By Alan Abramowitz
I just received the following message from a colleague at another university who is totally trustworthy:
“I have friend who is a co-chair of the Bush Cheney campaign. Rove believes that Bush needs to have a 4 point lead going into the last weekend to win given the undecideds that will break againt the president.”
TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 26: Kennedy Now Taking As Many Votes From Trump As From Biden
Polls are showing a subtle but potentially important shift that I discussed at New York:
For a while there, the independent ticket of ex-Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan seemed to be taking crucial votes away from Democrat Joe Biden, at least as indicated by comparing three-way and five-way (with Cornel West and Jill Stein) polls to head-to-head matchups of the incumbent and Donald Trump. Now, even as Biden has all but erased his polling deficit against Trump, he’s getting some more good news in surveys that include other candidates.
Two recent major national polls show Biden running better in a five-way than a two-way race. According to NBC News, Biden moves from two points down to two points up when the non-major-party candidates are included. In the latest Marist poll, Biden leads Trump by three points head-to-head and by five points in a five-way race. Since left-bent candidates West and Stein are pulling 5 percent in the former poll and 4 percent in the latter (presumably taking very few votes from Trump), you have to figure Kennedy is beginning to cut into the MAGA vote to an extent that should get Team Trump’s attention. And it has, NBC News reports:
“Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’s confident that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will pull more votes away from President Joe Biden than from him — a net win for the Republican’s candidacy.
“’He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine,’Trump wrote on Truth Social late last month. ‘I love that he is running!’
“Behind closed doors, however, Trump is less sure. A Republican who was in the room with Trump this year as he reviewed polling said Trump was unsure how Kennedy would affect the race, asking the other people on hand whether or not Kennedy was actually good for his candidacy.”
Politico notes that Kennedy is drawing higher favorability numbers from Republican voters than from Democratic ones, which could indicate a higher ceiling for RFJ Jr. among Trump defectors. And it’s generally assumed from his past performances that there is a lower ceiling on Trump’s support than on Biden’s; he needs to be able to win with significantly less than a majority of the popular vote, as one Republican told Politico:
“’If the Trump campaign doesn’t see this as a concern, then they’re delusional,’ Republican consultant Alice Stewart said. ‘They should be looking at this from the standpoint that they can’t afford to lose any voters — and certainly not to a third-party candidate that shares some of [Trump’s] policy ideas.’”
One likely reason that Kennedy could be appealing to Republicans is the residual effect from the positive attention he received from conservative media when he was running against Biden in the Democratic primaries; his identification with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories also resonates more positively on the right side of the political spectrum than the left. So it’s in the interest of Team Trump to begin telling the former president’s sympathizers that RFK Jr. is actually a lefty, and that started happening recently, as the New York Times reported: “Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pointed in particular to Mr. Kennedy’s views on climate change and the environment, writing on his social media site that Mr. Kennedy was more ‘radical Left’ than Mr. Biden.”
The idea, of course, is not only to discourage potential Trump voters from drifting toward the independent candidate, but to encourage potential Biden voters to consider a Kennedy vote.
If Kennedy continues to draw votes from both Biden and Trump, each of their campaigns will need to make a strategic decision about how to deal with him: Do you ignore him and count on the usual fade in support afflicting non-major-party presidential candidates as Election Day nears, or do you attack him as too far left (if you’re Trump) or too far right (if you’re Biden) and try to make him a handicap to your major-party opponent? The more aggressive approach has become common among Democrats seeking to intervene in Republican primaries (or in the recent case of the California Senate race, a nonpartisan top-two primary) by loudly attacking candidates they’d prefer to face in the general election, encouraging Republicans to flock to the supposed menace to progressivism. This kind of tactic — if deployed with some serious dollars — could have an effect on Kennedy’s base of support.
Certainly Trump seems to be considering it. With his usual practice of saying the quiet part out loud, Trump opined: “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden, because he’s frankly more in line with Democrats.”
Trying to minimize losses to Kennedy and maximize opposite-party votes for Kennedy could become a routine practice down the stretch. Where and by whom this strategy is pursued will depend in part on where RFK Jr. is ultimately on the ballot. Right now he has nailed down ballot access in just two states, Utah and Michigan. CBS News reports the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket is close to securing a spot on the November ballot in a number of other states:
“Kennedy’s campaign says it has completed signature gathering in seven other states in addition to Utah and Michigan — Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nebraska and Iowa.
“The super PAC supporting Kennedy, American Values 2024, says it has collected enough signatures in Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina.”
Coping with Kennedy could become a game of three-dimensional chess between the Biden and Trump campaigns. But if it begins to look like RFK Jr. has become an existential threat to Democrats or to Republicans, you can bet they’ll go medieval on him without even a moment’s hesitation.
