John Kerry and George Bush are tied at 47 percent of nation-wide RV’s on the eve of the second presidential debate, according to an AP-Ipsos Public Affairs Poll conducted 10/4-6. (Kerry leads Bush 50-46 percent among LV’s)
According to AP’s Ron Fournier, “Fewer voters than a month ago believe Bush is the best man to protect the country and fight the war.
“The AP-Ipsos Public Affairs poll, completed on the eve of the second presidential debate, charted a reversal from a month ago, when the Republican incumbent had the momentum and a minuscule lead. Since then, bloodshed increased in Iraq, Kerry sharpened his attacks and Bush stumbled in their initial debate.
“Nearly three-fourths of likely voters said they had watched or listened to the first presidential debate last week, according to the poll. Only 8 percent came away with a more favorable view of Bush while 39 percent said they felt better about Kerry.”
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 17: A Closer Look at the “Uniparty” Fable
RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York:
Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by calling (relative) moderates “DINOs,” “ConservaDems,” or — back when maximum resistance to George W. Bush was de rigueur — “Vichy Democrats.”
Today the term “Uniparty” has come to denote the idea that Democrats and Republicans are actually working for the same evil Establishment enterprise, their loudly proclaimed differences being a mere sham. This contention was the culmination of a five-page letter Marjorie Taylor Greene recently sent her Republican colleagues calling for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s removal, unless he changes his ways instantly. She wrote:
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership.’ This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority …
“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party – we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also leaned heavily into the Uniparty idea in his recent speech introducing running-mate Nicole Shanahan:
“Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democrat and Republican duopoly that gave us ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns, mandates, agency capture, and censorship. This is the same Trump/Biden Uniparty that has captured and appropriated our democracy and turned it over to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and their other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against Uniparty rule from both ends of the traditional Right vs. Left political spectrum.”
The Uniparty claim is ridiculous, of course, as FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley demonstrates:
“[O]ur current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
Kennedy’s subscription to the Uniparty notion is understandable on two points. The first is that his candidacy is vastly more likely to tilt the 2024 presidential campaign in the direction of one of the two major-party candidates (likely Donald Trump, according to most of the polling) than to actually succeed in winning the presidency. Maintaining that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Trump running the country is essential to maintaining RFK’s appeal as November approaches and the futility of his bid becomes clearer. Second, Kennedy’s pervasive conspiracy-theory approach to contemporary life lends itself to the argument that the apparent gulf between the two major parties is a ruse disguising a sinister common purpose.
MTG’s Uniparty contention also reflects dual motives. In part she is simply echoing Trump’s weird but useful contention that he’s an “outsider” battling a Deep-State Establishment that secretly controls both parties, which is pretty rich since he dominates the GOP like Genghis Khan dominated the Golden Horde. But there is a marginally more legitimate sense in which key elements of the two parties really are in line with each other on isolated issues that happen to obsess Greene, such as aid to Ukraine. If you are a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail.
The same is true of other implicit Uniparty claims, particularly those made by progressive pro-Palestinian protesters who adamantly argue that the need to smite “Genocide Joe” Biden for his pro-Israel policies outweighs all the reasons it might be a bad idea to help Trump return to the White House (including the fact that Trump is palpably indifferent to Palestinian suffering). If the two parties do not appear to differ on your overriding issue, then the fundamental reality of polarization can fade into irrelevance.
So we’re likely to hear more Uniparty talk even as Democrats and Republicans head toward another highly fractious election with very high stakes attributable to their differences.
the correct link for WSJ’s battleground poll results page is this one:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-frameset.html
On the Truman-Dewey race in 1948.
This is a classic that has long been taught in survey research courses — and there are some interesting points that suggest things to consider this year.
First of all, the last Gallup poll was conducted in mid October. It did not pick up Harry Truman’s passionate late campaign by rail, and it did not pick up the near collapse of the Wallace campaign in the last weeks. Remember, 1948 was a 4 way campaign, Truman and Dewey, plus Strom Thurmon on the Dixiecrat ticket, and Henry Wallace running as a progressive.
But the real polling era was Gallup’s — they had not considered the need to adjust their polling results to the vast demographic changes that were the result of World War II. In many respects, they still operated off demographics from the 1940 census — and the War had changed lots of things.
In particular, Northern Industrial States had many precincts that were 3-4 times as populus post war as pre-war. But housing was scarse, and people were living doubled and tripled up. THIS WAS PARTICULARLY TRUE IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY. With the labor movement putting massive effort into registeration and GOTV that year — Industrial worker precincts were way underpolled given their population.
But it was really the Black Community that made the critical difference. In fact, Gallup did not really poll blacks, and it employed no black interviewers, and apparently they just assumed Blacks were Republican. But that wasn’t true any more. Blacks who had migrated from the South — from can’t vote states to places like illinois and PA where the CIO would actually take them down to register after work — fully understood Truman had started to integrate the services, supported Fair Employment Practices, had voted in the Senate for the anti-Lynching laws — and most important, had the courtesy to ask for votes. It’s the moment of the “big switch” which had been underway for some years. Blacks turned out big time in 1948, and provided the margin in Industrial States that put them over the top for Truman.
