There’s really not much drama going on in Congress lately, but a manufactured crisis could shut down the federal government right in the middle of the general election season, as I explained at New York:
Kicking cans down the road is an essential skill in Congress, particularly when partisan control of the government is divided, as it is now. Routine decisions like keeping the federal government operating must await posturing over essential laws each party wants to enact but does not have the power to impose. And that’s why there seems to be a perpetual threat of a government shutdown — which is what happens if either house of Congress or the president refuses to sign off on spending authority — and why Washington typically lurches along from stopgap spending deal to stopgap spending deal.
The most recent stopgap spending deal expires on September 30, the last day of Fiscal Year 2024. There’s been some back-and-forth about the length of the next stopgap based on changing calculations of which party is likely to be in the ascendancy after the November election. But this normal bit of maneuvering suddenly turned fraught as Donald Trump bigfooted his way into the discussion on Truth Social not long before he debated Kamala Harris:
“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO “STUFF” VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN — CLOSE IT DOWN!!!”
The backstory is that in April, when Speaker Mike Johnson was feeling some heat from the House Freedom Caucus over allegedly “caving” to Democrats in the last stopgap spending fight, the Louisianan scurried down to Mar-a-Lago to huddle with the Boss. Johnson announced he would do Trump’s bidding by introducing a bill to outlaw noncitizen voting, the phantom menace that is one of Trump’s favorite stolen-election fables. Those of us who understood that noncitizen voting (of which there is no actual evidence beyond a handful of votes among hundreds of millions) is already illegal shrugged it off as a MAGA red-meat treat.
But Johnson forged ahead with a House vote to approve the so-called SAVE Act. After the Senate ignored it, he included it in the first draft of his new stopgap bill. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, figured it would be dropped when negotiations got serious. But then Trump made his latest intervention and then, worse yet, Johnson couldn’t get the votes to pass his stopgap and get the ping-pong game with Democrats going (many right-wing House members won’t vote for any stopgap spending bill, and others are demanding big domestic spending cuts that don’t pass the smell test). So Johnson is back to square one, as the New York Times reports:
“Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday abruptly canceled a vote on his initial plan to avert a government shutdown, as opposition to the six-month stopgap funding measure piled up in both parties.
“It was a bruising setback for Mr. Johnson coming only a few weeks before a Sept. 30 deadline Congress faces to fund the government or face a shutdown.”
So now what? In the intense heat of an election year in which both the House and the White House are poised between the two parties, the leader of the GOP ticket has ordered Johnson to hold his breath until he turns blue — or more to the point, until the government is shut down — unless something happens that is as likely as Johnson suddenly coming out for abortion rights. Indeed, far from ramming the deeply offensive and impractical SAVE Act down the throats of Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, he can’t even get the stopgap spending measure that includes it out of his own chamber. In the past, Democrats have loaned him a few votes to help him out of a jam, but they won’t do it unless he drops the SAVE Act. And if he drops the SAVE Act, Trump’s friends in the House will happily drop him the first chance they get (maybe right away, or maybe after the election). On the other hand, if he obeys Trump and refuses to move any spending bill, there’s a good chance a few Republicans will defect and back a Democratic measure to avoid an unusually pointless and politically damaging government shutdown. That, too, would expose Johnson as feckless and disposable.
Ever since Johnson succeeded Kevin McCarthy, Washington observers have alternated between treating him as some sort of backwoods parliamentary genius who fools people with his apparent befuddlement and as a Mr. Magoo who stumbles forward blindly and survives by luck and the fact that House Republicans have no better prospects for wielding the gavel. We’ll soon see which Mike Johnson emerges from the current morass. Another major incident of GOP fecklessness and disarray could help Democrats flip the House, but it’s a shame people may not be able to do their jobs in the interim.
Nice Blog!
Reference the New York Times article on voter pick up in Ohio: the same information is also being reported by media outlets in Ohio, not a hotbed of liberalism.
Oh, the selected prime minister of iraq comes here and in effect tries to interfere with the election. he lies about what is happening in Iraq and the cons are outraged at Kerry? Excuse me, boys! The one to be outraged at are the liars, bush and alawi. And as i recall newsweek and cnn both use gallup poll numbers. that has been shown to be out of touch with reality. so where is the real discussion? where is the discussion about over 1000 dead in iraq? the WMD? the missing osama? the deficit? What in the world is wrong with you conservatives(not anappropirate name) more like big spenders? You attack the truth teller and applaud the liar. what is is the night gallery in real time? bush is a liar and a loser. he is losing the election. they lied to you about iraq. the media kissed up and carried it along. now why is there any question that the media is not doing it again. i would assume they were without any real indication they had reformed. duh!
