John Kerry Leads George Bush 49-47 percent of nation-wide LV’s, according to a Democracy Corps Poll conducted 10/20-21. The Poll also found that Kerry leads Bush 52-45 percent of LV’s in Battleground states and has a 50-41 percent lead among Independent LV’s.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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May 26: DeSantis Stumbles Out of the Gate
Like everyone else, I listened to DeSantis’s botched Twitter Spaces launch, but then reached some conclusions about the trajectory of his campaign at New York:
Before long, the laughter over the technical glitches that marred Ron DeSantis’s official presidential campaign launch with Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces will fade. We’ll all probably look back and place this moment in better perspective. Political-media folk (not to mention DeSantis’s Republican rivals and Democratic enemies) tend to overreact to “game changing” moments in campaigns when fundamentals and long-term trends matter infinitely more. Relatively few actual voters were tuned in to Twitter to watch the botched launch, and even fewer will think less of DeSantis as a potential president because of this incident.
It mattered in one respect, however: The screwed-up launch stepped all over a DeSantis campaign reset designed to depict the Florida governor as a political Death Star with unlimited funds and an unbeatable strategy for winning the GOP nomination. The reset was important to rebut the prevailing story line that DeSantis had lost an extraordinary amount of ground since the salad days following his landslide reelection last year, when he briefly looked to be consolidating partywide support as a more electable and less erratic replacement for Donald Trump. For reasons both within and beyond his control, he missed two critical strategic objectives going into the 2024 race: keeping the presidential field small enough to give him a one-on-one shot at Trump and keeping Trump from reestablishing himself as the front-runner with an air of inevitability about a third straight nomination.
To dissipate growing concerns about the DeSantis candidacy, the top chieftains of his Never Back Down super-PAC let it be known earlier this week that they had a plan that would shock and awe the political world, based on their extraordinary financial resources (fed by an $80 million surplus DeSantis transferred from his Florida reelection campaign account). The New York Times wrote up the scheme without questioning its connection to reality:
“A key political group supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter-outreach push so big it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the kickoff Iowa caucuses.
“The effort is part of an on-the-ground organizing operation that intends to hire more than 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day, an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns….
“The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million.”
In case the numbers didn’t properly document the audacity of this plan, Team DeSantis made it explicit. The Times report continues:
“‘No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,’ said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. ‘This has just never even been dreamed up.’” …
At the helm of the DeSantis super PAC is Jeff Roe, a veteran Republican strategist who was Mr. [Ted] Cruz’s campaign manager in 2016. In an interview, Mr. Roe described an ambitious political apparatus whose 2,600 field organizers by the fall would be roughly double the peak of Senator Bernie Sanders’s entire 2020 primary campaign staff.
Clearly opening up the thesaurus to find metaphors for the extraordinary power and glory of their plans, one DeSantis operative told the Dispatch they were “light speed and light years ahead of any campaign out there, including Trump’s.”
Now more than ever, DeSantis’s campaign will have to prove its grand plans aren’t just fantasies. Those doors in Iowa really will have to be knocked. Thanks to Trump’s current lead, DeSantis will absolutely have to beat expectations there and do just as well in New Hampshire and South Carolina before facing an existential challenge in his and Trump’s home state of Florida. And while DeSantis had a good weekend in Iowa recently, picking up a lot of state legislative endorsements even as Trump canceled a rally due to bad weather that never arrived, he’s got a ways to go. A new Emerson poll of the first-in-the-nation-caucuses state shows Trump leading by an astonishing margin of 62 percent to 20 percent. And obviously enough, Iowa is where DeSantis will likely face the largest number of rivals aside from Trump; he’s a sudden surge from Tim Scott or Mike Pence or Nikki Haley or even Vivek Ramaswamy away from a real Iowa crisis.
Door knocking aside, a focus on Iowa, with its base-dominated caucus system and its large and powerful conservative Evangelical population, will likely force DeSantis to run to Trump’s right even more than he already has. The newly official candidate did not mention abortion policy during his launch event on Twitter; that will have to change, since he has a crucial opportunity to tell Iowa Evangelicals about the six-week ban he recently signed (similar, in fact, to the law Iowa governor Kim Reynolds enacted), in contrast to Trump’s scolding of the anti-abortion movement for extremism. DeSantis also failed once again to talk about his own religious faith, whatever it is; that will probably have to change in Iowa too. He did, however, talk a lot during the launch about his battle against the COVID-19 restrictions the federal government sought to impose on Florida even during the Trump administration. That will very likely continue.