In many ways this election could be somewhat parallel to 48 in that the technology change from land lines to cell phones could be systematicly missing a significant segment of the electorate. Likewise, I am not certain we yet know how the GOTV strategies of this year are going to work.
Bill,
I’m not sure why, but it takes time for changes in national polling to be reflected in polling from individual states. The states usually lag the national trends. However, electoral-vote.com, for what it’s worth, has it Kerry 253 Bush 264. Not bad.
Actually, Kerry’s further ahead in the electoral college than he is in the general population.
Things are looking better for Kerry in the polls but he still shows quite a bit behind in the electorial college. It seems like if he is nearly tied in the polls he should be tied in the college.
I know this blog is for polling, but below is an interesting article that I think sums up the campaign from here on out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1322354,00.html
Also, demtom, back in 1948 they basically didn’t poll undecideds, and many of the national polls vastly overrepresented the pro-Dewey northeast.
Thoughtful comment Ramdan and I would add that it all depends on the distribution of a relatively small number of voters in a small number of swing states. A nail biter, at this point anyway.
I certainly hope the tightness of the race is giving Nader voters pause.
More pro Kerry polls for Iowa, Minnesota, Florida, Wisconsin and New Mexico…
http://actforvictory.org/act.php/truth/articles/new_swing_state_polling_from_america_coming_together/
Enjoy.
-DS
This is going to be a breakout year for voting. High registration, high motivation (on both sides) and improved GOTV efforts will result in the highest participation we have seen.
Polls aren’t able to track the new voters that only have cell phones, or don’t meet the likely voter filter. Frankly, that filter is clogged, and needs to be cleaned. This year is nog going to conform to the model of previous years.
It’s close now, but the momentum has shifted. Be careful of pitfalls, and watch out for an Octuba surprise.
Bush basically has done a terrible job in the last 4 years, so he doesn’t have much to run on. This week his best reason for invading Iraq was blown out of the water. His post invasion strategy was shown to be flawed. And he showed his ugly scowl to over 60,000,000 on tv.
The Los Angeles Times had an editorial on Thursday, October 7, 2004 saying
“Is He a Dope?
Although neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don’t support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright. This suspicion was not allayed by Bush’s answers in the first presidential debate a week ago.”
There’s no good news for Bush in this poll. None.
Waiting for some comments on the WSJ-Zogby Battleground Poll completed yesterday:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/interactive.wsj.com/us_business_news;famil=news;s0=;s1=;s2=;u=ThuOct7120553EDT2004019722341;meta=DEN;sz=120×600;ptile=1;ord=11385113851138511385
Adding in all leaners within margin of error gives Kerry the win with 322 to Bush’s 216. Removing the states within the margin of error puts it Kerry: 243 electoral votes to Bush: 189. This appears to be the largest number of electoral votes outside of the margin of error for either candidate since Kerry’s 252 on 7/12. (Other previous bests are 235 for Kerry on 8/2 to Bush’s 225 on 8/23.)
WSJ’s analysis basically tries to undermine some of the poll they sponsored. Interesting.
-DS
using this poll and all other nationals polls via pollingreport.com
Difference of 1.16%
bush 47.6
kerry 46.5
not using polls if they are greater than 2 STDEVs from mean
bush 47.33
kerry 46.66
its a 0.66% difference. if we expect 110,000,000 voters than thats a difference of just 730,000 people
I think Bush is very close to the “tipping point” where things will quickly start to unravel. If Kerry crushes Bush in Friday’s debate, which i believe he will, the momentum might be unstoppable. As GWB’s platform is built upon a bed of lies, his campaign might crash harder than all of us suspect.
Well, this is certainly encouraging news for Kerry, although I don’t know what to think about the reason(s) for it. Too late for a post-debate bounce from last week. Is there any such thing as a pre-debate bounce?
This has been a week from hell for the GOP on Iraq. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney continue to insist that Saddam might not have had weapons or the means to develop them, but he WANTED them, so the war was the right thing to do. And, by the way, everything’s goin’ fine. Maybe LVs and RVs across the country are starting to think that the president and vice-president have actually lost their minds.
I’ll tell you what, though. This polling roller coaster is starting to drive me crazy. November 2 can’t get here fast enough. I can’t take much more of this.
Has anyone created an algorithm that translates a popluar vote into the most probable electoral vote? Is that even possible?
Are we supposed to be looking at poll results from likely voters or not? Isn’t Bush over 50% in any poll bad news….
I’ve asked this question elsewhere and never got an answer: has there ever been a time when an incumbent trailed in a serious presidential poll this close to an election and came back to win? I suppose Truman would be one case, though apparently, back then, pollsters stopped surveying right after Labor Day, believing opinion was solidified by then. It strikes me as a very ominous sign for Bush.
It’s hard to find any polls at this point that give Bush 50% or better; the only distinction among the varoius polls is how low Bush’s number goes (somewhere from 45 to 49), and how much of the opposition has so far declared for Kerry. Zogby, for instance, has it Bush 46/Kerry 44, but his profile of the undecided makes it clear they’re most Kerry votes waiting to happen.
Meantime, the reports of new registrations read like a DNC fantasy. If these numbers translate into real turnout gains in November, we could be looking at something extraordinary.
Okay, note to self: turn off the excitement meter and hunker down. 26 grueling days to go.