Kerry and Bush are tied at 44 percent of nation-wide RV’s, with 11 percent unsure, according to an Investor’s Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP Poll conducted 9/22-27.
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.
Smooth Jazz,
I would acknowledge that there were some polls that seemed to show some momentum for Dubya, but I will stick to my point that the name recognition of Gallup makes them a little more influential than other polls. Thus I think a careful critique of their process is warranted.
It is interesting that the election is soooooo close that even the polls themselves are competing.
I do like ARG and Zogby, but I do consider other polls as well.
I also get the sense that besides political junkies like us, many people are just now taking a close look at the race and I think that this will bode well for Kerry. They already know ( and don’t like) GW.
True Believer
I don’t know what to make of Zogby, as his polling techniques differ significantly from most others. Sometimes he’s right, sometimes he’s wrong. Nobody’s perfect.
But I don’t buy the theory that he intentionally biases his polls (pre-or-post 9/11.) And as to the idea that he’s in the tank with the Democratic party, I might remind everyone of the 1996 election, when his surveys showed Bill Clinton winning with a significantly lower margin than other polls forecast–and Zogby was correct. (In fact, if I recall correctly, the weekend prior to the election he had Clinton’s margin shrinking to a dangerously low 2% or so over Bob Dole.) The GOP at the time hailed him as the best pollster in the business. Maybe he’s adjusted his methods since, but I don’t think he’s deliberately cooking the numbers just to favor Democrats.
pro-Kerry — then your average is more like 3-4 points than 6-9.
Posted by km at September 29, 2004 11:17 AM
The bigger picture on all of these results are that
Bush has not moved above the 47% approval rating
month after month for the past year, if you take out
the discredited media polls.
Three other factors, the past three presidents elected by the electoral college have not been
re-elected, no president with an approval rating
below 50% has been re-elected, and no president
with negatives on the economy and war has been
re-elected. The electronic media is doing it’s best
to put the best face on this story. The true strory is that Bush is in big trouble and lack of media coverage is the major factor dragging down Kerry.
Even with all of the misinformation coming out of the electronic media, Bush’s poll standings show
how much effect the 2000 election has on the voters
perceptions. If the new voters can overcome all
of the obstacles being thrown in their way Kerry
will win easily.
Km, Point well taken, but small (3-4) leads in general translate into decisive Electoral College victories, ie 300 EC votes for the winner. Whether GWB wins by 3-4 or 6-9 makes no difference to me.
Omar,
That was prior to 9/11 when Zogby was widely viewed as a balanced pollster. Since then he has aligned himself more closely with the views of his brother Jim, the President of a Bush hating Arab organization in the US.
As a case in point, Zogby completely blew the 2002 midterms: He had Dems Mondale (MN), Cleland (GA) & Carnahan (MO) all winning by comfortable marginsl, but they all lost.
A final point to consider regarding Zogby: A few months ago he suggested the race was Kerry’s to lose and has been making very Pro Kerry comments ever since. It’s in HIS interest to tilt his poll to match HIS pre-ordained POV.
Apparently in Smooth Jazz’s world, any poll that doesn’t show a substantial Bush lead favors Dems.
We’ve clearly got two universes of polls going on out there — one assuming a whopping GOP-ID-ing edge, and one assuming 2000 status quo. The first batch are bad news for Bush, since an incumbent really needs to crack 50% or he’s in trouble; the second group say he’s home free (though with the lowest re-elect percentage of any incumbent since Truman). It’s possible on or other of these sets of polls will break decisively before Election Day, but more likely, we’ll be in the dark till returns start pouring in.
I’m not sure the general public pays as much attention to polls as we do. The newly registered voters in lower income areas wouldn’t even have the time, trying to make ends meet. Now, if only Bush’s goons will let them vote!
i think this attack on Zogby is unwarranted. Zogby got the last 2 presidential elections dead on.
Smooth,
I certainly wouldn’t characterize ARG as a Democratic poll — I thought the opposite was true.
Additionally, if you throw in Rasmussen, Economist and Fox News — all of which are Bush by two or less, and none of which can be accused of being pro-Kerry — then your average is more like 3-4 points than 6-9.
New Economist poll is also a dead heat — 46-46.
I like their poll because it has such a large sample (about 2500), which for a nationwide poll is good.
Here’s the link:
http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/YouGovM.pdf
True Believer,
I hear you, but consider this: Wash Post/ABC, CBS, Pew, AP and Battleground, all came out with results similar to Gallup – GWB up 6-9 points among RVs and a similar margin among LVs. You can trash Gallup all you want, but if ALL other polls taken at a similar time show a similar result, then there is a degree of finality that is taking over, notwithstanding the offensive against Gallup.
At the same time, I would be careful about cocooning yourself with results from ARG & Zogby ONLY as the panacea of all credible polls. These entities are arguably Dem leaning, so you focus on them exclusively at your peril. At a minumum, I would average those 2 with all the other public polls to avoid getting false comfort from sympathetic Kerry surveys only.
Great points by Steve.
Very unfortunate that Gallup is such a “brand name” that the general public accepts their information without question.
Will be interesting to see if MoveOn’s anti-Gallup ad has any effect on the polling industry.
I am very hopeful that the Zogby-Arg polls will be more accurate and lead to a big election-night surprise for Kerry.
True Believer
There has been a lot of discussion
over how polls are skewed but even
the NYT article on Gallup doesn’t
begin to touch on the systematic
disinformation that comes from
the media reading the Gallup polls
along with the GOP talking points
right off the prompter.
It used to be the CIA’s job to
influence elections overseas.
Now Porter Goss has been charged
to merge all the intelligence
agencies together.
As we observe CIA disinformation
activity in Iraq begining to be
a factor in how people vote
in the US its worth noting
that how the polls are reported
is a self fulfilling prophecy.
The GOP uses pre-emptive strikes
to paint Kerry into corners where
he can’t get his message out
Issue: Bush is a deserter in time of war
PES: swifties
Effect: Vietnam and candidate service
records are old news, everybody served
honorably.
Issue: Republican Lies
Example: Bush inherited a recession
Tax break helps economy (as we can see)
War on Terror becomes Patriot Act
Exchange Freedom for Security
Unilateral urgency of WMD’s
becomes Liberate Iraq from ruthless dictator
who tortures people in Abu Garoube
becomes bring Democracy to the Near East
becomes nation building Bush campaigned against
becomes to argue not to stay the course in the
face of an unwinnable and disastrous popular
uprising and civil war is unpatriotic
becomes polls show American voters still
support Bush on issues of terrorism and Iraq
PES: Kerry is flip flopper
Effect: Long list of Republican Lies to itemize
becomes Kerry changing his mind
about what the issues are.
Issue:Anybody but Bush
PES: Kerry is a weak candidate
Effect: Internal Democratic
anybody but Kerry
weakens base support,
Bush is perceived as strong
and effective rather than
stubborn and incompetent
Issue: Debates
PES: Bush is ahead in the polls,
Kerry as underdog needs to win
Effect: post debate spin builds on
pre debate polling
It’s like that
Gallup, Strategic, Vision,
Survey USA, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN,
Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post
all use the same old discredited
methodology.
Zogby, ARG, Rasmussen, TIPP/CSM,
and others that match their sampling
to the actual demographics get
better results.
Having polsters, pundits and
reporters less knowledgable about
the election than the people
who get their information from
the net is something new.
The next step would be to get to
the point where what we know
get’s disseminated with the same
force as cable news and radio.
Talking points should be poll
skewing not rules of debate.