John Kerry receives 48% and George W. Bush 46% in a new American Research Group survey of registered voters conducted Aug. 30-Sept 1. The poll also shows Kerry with a 5% lead among independents.
TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 25: Can “Reverse Coattails” Help Biden Win?
A relatively new term is popping up in articles on 2024 strategy for Democrats that I explained and explored at New York:
When you have a presidential candidate who is struggling to generate enthusiasm in the party base, it’s natural to look for some external stimulation. In the case of Joe Biden, the most obvious source of a 2024 boost is the deep antipathy that nearly all Democrats, many independents, and even a sizable sliver of Republicans feel toward Donald Trump. But in case that’s not enough, Team Biden is looking at another avenue of opportunity, albeit a risky one: the possibility of “reverse coattails” taking him past Trump on a wave of turnout that incidentally benefits the president of the United States.
That’s not the conventional wisdom, as the term reverse coattails makes clear: Normally, it’s the head of the ticket from whom all blessings flow, which makes sense insofar as presidential-election turnout dwarfs that of off-year and midterm contests in no small part because people who don’t necessarily care about the identity of their senator or governor are galvanized by the battle for the White House. But as Russell Berman of The Atlantic explains, this year is different:
“Faith in the reverse-coattails effect is fueling Democratic investments in down-ballot races and referenda. In North Carolina, for example, party officials hope that a favorable matchup in the governor’s race — Democratic attorney general Josh Stein is facing Republican lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, who has referred to homosexuality as ‘filth’ and compared abortion to slavery — could help Biden carry a state that Trump narrowly won twice. Democrats are also trying to break a Republican supermajority in the legislature, where they are contesting nearly all 170 districts. ‘The bottom of the ticket is absolutely driving engagement and will for all levels of the ballot,’ Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, told me.”
In other states, high-profile ballot measures, particularly those aimed at restoring the abortion rights denied by conservative courts and Republican lawmakers, may generate bottoms-up enthusiasm benefiting Biden and embattled Democratic Senate candidates as well:
“In key states across the country, Democrats and their allies are planting ballot initiatives both to protect reproductive rights where they are under threat and to turn out voters in presidential and congressional battlegrounds. They’ve already placed an abortion measure on the ballot in Florida, where the state supreme court upheld one of the nation’s most restrictive bans on the procedure, and they plan to in Arizona, whose highest court recently ruled that the state could enforce an abortion ban first enacted during the Civil War. Democrats are also collecting signatures for abortion-rights measures in Montana, home to a marquee Senate race, and in Nevada, a presidential swing state that has a competitive Senate matchup this year.”
Berman notes that the reverse-coattails strategy is unproven. Voters, for example, who attracted to the polls by abortion ballot measures don’t always follow the partisan implications of their votes when it comes to candidate preferences. Red-hot down-ballot races are probably more reliable in attracting voters who can be expected to follow the party line to the top of the ticket. A positive precedent can be found in Georgia’s coordinated effort of 2020, when a powerful campaign infrastructure built by Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock clearly helped maximize Biden’s vote; the 46th president won the state by less than 12,000. Perhaps a strong Senate candidate like Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey could help Biden survive as well. As for the possible effect of ballot measures, it was once generally accepted that in 2004 a GOP strategy of encouraging anti-same-sex-marriage ballot measures helped boost conservative turnout in battleground states like Ohio, enabling George W. Bush’s narrow victory (though there are analysts who argue against that hypothesis). One reason it may work better today is the increasing prevalence of straight-ticket voting and the heavy emphasis of Democratic campaigns up and down the ballot on the kind of support for abortion rights that should help them take advantage of ballot-measure-generated turnout.
We won’t get a good idea of how either reverse-coattails strategy is working until late in the 2024 campaign when it becomes possible to measure new voter registrations, screen registered voters for their likelihood to participate in the election, and assess states where down-ballot contests are turning into a Democratic blowout. Team Biden would be wise to do everything in its power to lift the president’s popularity and build a favorability advantage over Trump that can reduce the number of “double haters” likely to stay home or vote for a change in the party management of Washington.
Vote early and vote often…wait you can’t anymore. Well, JUST VOTE.
BTW, I got an e-mail about winning a free Zippo lighter with the Dem Donkey on it. Cool stuff. Vote on http://www.zippo.com
Get out the vote!
wahoo! Now if Kerry would just fight like hell we’ll win this thing.
This is no time for despair. KERRY IN A LANDSLIDE. The poll showing Bush ahead is an outlier.
It is the democratic party that represents the views of the vast majority of Americans. The delusional are going to vote for Bush, but I think most Americans aren’t that insane.
Like I said, KERRY IN A LANDSLIDE, and then W will GO HOME!
wgoeshome.com
Nice to see the folks at the RNC use the term Liberty as if it where a thousand foot crutch.
Isn’t the term Liberal shorthand for Liberty?
Spread the word… 🙂
The GOP convention ….I think I figured out the formula:
9-11
9-11
9-11
9-11
John Kerry sucks
John Kerry is a flip-flopper
Terrorism ….Bush keynote
Amen
The war party peddles in fear, because that’s all they have left to sell.
After 4 yrs Bush is still all HAT no CATTLE…
with his abysmal record on the US economy.
with his abysmal record on the jobs
with his abysmal record on healthcare
with his abysmal record on the environment
etc.etc. etc.
Net Net: George W. Bush is a “FAILURE”
Kerry Hits Back
NEWARK, Ohio – In a scathing attack, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry accused Republicans of hiding President Bush’s “record of failure” behind insults and promised a new direction for the country under a Kerry-Edwards administration.
Now the debate will turn more to REAL issues like the economy, jobs, healthcare, environment and Kerry/Edwards are going to pummel the daylights out of Bush/Cheney.
George W. Bush: “FAILURE” is a simple, very clear, and true message that most American voters will “Get”
Kerry/Edwards are going to win !
So what kind of bounce do we think the Repubs will get from their convention. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict a negative bounce of 1-2% based on the Miller fiasco of last night.
Ruy, post in the damn comments for once.
Anyhow, when do we start counting LVs and not RVs? Why did the lead in independants shrinks o much?
Apparently, there were a number of security breeches at the RNC over the past few days… If they cant secure their own convention, how on earth are they going to secure the entire nation?
Maybe Brian has a response to this. My passing thru the GOP blogs notes that they gloss over this failure and simply wish the pres. a safe delivery tonight. hmm
Cheers
August was bound to be a bad month for Kerry. He had to hoard his money and Bush got to spend the rest of his warchest. That we’re still even with Bush should be cause for celebration.
Campaigns are marathons and the last leg begins tonight. Fortuantely, Kerry’s a great closer.
excellent news. and I agree that the handringing and teeth-nashing of fairweather democrats over kerry’s chances are excessive.
but it still doesn’t change the fact that kerry campaign did a lackluster job in august, particularly as concerns the swift boat vets for BS. nor does it justifiably mute critics of the campaign.
the facts speak clearly for themselves: the GOP is better at running elections. the issue for me and other dems is that the democratic party needs to be better organized, better disciplined about staying on message, and better about packaging campaign positions in palatable soundbites.
decry the vapidity of the american voter all you want (and we can be stone-cold dolts), but it doesn’t change what kerry needs to do to win.
Once again, the pundits are right. Kerry is toast. He should concede now and donate the 75 million to charity.
What about the latest Economist poll? I see it and the questions seem reasonable to me (I don’t know about polling). If the poll is any good, GWB is not doing very well based on trustworthiness, economy, etc.