John Kerry can make major gains among key demographic groups of discontented white voters: women blue and pink collar workers; rural voters; those under age 30; and senior women, according to a study of post-Labor Day polls by Democracy Corps reported 9/28. The study also identified other demographic groups Kerry should target for significant gains.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 20: What Biden Should Say If He “Steps Aside”
In all the talk about whether Joe Biden should “step aside,” there hasn’t been enough discussion of the rationale he should present if he does so. So I offered one at New York:
The Democratic Party’s semi-public bickering over what to do with Joe Biden needs to come to an end very soon, lest it turn into a horrific party-rending conflict or a de facto surrender to Donald Trump. While he can technically be pushed out of the nomination, it would be nightmarishly difficult to do so given his virtually unopposed performance in the primaries and the lack of precedent for anything like a forced defenestration of a sitting president. It would also express disloyalty to a brave and dedicated leader. But Biden has already lost the united, confident party he needed to make a comeback. He’s trailing in the polls right now. And even more importantly, his own conduct and fitness for office will command center stage for the rest of the general-election campaign, which is precisely what he cannot afford given his poor job-approval ratings and the sour mood of the electorate.
So Joe needs to go of his own accord, and it needs to happen quickly before Republican and Biden-loyalist claims of a “coup” become all too credible. But it’s obviously a humiliating exercise. So if Biden comes to realize the futility of going forward, what can this proud and stubborn man say that will make him something other than an object of derision or pity?
I have a simple answer: He can tell the truth.
The truth is that Biden’s firm commitment to the pursuit of a second term, despite his advanced age and increased frailty, hardened into inflexible determination when Trump made his own decision to launch an initially unlikely comeback. When Biden took office, Trump was a disgraced insurrectionist whose very defenders in his second impeachment trial mostly denounced his conduct, even as they urged acquittal on technical grounds. The 46th president was in a position to serve one distinguished “transitional” term and retire with a wary eye on his fellow retiree festering in anger and self-righteousness in Mar-a-Lago. But as Trump slowly recovered and eventually reemerged as a more dominant figure than ever in a MAGA-fied Republican Party, Biden became convinced that as the only politician ever to defeat Donald Trump, he had the responsibility to do it again and the ability to remind voters why they rejected the 45th president in 2020.
As this strange election year ripened, Biden had a perfectly plausible strategy for victory based on keeping a steady public focus on Trump’s lawless conduct (including actual crimes), his erratic record, and extremist intentions for a perilous second term. The polls were close and Biden wasn’t very popular, but these surveys also showed a durable majority of the electorate that really didn’t want to return Trump to power, particularly as economic conditions improved and the consequences of Trump’s Supreme Court appointments grew more shockingly apparent each day.
Then came the June 27 debate, and suddenly Biden lost the ability to make the election about Trump. He needs to look into a camera and say just that, and conclude that just as the threat posed by Trump motivated him to run for a second term, the threat posed by Trump now requires that he withdraw so that a successor can make the case he can’t make as he’s become the object of endless speculation about his age and cognitive abilities. Biden does not need to resign the presidency, since his grounds for withdrawing his candidacy are about perceptions and politics rather than any underlying incapacity. Biden would be withdrawing as a weakened candidate, not as a failed president.
For this withdrawal to represent a stabilizing event for his administration and his party, it’s critical that Biden not equivocate or complain, and that he show his mastery of the situation by clearly passing the torch to the vice-president he chose four years ago. For all the talk of an “open convention” being exciting (for pundits) and energizing (for the winner), the last thing Democrats need right now is uncertainty. No matter what the polls show and how badly his old friends want him to succeed, it’s the prospect of 100 days of terror every time Biden makes unscripted remarks that is feeding both elite and rank-and-file sentiment that a change at the top of the ticket is necessary. The fear and confusion needs to end now, and Biden effectively made his choice of a successor when he made Kamala Harris his governing partner. The president needs to reassert his agency now, not look like he is abandoning his party and his country to the winds of fate.
A straightforward and honest admission of why Biden 2024 is coming to an end could go a very long way toward enabling Harris and other Democrats to shift the nation’s gaze back to the ranting old man whose acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention showed that he has not mellowed or moderated at all. Of course Biden wants to solidify and extend his legacy over the next four years. But right now, the clear and present danger is that it will be extinguished altogether. He alone can address that threat, not as a candidate, but as a president and a patriot who recognizes his duty.
I think Bush is ahead, but only by a couple of points. The country wants change, but isn’t sold on Kerry. Remember, it was only on election day 1980 that a race that was truly to close to call suddenly became a landslide for Reagan. In hte Carter/Reagan race the only pollster who got it right was President Carter’s polster Pat Caddell
Jazz
I don’t know who will win this one, but if Zogby shows Kerry ahead in a couple of weeks or more, you’d better listen to Aretha Franklin and give the Zogster r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
Find out what it means to me and roughly half the electorate.
He’s got the track record. Gallup does not.
From another jazz fan.
Another thing. Although I haven’t been too optimistic about Kerry’s chances in the past, some things have given me pause lately. The debates: Kerry’s expectations have been so lowered for these debates he can’t but exceed them. It looks like he’ll “win” no matter what happens, unless he spontaneously combusts. Secondly, Bush’s numbers seem to have mostly topped around 47%-48%. It’s almost as if he can’t get much higher. Kerry’s lower numbers may simply be a function of a de-energized base. If the debates re-energize them, his numbers will come roaring back.
Yeah, Zogby has a new poll out – Kerry has all the momentum now.
DanF, if proves they’re counting too many Republicans and not enough Dems.
I noticed something interesting about the 9/27 WaPo poll that gives Bush a 7 point lead:
Poll results by region
Bush and Cheney
East 44%
Midwest 58%
South 55%
West 41%
All 51%
Kerry and Edwards
East 51%
Midwest 35%
South 41%
West 53%
All 44%
So, if we are to believe this, Kerry leads large in the east and the west – the most populous regions of the country. The south is split very close to the “All”, so the only place that is lopsided is the Midwest. The LEAST populate region of the country. If we look at the most populated midwest states, it’s close in Ohio, but it’s a Kerry blow out in Illinois. It’s close in Michigan (but still solid Kerry lead). So what to make of this? People who live in populated regions DON’T talk to polsters.
And remember, people who live in populated regions are overwhelmingly Democrats.
Zogby just released a poll among under-30 males that does not look good for Bush. Sounds like another ripe target for Dems.
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=871
To anyone and everyone who’s getting down about our chances or who’s worried, let me remind you:
Back in December 2003, Dean was said to be inevitable, and everybody had written off Kerry as the “dead man walking,” with no chance of winning.
But then, he and Edwards (also written off) clobber both of the suposed “leading” candidates in Iowa (Dean and Gephardt). When they say Kerry closes the deal they mean it.
Man, I can’t wait to see all the pollsters and talking heads who wrote off Kerry eat crow like they did last year.
Re:
“New Study Targets Key Groups for Kerry Gains”
To this non-statistician and Kerry supporter this doesn’t sound very rosy for Dems. Am I missing something?