must be convinced in very concrete terms that what he is doing will affect their own lives negatively. As with tariffs and the immigration policy, Trump’s tendency to overreach should provide plenty of ammunition for building a backlash to his policies.
The desire for change in an unhappy country is deep-seated
In 2024, as in 2016, Trump managed to win because unhappy voters who didn’t particularly like or trust either presidential candidate (or their parties) in the end chose to produce a change in party control of the White House and of Congress. In office, Trump and his allies will try to perpetuate as long as they can the illusion that they are still fighting for “change” against powerful interests aligned with the Democratic Party, even though it’s Republicans who control the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and also dominate the U.S. Supreme Court. The idea that Team Trump is a brave band of insurgents speaking truth to power is undermined very specifically by the fact that its chief disrupter, Musk, is the richest man in the world and the first among equals of a large band of plutocrats surrounding the president.
As the New York Times’ Nate Cohn observed during the transition to the second Trump administration, many of the same anti-incumbent tendencies that put a thumb on the scale for the GOP in 2024 will now work for the opposition:
“The president’s party has retained the White House only once since 2004, mostly because voters have been unsatisfied with the state of the country for the last 20 years. No president has sustained high approval ratings since [George W.] Bush, in the wake of Sept. 11 …
“Looking even further back, the president’s party has won only 40 percent of presidential elections from 1968 to today. With that record, perhaps it’s the winning party that really faces the toughest question post-election: How do you build public support during an era of relatively slow growth, low trust in government and low satisfaction with the state of the country?”
Based on his conduct since returning to the White House and his well-known narcissism, it’s not all that clear that the 47th president even cares about building public support as he ends his political career. That may give him the freedom of the true lame duck, but it also means Democrats can batten on his broken promises and the disappointments they will breed. The 2028 presidential candidate who may be in real trouble is the Republican who succeeds the 2024 winner.
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.