A September 9th Zogby International Poll of Maine LV’s for the Portland Press Herald and the Maine Sunday Telegram has Kerry tied with Bush at 43 percent, with 3 percent for Nader and 10 percent undecided.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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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.
I think many of you are overreacting to this.
Generally, the poll has a small sample and probably
isn’t reliable. But if we take it at face value,
it gives roughly the result we should expect.
Maine is a state that is a few percent better for
Kerry than the national average, so he will win Maine
by a few percent if the national result is very close (and
by more if he has an edge nationally); with
current polls showing that Kerry is a few percent behind nationally, it is not surprising that Maine would be close.
I think Maine was expected to lean Kerry’s way, but not overwhelmingly. A Bush victory there is possible, but I don’t think very likely. My guess (and like all my predictions is only a guess) is that Kerry will win statewide but Bush might get an extra electoral vote.
Was this expected to be a battleground state?
Apparently the mere mention of ancient text killed the thread.
Back on topic:
Maine has 4 electoral votes and they split.
Kerry will outpoll Bush, there, however.
Publius,
Nom de plume of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in their excellent 87 essays, published in the colonies as support and explanation for the newly created Constitution of 1787.
That type of thoughtful written argument by politicos in power is seldom if ever seen these days.
Every time I hear some Republican start talking about what the founding fathers wanted, I always ask if they have read the Federalist Papers. Anyone who is serious about original intent must read and assimilate them.
It’s one poll, taken not too long after the GOP convention. It doesn’t mean we have to “fight for Maine”.
Maine was always “in play” to the limited extent that, because of the electoral vote allocation, there is the possibility that Bush could get one electoral vote corresponding to the Second (more rural) district. The First District, which includes Portland, is a solid Democrat District, which should give Kerry a wide enough margin to carry the state overall.
Considering the high number of French Canadians in upper Maine, it’s hard to see how an administration with such utter francophobia could have much support in this neck of America.
Yeah, ME is not a liberal state. It is very libertarian. Hell, Ross Perot almost won it in 1992. So, this is no surprise for this Dem.
Pardon my ignorance regarding Maine, but aren’t we basically talking about one or two electoral votes here? According to http://www.electoral-vote.com, “Maine is one of the two states that does not use a winner-take-all system for allocating its votes in the electoral college (Nebraska is the other one). The winner of each of the two congressional districts gets one, and the statewide winner gets the other two.”
Personally, I think the Colorado proposition which would do the same thing, and take effect immediately, might be a bigger threat to JFK ’04 than Maine.
Ryan, try not to post unless you have something to say.
As Alan R. correctly observes, Maine went for Gore by only 5 points, with Bush getting 44.6% of the 3-way vote, It’s not surprising that he’s at 43% now.
Ryan — It’s true that Kerry shouldn’t have to work on Maine, but at the same time, who would have thought Bush wouldn’t have locked down Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Tennessee, and Arkansas?
The Zogby poll is undeniably bad news for Kerry-Edwards.
Maine should be a safe blue state, not in play 45 days out from Election Day.
If Kerry-Edwards has to work to lock-down Maine, hard to see KE ’04 winning.
Maine was actually pretty close (Gore by 5) in the 2000 election, the same margin by which he won Michigan and Pennsylvania. Perhaps because Kerry is from New England, people expect Maine to be a slam-dunk for him, but it really should be more in the “lean Kerry” category than “safe Kerry.”
Having said that, Bush’s 43% for an incumbent, at a highly opportune time for him (shortly after the RNC convention), suggests that Kerry should ultimately prevail in Maine.
2000 results:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0876793.html