Elrod,
Sorry to disappoint you but insofar as GWB is concerned, Saletan is no centrist – Indeed, he is a card carrying member of the Michael Moore (FahrenHype 911), Whoppi Goldberg (Kiss my ___), Terry McCaulliffe wing of the Dem party – In other words, he’s a Bush Hater in sheep’s clothing.
As for your supposition that Kerry’s attacks are resonating, reasonable people will disagree – Especially when you consider the battleground poll released last night showing he’s trailing GWB by 6 points.
Frankly, any benefit from his anti-Iraq War speeches was mitigated by his condescending and haughty attack on the very courageous PM of Iraq; Who couldn’t even thank us without having to see Kerry’s mug & gait flailing away on a subject which he knew very little about other than what sees on CBS and in the NY Times.
The Time poll is the best news I’ve read in awhile! 36R – 30D among RVs and the gap is closing. More important is Kerry’s attack on Bush’s Iraq policy is clearly hitting. The idea of a Bush-Iraq credibility gap is a powerful one. Hopefully Kerry can drive that point home in the debates.
BTW, this Will Saletan article on debate tactics is great. Saletan is a centrist who probably understands swing voters better than most of us.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2107141/
NEWSFLASH: BATTLEGROUND POLL – GWB 51%, KERRY 45%, GWB JOB APPROVAL 53%…
http://www.tarrance.com/Week2charts.pdf
Kerry is also behind 20% in fighting terrorism and Iraq; It’s tough for Kerry to win facing numbers like that.
I see many posters here are getting excited about the new Dem registration being reported by the NY Times in FLA & OH, and how these new Dems are not being captured in surveys. I have news for you all: The NY Times, like CBS, is in the tank for Kerry, and is trying desperately to salvage his candidate, especially since all their Abu Gharib, Richard Clarke, etc., stories couldn’t do the trick.
They also have reported very little on all the stories of possible vote fraud being perpetrated by Dems – ie 20,000 with dual NY & FLA voter registration reported by the NY Daily News a few weeks back, dead Dems in WIS with voter registration cards, et al.
They also do not fully explain how this phenomena is not the typical voter registration churn, or capture the intensity and enthusiasm likely to occur among Reps this year because of anger over the CBS fraud, the over the top hatred of President Bush, Kerry’s trashing and unpopularity with the military, etc.
My advice to Kerry supporters: Believe the NY Times at your peril.
To win, Bush must carry Ohio. Similarly, Kerry must take PA. to win. The question then might be, is Ohio more within the reach of Bush than PA is within the reach of Kerry?
Seems to me that Kerry must put more resources into PA to assure a win. Once he’s sure that the Keystone State is safely locked up, he can make his move on Ohio. The sooner he locks PA up the better his chances overall.
My biggest concern is the one someone mentioned: The lengths to which Republicans will go to reject Democratic voter registration. Republicans are notorious for doing such things to gain advantage, since they know they can’t win heads up.
El Guapo, you were great in THE THREE AMIGOS.
Regarding the comment above about the GOP skullduggery in rejecting new voter registrations….
OK, I agree that the GOP will stop at nothing to win this. But, at least in Pennsylvania, when you register to vote it’s not a mystery whether or not your application has been accepted or not. You get a voter registration card in the mail. So it’s not like you show up on election day and they can say, “Oops, sorry. You’re not on the rolls.”
OK…they’re Republicans…they cheat…so they COULD say that. But people who have just registered need to follow-up to make sure their applications went through and thus minimize the likelihood.
Sep 26
Rasmussen has a Bush only +1 in the horserace.
FL Kerry +1; MI K +4; MN tied; OH Bush + 4; NV tied.
A trend? We’ll see. Rove is dragging his feet on debate #1. Trying to raise expectations? Who would imagine?
Ethan, you hit upon something that I’d been mulling over myself for a while. If the popular Time/Gallup polls now show the race tightening (which they do) and they still oversample Republicans (which they do) then there can be only one conclusion:
Kerry pulls off an upset in a few “red” states.