The glitchy launch basically cost DeSantis whatever room for maneuvering he might have enjoyed as the 2024 competition begins to get very real — less than eight months before Iowa Republicans caucus (the exact date remains TBD). He’d better get used to spending a lot of time in Iowa’s churches and Pizza Ranches, and he also needs to begin winning more of the exchanges of potshots with Trump, which will only accelerate from here on out. All the money he has and all the hype and spin his campaign puts out won’t win the nomination now that Trump is fully engaged, and it sure doesn’t look like the 45th president’s legal problems will represent anything other than rocket fuel for his jaunt through the primaries. So for DeSantis, it’s time to put up or shut up.
Jim J:
Michael Jordan publicly supported Bill Bradley in 2000. I don’t have any other information on his past and current political activities.
“The Party ID, etc., all seem close to the known figures, but when asked for whom they voted in 2000, the Bush numbers significantly outnumber the Gore numbers, which doesn’t match what we know to be true.”
Obviously, people don’t like to admit they voted for the “loser” (even when the “loser” actually won).
Bush has been in the White House for the last 4 years, so many people remember voting for him who didn’t.
The Party ID, etc., all seem close to the known figures, but when asked for whom they voted in 2000, the Bush numbers significantly outnumber the Gore numbers, which doesn’t match what we know to be true.
Are the respondents misreporting, or is the poll oversampling Bush 2000 voters? Or is it something else?
Posted by James E. Powell at October 24, 2004 04:06 AM
==========================
oversampling Bush 2000 voters
IMO
DemDude :
I list polls from latest to earliest and do not count any from earlier than the 17th.
Also, I try to look more heavily at the ones that depict the situation of Nader being on or off the ballot accurately for the state.
Iowa:
Strategic Vision (GOP poll) shows Bush with a 1 point lead there (48-47)
Zogby with Nader shows Kerry up (48-51)
Mason Dixon shows Bush up 6 49-43.
M-d has been leaning heavily to Bush.
CONCLUSION. BUSH ISN’T UP 6. Look at the first number in each of these 49,48,48. That’s bad for the incumbent. Even M-D shows a bad # for Bush. Up 6 just doesn’t jibe. They’ve played with the definition of “Likely Voter” here most likely undersampling Kerry voters) Had they had Bush over 50, I might trust the up 6 a bit more.
Of the polls without Nader we have
Rasmussen Bush up 2 48-46
Central Surveys Kerry up 1 45-46
Strategic Vision Tie 46-46
Zogby Kerry up 48-51
(I dropped a Susa poll because even SUsa has changed it’s numbers 3 times.)
But even counting Susa’s poll Race.com projects Iowa within 5,000 votes. It’s definitely IN PLAY AND TOO CLOSE TO CALL.
Arkansas:
Polls with Nader (he’s on the ballot)
Opinion Research. Tie 48-48
Zogby Bush 50-48
Only polls this week with Nader on the ballot.
Usually 50 is the magic number. This appears a bit harder than Iowa.
Polls without Nader
Zogby Tie 49-49
Susa 51-46
Race 200’s projection model at the moment there has it within 300 votes!!! 300 votes!!! Send the Big Dog Boys!!! But given Bush over 50 in a couple polls, this one is actually going to be a bit harder than Iowa IMO.
Co: Cirulli Bush 48-42
Zogby Bush 49-48
Rasmussen Bush 50-45
Gallop, 51-45
Colorado is clearly an uphill fight but there’s some close races downticket there that are really close that Kerry can have an impact on. Plus, he can hit Nevada (Polls show the race closing there and New Mexico, pretty safe for Kerry, on the same trip.)
As to NC.
Rasmussen 51-45 Bush
Zogby 51-47 Bush
Susa 50-48 Bush
Only polls this week The Race.com model projected about a 200k Bush lead.
Not that Polls or Projections are completely accurate, It’s all about GOTV, GOTV, and NC is worth some effort, but the indication here is that NC will be a more difficult target than any of the other states you listed.
But I’d like to see him come down south. I’d make the drive over to R/D/CH just to see him. It really wouldn’t hurt to make a whistle stop in his travels between Florida and Ohio Would it???
Well, I don’t think that the Republican party as it is now could nominate a Pataki or a Guliiani. Those guys are too centerist for the right wing core.
I haven’t seen anything on what’s happening in the Colorado referendum on the allocation of electoral votes. The outcome could mean a crucial 4 EVs for Kerry. Does anybody have any info on how it’s looking?
Good article on front page of LA Times today about newly registered voters and how they might (or might not) affect the election.
You are assuming MJ is a Democrat. Do we know this to be true? Frankly I would tend to doubt it. He loves his money too much.
Obsessives (self included),
At some point you “just need to believe” – we all know we can find information on the web to assure or assail our desires. Someone mentioned “having a beer with Bush” — Yikes! First, you would need to be prescreened and agree to drink Coors – not on your life.
I too have had some peptic upset with Zogby, however, I am certain he will provide assurances as we move forward. I suspect today’s numbers will have us all a twitter. Relax and make sure to work on GOTV. Sanity will win out over Bush.
