In a head-to-head CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll of Wisconsin RV’s conducted Sept. 9-12, 2004, Bush leads Kerry 50-45 percent, with 5 percent neither/unsure.
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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.
With the exception of some New England states, the winning of virtually *ANY* state by the Democrats in presidential elections is accomplished in just a handful of counties, primarily metropolitan ones (see Oregon and Pennsylvania, for example, in the map I’ve linked below). By no means is the phenomenon confined to Wisconsin.
I would still label Wisconsin “lean Kerry” as, in all likelihood, we’re currently in a Bush “high water” period and the race in Wisconsin is very close according to some polls (such as Rasmussen, as noted above).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/cbc/map.htm
The Wisconsin scandals pitched out Republicans as well as Democrats. A state which prides itself on being intelligent and clean sure had a crop of dirty idiots in charge of its government.
It’s the “Bowling Alone” phenomenon again. Wisconsin decayed into a cesspool because the formerly public-spirited citizenry walked away from its responsibilities. Nobody wanted to run for office. Nobody wanted to work on political campaigns. (I realize that sounds odd given the current tidal wave of Kerry volunteers, but until this year, political activism at the local/state level was getting roughly zero new blood. Arguably, outside the presidential race, that’s STILL the case.)
In the absence of genuine mass political participation in Wisconsin, certain shortcuts emerged, in both parties, like using tax-funded legislative staffers to illegally build campaign voter lists, or letting lobbyists finance campaigns.
Okay, so all the legislative leaders went to prison. Still no new blood. Now what?
Kerry had damn well better win Wisconsin. Even if he gets a million more popular votes than Bush, without Wisconsin, how could he win the electoral college? Ohio, I guess, but that’s even chancier.
By the way, the 2000 election pretty well cemented the notion that Republican areas are coded red and Democratic areas blue. I used to do the opposite, but I have bowed to the overwhelming consensus. Reading the reversed version in the preceding post(“bright-red” Milwaukee? “Deep blue” suburbs?) is like being an American trying to drive a car in London.
The problem with Wisconsin is that really only the southeastern corner of the state is Democratic any more. Gore won in 2000 based on a lot of Democratic votes in Milwaukee and Milwaukee county. The GOP is surging in Sheboygan, Ozaukee, Washington, Dodge, Jefferson, Columbia and Dane (except for Madison proper) counties — true suburbs of Milwaukee. Bright-red Milwaukee is ringed by deep-blue counties. Green Bay is 50-50, and the rest of the state — largely rural — is blue.
The state went through a huge governmental scandal that’s upended politics statewide. Large numbers of incumbent Democrats, along with their effective GOTV machines, are gone.
The GOP has used the state’s same-day registration law to flood the polls with GOP voters in every race in the last three years. The Dems have done almost nothing in this regard; although their registration effort this year is going strong, it probably won’t be enough to counter the past three years of GOP voter-roll growth.
Wisconsin lost fewer jobs than any other Midwestern state, and it is gaining them faster than any other Midwestern state.
Although Iraq and healthcare are hot-button issues for Wisconsinites, Kerry has proven ineffective in posing an alternative plan to Bush’s stay-the-course on the war. And Kerry’s healthcare message is getting lost in the barrage of other issues Kerry and Edwards keep talking about in the state.
Kerry could win Wisconsin if:
1) He proposes a clear, simply plan with clear signposts/decision points along the way for getting America quickly out of Iraq.
2) Kerry begins barraging his target groups — elderly, working poor, small business owners and those who work for them — with specifics on how his healthcare plan is going to relieve them of the high cost of healthcare.
I think this latter, in particular, is do-able. Kerry’s Web site contains no specifics on the plan whatsoever. Ask most people in the street, and they think Kerry’s plan is only importation and permitting Medicare to negotiate lower prices with drug companies. Kerry’s done a very poor job of explaining what his healthcare plan is, how it will lower premiums and cover more working people, and how it will be paid for.
My suspicion is that Bush’s support in Wisconsin is weak as water. His true base there is limited to anti-abortionists and anti-tax fanatics. Bush is pulling those who believe that Bush is strong on national security. But there’s 10-15 percent of Bush’s support that would move to Kerry if Kerry only came out strong and crystalline clear on these two issue.
IMHO.
“I almost wonder if it isn’t a contrarian backlash against our progressive tradition. Anyone?”
Is fundamentalist Christianity on rise in Wisconsin? A Minnesota friend says it certainly is there. Possibly an explanation for what seems quite bewildering.
you may not agree with my take, but I think Kerry calling Lambeau Field “Lambert Field” has effectively killed his chances in Wisconsin. That whole state bleeds green and yellow and I think they felt insulted by Kerry’s gaffe. I also heard that Brett Favre may be endorsing Bush.
I’m so embarassed. My state used to be a guaranteed win for the Dems. A McGovern state!!! Home to Fighting Bob LaFollette and the Progressives!
With Illinois, Minn. and Mich. surrounding us and looking pretty good for Kerry I find myself wondering: “What’s wrong with Wisconsin? What happened?”
I almost wonder if it isn’t a contrarian backlash against our progressive tradition. Anyone?
rasmussen is a republican pollster. Do not trust them.
Rasmussen now has Bush up 49-47 in Wisconsin.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Wisconsin%20Sept%2014.htm