Not to jinx it, but look for Kerry wins in almost all the “true battleground” states, plus maybe even a Kerry upset in a “close red” state (like VA, NC, or AR).
Plus the NY Times had an article showing registration in Dem-leaning counties was 6 times the registration jump in Rep-leaning counties in OH, and with a similar Dem registration lead in FL.
And Bush is now on the defensive, having to explain his rosy Iraq comments to an increasingly skeptical public.
There is a HUGE increase in new voters in both Ohio and Florida according to the New York Times. I live in Ohio and local news media is also reporting a huge increase in new voters in Democratic areas of Ohio. Will polls catch those new voters? How do polls handle situations where there is volatility in the numbers of registered voters?
To me the most important part of that poll was not that Kerry cut Bushes lead in half, it was two of the other findings; A majority think that Iraq has made the world less safe and 60% of likely voters find Kerry likable.
Those two things tell me that we can win.
Nice observation by Gabby Hayes, sidekick to Roy Rogers whom we all love and remember dearly. It’s clear from analyses here and elsewhere that these media-bought polls are cooking the books. It’s beginning to look like deja vu all over again vis a vis 2000 with polls showing Bush up several points just days before the election. Anyone for an October surprise?
Now we have destroyer fleets of the coast of N Korea. Dare anyone suggest Bush/Rove might be manufacturing a “crisis” or “imminent threat of ICBMs from NK” ?
Film at 11.
It would appear that Scott Rasmussen and Ruy Tiexera agree in principle of the RV/LV – 2-way/3-way thing.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5283.shtml
It’s an interesting analysis Gabby. I would tend to buy high 80s or even low 90s for the Bush voters. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90% of registered voters do turn out to vote in a typical presidential election and it’s not uncommon to see slightly higer turnout for Republicans than Democrats (otherwise Democrats would win every time). But 97% does seem a little over the top.
While we’re on the subject, does anyone have any idea why Marist College’s LVs always seem to number <70% of their RVs?
BTW, wasn’t this Time poll something we were completely trashing a few weeks ago? Why would they be right now if they weren’t then?
No Gollum,
Ruys prime directive is to compare “apples to apples” – even if those apples have worms in them.
As was posted more extensively under the CBS poll story, the question will be how many of these new voter registration forms will be accepted by the Republican secretary’s of state in these battleground states, and how many will be thrown out for various technicalities like failing to check a box that you are over 18, even though you have provided your date of birth on another line. I think the Republican operative quoted in the NYT registration story has already previewed the upcoming Republican line for when these new voters are turned away at the polls on Nov 2: that the progressive voter registration groups did “sloppy work” which required all those nice new voter registrations to be thrown out by the poor secretarys of state, what a shame, etc. etc. Our opponents are quite determinedly anti-democratic and will stop at nothing to win.
Time Poll Sept. 21-23, 2004. N=1,014 registered voters nationwide, 877 likely voters.
I will now demonstrate how flawed this poll is.
According to the Time Poll, Bush has an edge of 54-42 among likely voters.
The pool of “likely voters” is 877 voters. 54% of that number is 474 “likely Bush Voters.”
Compare the pool of 1014 “registered voters.” 48% of that number is 487 “registered Bush Voters.”
So, we now know that under the Time poll, 474 likely Bush voters exist among 487 registered Bush voters.
In other words, Time is reporting that 97.3% of the registered Bush voters will vote.
Now compare the way they downsize the Kerry numbers:
Kerry has 44% of 1014, which is 446 registered voters.
But he only gets 42% of the 877 “likely voters” or 368 voters.
In other words, Time is reporting that only 82.5% of registered Kerry voters will vote.
To summarize, using their “likely voter” spin, they eliminated only 13 Bush voters, but threw out 78 Kerry voters to create a 54-42 split. That isn’t science, it’s skullduggery.
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I don’t see much data to suggest either giddyness or gloom. The election is still several weeks away. The dynamics will change in some way during this time. Perhaps multiple times. Be patient and effortful.