Jody
As something to demonstrate the subjectiveness of “Likely voters” there’s an article on Harris’s website today that says “Bush up by 8, or 2, depending on your definition of Likely Voter”.
Turns out if you include everyone who says they will “certainly vote”, Bush leads by 2 points. If you discard people aged 18 to 24 who were old enough to vote in 2000 but didn’t, Bush’s lead is 8 points.
LVs can’t be trusted as different pollsters have different definitions.
It’s been said before, but it needs to be said again. Kerry needs to squeeze in a visit to NC, which never makes the battleground state lists, but where he is closer to winning (down 3) than IA ( -6), CO (-7) and AR (-5), according to most recent polls. These three states all have less than half of NC’s electoral votes (15) and they don’t have a homeboy on the ticket. I suggest Kerry-Edwards work the Black turnout in Charlotte and/or Wilmington, maybe take along former tarheel Michael Jordan to generate some excitement.
I would be interested to know how Democracy Corps screens for likely voters. Because the Gallup Poll seven question screen effectively eliminates first time voters. According to Gallup if you didn’t vote last time, don’t vote regularly and don’t know where your polling location is (just three of the seven criteria) you are ipso facto not a Likely Voter. Which effectively eliminates any non-anal voter under the age of 22. I remember my polling location because I voted there last time (see questions 1 & 2), but I have moved frequently and have never worried about the possibility of not finding it in my new location. Indeed I am not sure how a first-time voter could even find that information out weeks before the election without a trip to the County Courthouse.
LV vs RV never hit the radar screen until the Times/Newsweek double-digit Bush lead took the Blogosphere by storm. And the emphasis since then has been on Republican over-sampling. But I looked at the screening criteria and said “Man, they are pretending like Rock the Vote and Howard Stern don’t even exist”.
I firmly believe the long mythical young voter/new voter is going to show up this time. So if other polling outfits are using a screen similar to Gallup’s for their LVs they are measuring waves in the lagoon and missing the breakers crashing on the reef.
I am curious about something that I have seen in several polls, and in Democracy Corps polls more than once.
The Party ID, etc., all seem close to the known figures, but when asked for whom they voted in 2000, the Bush numbers significantly outnumber the Gore numbers, which doesn’t match what we know to be true.
Are the respondents misreporting, or is the poll oversampling Bush 2000 voters? Or is it something else?
There are always differences between the polls. This year the race is close and some show Kerry with a small lead and others show Bush with a small lead.
If one was comfortably ahead of the other, the polls would still differ with each other but they would point to the same “winner.”
Anybody know what’s up with the Honolulu Advertiser poll out today saying Bush up by .7 in Hawaii?
Remember… John Zogby outright predicted John Kerry would win the election last week. It’s in an article posted on his website.
I used to wonder why everyone always said it had to be a southerner to win the election. Now I understand… the democrats have to be able to peel a couple of those southern states away to be competitive. Imagine how much easier this would be with some southern states in play. I hope the republicans don’t wise up and start nominating NY Republicans like Guiliani or Pataki. Imagine trying to do this without NY.
As an aside I’d like to say it makes me mad that Bush is in this because of the “I’d like to have a beer with him” factor. Yea, I have a lot of friends I like to have beers with, but I wouldn’t vote for any of them for president. I wish more people could see beyond this.
As another aside, I’d like to say as a New Yorker, this is the first time I’ve ever been rooting for the Boston Red Sox. Good win tonight!
Justin
I wonder how much an impact Clinton can have.
Assuming Clinton can make a limited number of appearances, it is best for him to go to campaign rallies or would it be better for him to appear on Oprah, Leno or Larry King?
I’m not in a swing state, so I may be biased, but I would love to see the Big Dog on national television talking about his recovery and talking up Kerry.
But I would be satisfied if one of you fancy pollsters would explain why local news events in swing states can be more helpful than national appearances.
It’s all a matter of mental toughness. Fellow Dems need to stay frosty and keep working. You don’t see the Repubs getting all squirrelly when things get tight . . . we shouldn’t either Be prepared for anything. As long as Bush’s approval ratings stay low, Kerry is in good shape.
And help get out the vote!!
If I survive the anxiety bred by the uncertainty of this period and see John Kerry inaugurated as the 44th POTUS, it will be largely due Emerging Democratic Majority. Ruy Teixeira’s sanity keeps hope alive.
But I continue to be confused and troubled over the disparities between polls. I LOVE the Democracy Corps Polls because they put Kerry ahead. Of course I accept their results as the true picture. Yet a rolling poll published by Zogby/Reuters this morning Reuters had Bush up by 2 points. I hate Zogby/Reuters! How can there be so such differences between polls?
I am confident that the discrepancies in the polls this year will be fodder for survey experts for years to come.