A new SurveyUSA poll of Missouri LV’s conducted Sept.7-9 for KSDK-TV St. Louis and KOMU-TV Columbia shows Bush now leading Kerry by just 2 percentage points, 48-46 percent, with 5 percent undecided.
TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 26: The Obama Coalition Revisited
It’s pretty obvious Kamala Harris’s candidacy changes the 2024 presidential race more than a little, and I wrote at New York about one avenue she has for victory that might have eluded Joe Biden:
During her brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, Kamala Harris was widely believed to be emulating Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign strategy. She treated South Carolina, the first primary state with a substantial Black electorate, as the site of her potential breakthrough. But she front-loaded resources into Iowa to prepare for that breakthrough by reassuring Black voters that she could win in the largely white jurisdiction. She had the added advantage of being from the large state of California, where the primary had just been moved up to Super Tuesday (March 3). For a thrilling moment, after her commanding performance in a June 2019 debate, Harris seemed on track to pull off this feat, threatening Joe Biden’s hold on South Carolina in the polls and surging in Iowa. But neither she nor Cory Booker, who also relied on the Obama precedent, could displace Biden as the favorite of Black voters or strike gold in the crowded Iowa field. Out of money and luck, Harris dropped out before voters voted.
Now Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for 2024 without having to navigate any primaries. But she still faces some key strategic decisions. Joe Biden was consistently trailing Donald Trump in the polls in no small part because he was underperforming among young and non-white voters, the very heart of the much-discussed Obama coalition. Can Harris recoup some of these potential losses without sacrificing support elsewhere in the electorate? That is a question she must address at the very beginning of her general-election campaign.
There’s a chance that Harris can inject a bit of the Obama “hope and change” magic into a Democratic ticket that had previously felt like a desperate effort to defend an unpopular administration led by a low-energy incumbent, as Ron Brownstein suggests in The Atlantic:
“Polls have shown that a significant share of Americans doubt the mental capacity of Trump, who has stumbled through his own procession of verbal flubs, memory lapses, and incomprehensible tangents during stump speeches and interviews to relatively little attention in the shadow of Biden’s difficulties. Particularly if Harris picks a younger running mate, she could top a ticket that embodies the generational change that many voters indicated they were yearning for when facing a Trump-Biden rematch …
“In the best-case scenario for this line of thinking, Harris could regain ground among the younger voters and Black and Hispanic voters who have drifted away from Biden since 2020. At the same time, she could further expand Democrats’ already solid margins among college-educated women who support abortion rights.”
Team Trump seems to believe it can offset these potential gains by depicting Harris as a “California radical” and a symbol of diversity who might alienate the older white voters with whom Biden had some residual strength. Obama overcame similar race-saturated appeals in 2008, but he had a lot of help from a financial collapse and an unpopular war presided over by the party of his opponent.
Following Obama’s path has major strategic implications in terms of the battleground map. Any significant improvement over Biden’s performance among Black, Latino, and under-30 voters might put Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina — very nearly conceded to Trump in recent weeks — back into play. But erosion of Biden’s support among older and/or non-college-educated white voters could create potholes in his narrow Rust Belt path to victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
These strategic choices could definitely affect Harris’s choice of a running-mate, not just in terms of potentially picking a veep from a battleground state, but as a way of amplifying the shift produced by Biden’s withdrawal. Brownstein even thinks Harris might consider following Bill Clinton’s 1992 example of doubling down on her own strengths:
“The other option that energizes many Democrats would be for Harris to take the bold, historic option of selecting another woman: Whitmer. That would be a greater gamble, but a possible model would be 1992, when Bill Clinton chose Al Gore as his running mate; Gore was, like him, a centrist Baby Boomer southerner—rather than an older D.C. hand. ‘I love Josh Shapiro and I think he would be a great VP candidate, but I would double down’ with Whitmer, [Democratci consultant Mike] Mikus told me. ‘I don’t think you have to go with a moderate white guy. I think you can be bold [with a pick] that electrifies your base.’ I heard similar views from several consultants.”