In that light, I do offer some promising information. I’ve been worrying about Pennsylvania. Using race2004.net for my state poll source, several polls right after the Republican convention mostly showed Bush in the lead. In polls dated at race2004 from 9/7-/9/15, [and not including polls from GOP or Dem organizations] Bush is up by 4% (Quinnipiac), 3% (TNS), 1% (Rasmussen), and 1% (Gallup). The race was tied per Keystone. Kerry was up in just 1 of these 6 polls (by 2%, Survey USA).
In the last 6 polls, 9/16-24, Kerry has been in the lead in 5. 3% for Opinion Dynamics and Zogby, 2% for Temple, and 1% for ARG and Mason Dixon. Bush led by 1% in the Rasmussen poll.
Kerry has to hold Pennsylvania.
And then there’s Ohio. In three of the 6 polls from 9/7 to 9/18, Bush had leads from 7-11%. Overall, these 6 averaged (unweighted) to a 5.5% /Bush lead. The last three polls have been closer, with Bush up by 4% (Opinion Dynamics), 3% (Rasmussen), and 2% (ARG).
Kerry needs to find a way to pull out Ohio. If he can get Ohio and hold all the Gore 2000 states, that would give him a 280-258 win. Kerry could then withstand losing Wisconsin and pull out a 270-268 win. [If that one Maine district were also to go to Bush, Kerry would then need to pull out one other small state, such as New Hampshire.]
There are other options. And this “only pick up Ohio” option would require Kerry either rallying from behind (2-6% in polls of the last week) in Iowa or pulling out two other small states such as New Hampshire (tied in the only poll from last week), Nevada (down 2% and 9% in the two polls from last week), or Arkansas (no polls last week, Kerry down 3% or tied the week before).
This is a very close thing this year. Keep focused and keep at it. And keep your fingers crossed for Kerry to do well this Thursday. Does anyone know how his cold is?
Sep 25
Rasmussen today has Bush only 0.6 ahead in the horserace. FL Bush +1, OH +3, PA +1, MN and NV tied. Kerry leads in MI.
And the voter reg numbers in the NY Times story is very heartening indeed.
QUESTION FOR RUY (or anyone else)
What do you make of the NYTimes article in Sunday’s pages that claims groups like ACT, etc., are kicking so much butt registering new Democratic voters. If that story is true — and the Times seems to have done exhaustive number crunching — then it would suggest that not only are the party ID weights misguided but that they ought to be weighted even more toward Demos than in 2000.
Is it possible that the 2004 election — with all the newly registered voters, with the gazillions of Bush-haters who don’t have a landline to answer phone polls, with so many young voters outraged after seeing Fahrenheit — will completely change the polling paradigm? It’s the TIVO election, in so many ways. People pay attention to what they want to pay attention to, only answer the phone if someone they know is calling and do not fall into any currently identifiable niches.
It just seems like the pollsters are using 20th Century methods to figure out the first race of the 21st Century.
Hey, I have a question for Ruy.
Over the last few weeks, you have written about popular polls, such as Gallup/CNN and said that they have oversampled Rs as a percentage of their sample population.
In the recent days, these polls have been tightening showing a closer race with Bush still in the lead, does this mean that in a sample that is overly populated with Republicans, Bush is ahead only by a small margin? Or have they changed their samples to include more Ds?
I think the implication here is obvious, so Ruy please explain this before I get giddy and wrongly warm myself to the thoughts of an election day landslide for Kerry!
Now the questions are: Will the media report this with the same zeal as they did the polling data of two weeks ago? What will the administration do to divert attention away from a “come back”-oriented story line in the press?
Also, an interesting story in the NYTimes about the onslaught of new voters registering in key states:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/politics/campaign/26vote.html?hp
Now…will they make it to the polls? Will the polls accept them?
This time: Likely voters reported party identifications are: 36% Republican, 31% Democratic, 24% Independents. Registered voters party affiliations are: 36% Republican, 30% Democratic, 24% Independent.
The 9/10 poll: Likely voters reported party identifications are: 34% Republican, 35% Democratic, 22% Independents. Registered voters party affiliations are: 31% Republican, 32% Democratic, 26% Independent.
Am I missing something? More Republicans, fewer Dems and the margin is still cut in half.
I don’t believe that Nader has support as high as 5%, which makes me disbelieve the rest of the poll.
BTW, wasn’t this Time poll something we were completely trashing a few weeks ago? Why would they be right now if they weren’t then?
It boggles my little mind. Who are they polling? I can’t believe that Bush fatigue has simply vanished.