Cranky Observer–
I am starting to wonder the same thing. Rove grossly underestimated the amount of money the
Democrats would raise when he laid out this campaign two years ago. I think we can definitely expect some negative tricks and meanness, but as far as having a pulse on the American people, I think Karen Hughes is more the person we should be watching out for. Has anyone else noticed that Bush has been better since she rejoined the campaign in earnest? She definitely has the emotional pulse of some of Bush’s base. Old stories here in Texas were of the rivalry between Hughes and Rove…wonder if they are true.
The Democrats just need to move quickly as these things arrive, or throw out some things of their own first, so that Bush is more on the defensive…
I think Rove’s recent appearances on talk shows, etc…shows that they are getting a little panicky.
We just need to keep working–fast and furious!
> We can be assured that Rove’s end game
> ground war will be ruthless, unethical, viscious and
> full-bore.
I have a harder and harder time accepting the “Rove as evil genius”, with the emphasis on genius, meme. As Markos has observed, Kerry managed to evaporate $200 million worth of pre-nomination spending in 90 minutes at the first debate. And if Rove has some genius-like October surprise he has exactly 16 days and ticking to pull it off, which isn’t much.
Cranky
Like Teresa, I’m a little concerned. After reading the NYT Bush profile by Suskind, I’m also fearful that this info from Rove could be a strategic sideways leak. There was some scary talk in that article about volumes of new registrations coming from churches, and a figure of 4 million adamantly pro-Bush evangelicals who WERE NOT registered in 2000.
We can be assured that Rove’s end game ground war will be ruthless, unethical, viscious and full-bore.
Let’s not let ourselves be lulled by ANY Kerry numbers’ strength into not giving our fullest GOTV effort — and then some.
I think the 4 point margin to protect against the expected uncommitted/independent break for the challenger makes great sense. It’s just logical given the well established pattern among late deciders.
We must be on the look-out for whatever Rove has in mind to get himself a 4 point margin in the next two weeks. Right now he is either tied or down a couple of points.
It seems clear that Rove needs an actual lead and an average turnout. My only question is, what day will the inevitable terror alert come out—-1, 2, or 3 days before the election? And will it specifically involve Ohio? This seems the most likely October surprise.
The question everybody needs to be asking is where is Bush going to get any NEW voters?? Remember he lost the populat vote in 2000 and there hasn’t been any announcements about any voting block that has changed their minds about him since 2000.. Its just not in the numbers and he know its.. I do believe, millions of republicans will crossover and vote for Kerry..
Sounds like classic Rove disinfo.
My read is the opposite: the Republican campaign on Kerry has sowed enough doubts in swing voters’ minds, that unless Kerry is at least 2 points ahead going into election day then he might well lose.
Also there is the Ralph Nader factor.
It seems to be coming down to Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Of which Kerry seems to be closing the deal with PA, but losing OH and Fla. W. Virginia seems to already be gone.
WI is the other likely defector to the Bush camp: that remark about Lambert v. Lambeau field has cost Kerry big time with Green Bay fans, apparently (Kerry got it wrong).
I hope I am wrong, and I sense real disquiet about Bush amongst the (Republican) parents of my American friends (in London) but the world opinion is so solidly against Bush (except in Israel) that I think it blinds us to the reality.
I wait for Rove’s October Surprise, and expect it will be a doozy.
Does anyone know why http://www.pollingreport.com only reports the “likely voters” poll numbers on their website and not the “registered voters” poll numbers?
Dear Alan,
My first reaction was to this inside scoop that the Bush campaign believes it needs a 4 point lead going in was elation. My second was to suspect that that this was a rumor purposely placed by the Bush campaign. Mr. Rove is famous for this type of tactic. Please don’t let hope distract us from working our tails off for the next three weeks!
Ruy, very interesting comment from Rove.
Check this out…
Oct 17, 2004
John Kerry for President
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?oref=login&pagewanted=1&hp
Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It’s on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.
Was it not Rove who, way back in 2000, raised eyebrows when he said that Bush would, “win in a walk”? What a difference four years make, eh?
That’s really not clear enough. If Bush has a 4 pt lead in the nat’l head to heads, but less than that in the swing states that give Kerry 270, then Bush won’t win.
Apparently Rove doesn’t want to talk about the “T” word (turnout) either. Consideriing the margins Bush had in 2000 in the last week, what he really needs is fairly consistent margins across polls, and possibly one of 5-8 points.
Question on polls.
The campaigns seem to have sharper, and perhaps different, polling results. I infer this from comments such as that which this post attributes to Karl Rove. It must mean that Rove/BC04 have a different idea of who the “likely voters” are than that of the nationally published pollsters.
Why is that so?