Whitmer’s expressed disinterest in the veepstakes may take that particular option off the table, but the broader point remains: Harris does not have to — and may not be able to — simply adopt Biden’s strategy and tweak it slightly. She may be able to contemplate gains in the electorate that were unimaginable for an 81-year-old white male incumbent. But the strategic opportunity to follow Obama’s path to the White House will first depend on Harris’s ability to refocus persuadable voters on Trump’s shaky record, bad character, and extremist agenda. Biden could not do that after the debate debacle of June 27. His successor must begin taking the battle to the former president right now.
Kerry needs to discuss the Bush administration’s inept response to information that was given to them before 9/11 concerning terrorist activity in the US. People need to understand that “our great protector” and his administration was given information about possible terrorist plots (ie plane hijackings) and they failed to act on the information! How can someone look at Bush in the same positive light knowing that he failed us back in 2001? And then, he was initially against the Homeland Security Department. Security is a BIG concern in this election. I see nothing that indicates to me that Bush has made us more secure. Another thing, most people I know, regardless of political affiliation, are not happy with the way things are going. People are stressed out! Kerry needs to speak to these people. There are a lot of us. Life is difficult anymore and there is no empathy coming from the Whitehouse. Kerry needs to address this.
Joe
Dan,
I think you are correct on the media buying. I have said this before and will repeat – in the final analysis many folks will not be able to pull the B/C lever or whatever method of voting available. I suspect you need to select one or two polls and stick with them while filtering out the others.
Who are the Republican pollsters and who are the Democratic? I subscribe to Rasmussen and also follow Zogby. I was a Zogby junkie in 00. I have regaining confidence.
There is an arrogance about the B/C crowd. Also things are looking mighty grim in Iraq.
Jody
If you look at the states that K-E are not buying media in at this time, they are all competitive Senate races, except Arizona. If Demos want to allow the Senate candidates to establish themselves you cut down on K-E buys in September, pour money into the Senate race and then buy in October when B-C is buying and the K-E ads do not tie the Senate candidate to the national ticket.
Arizona is a special case because any early push there provokes a McCain response. In October that will not be as big a problem as McCain will be busy supporting the Arizona down ticket candidates.
In other words, there is a rationale that shows careful planning and not hysteria. I have been growing in my confidence that K-E do think through what they do.
Yet listening to Juan Williams on NPR this morning you would think the Kerry is ready to concede Missouri. Really, what the heck are we going to do with the mainstream media. What is with NPR?
Well, all I can say is “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” I have seen the Gallup guy on TV with his so called groups. I saw a biased republican partisan. And the media is just as bad. So why should I believe the polls when I no longer believe the media. It was just tooooooooooo convenient.
From Missouri—-
I am seeing support for K/E in places where you should not expect it, given the demographics.
Missouri is winnable although it will be close. B/C are taking it for granted. It’s critical to get Edwards in key outstate areas to hold down the GOP vote and Kerry is needed in StL and KC, especially in the labor-oriented suburbs.
Please don’t give up on us. Strategic media buys in October can be critical, especially when the Cardinals are in the World Series.
This is the first time that I’ve been to this site, and I find it far better than the others. I did some research os SurveyUSA on their website.
The good news is that they are usually pretty accurate in their pre-election predictions. The bad news is that they usually, but not always, err on the side of the Democrats.
I also find it interesting that Bush went down in Newsweek but up in Time. Zogby stayed the same; Rasmussen is back to 1 point. Do the pollsters really know what they are doing or is it possible that there are more undecided voters than is commonly believed?
I want my W.rong For America! T-shirt and bumperstickers!
Kerry people are you listening??
I agree. Don’t give up on Missouri or other states in middle America. Independents and moderate to conservative Dems are looking for a reason, any reason to vote for Kerry. They don’t like Bush, but they remain undecided after the Repub convention. Maybe put together a commercial showing Kerry skeet shooting and talking about his joy of hunting. Is Carville on top of this? It works!
Reports are that Kerry’s campaign has pulled all advertising from MO. This now seems terminally dumb if this poll is even close to correct. Gore pulled out of Ohio assuming he was way behind when in fact he was closing. How do we keep Kerry’s folks from premature surrender in key battlegrounds like this? T.J.
Ruy, what is your opinion on SUSA’s methodology? They seem to have as good a record as anyone else based on past elections, but the Hotline for one has a real problem with them and won’t include their results (or Rasmussen’s, for that matter) in their polling summaries.