The new Gallup poll shows the race moving in Kerry’s direction. In their last poll, October 14-16, they showed Bush with a 4 point lead, 50-46 in their 2-way RV matchup. This poll, conducted October 22-24, has Bush’s lead shrinking to a single point (49-48).
Even Gallup’s bogus LV sample has Bush’s lead shrinking from its outlandish 8 points in the previous poll to a merely unbelievable 5 points in the current poll. (Of course, USA Today–shame on them!–leads with and heavily emphasizes the LV results in their story on the new poll.)
Subgroup analysis of the Gallup RV data shows several patterns very favorable to the Kerry campaign:
1. Kerry leads among independents by 5, 49-44.
2. Kerry leads among moderates by 18, 57-35.
3. Kerry leads in the battleground states by 2, 49-47, and Bush’s approval rating in these same states has sunk to 46 percent.
On to November 2.
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.
Can someone explain why–as repeatedly reported– if Kerry leads among independents, moderates, new voters, young voters, women voters, etc, Bush has any lead at all? Aside from men voters, where is Bush’s support coming from? Thanks!
I don’t think you can trust these “tracking” polls. They’re conducted in a way that maximizes efficiency, not robust sampling. In order to reach a desirable number of completes, they simply burn through sample, meaning that they don’t make callbacks to numbers that do not answer. This greatly increases non-response bias and representativeness.
This isn’t about polls but is about post election strategy. I’m a lawyer and have done voting rights for 30 years. I have little confidence in the courts to handle the election contests in a non-partisan way. For simplicity imagine a repeat of 2000; massive voter suppression, court challenges, court rulings on partisan lines with incredible opinions. Then what? Like last time, Democrats fold up their tents and say nice non-partisan unfifying things and turn our democracy over to the anti-democracy party for four more years? Follow John Lewis to a sit-in in Washington?
ABC, Washington Post and Rasmussen all have Kerry UP in the race as of Monday.
I’d call that a good trend.
Bush’s team knows they are in trouble, which is why they are focusing on getting out their base and suppressing vote. They know they need to get all their people out AND stop Kerry voters by the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
Evidently Zogby had a very weird polling day for Bush on Saturday. On that day, Bush had a 7 point lead. It’s a clear outlier, because no other poll is showing this type of movement in either direction. However, Zogby has also said that in the Sunday poll, Kerry was up by two points. Friday numbers will be dropped off tomorrow, so I would expect the 3% margin to either remain the same or decrease slighly. On Wednesday, though, you will see a much bigger movement towards Kerry.
I think Ruy posted below about the volatility of the daily tracking polls and how they can have wild swings. If that’s what you mean, scroll down.
As Steve Soto points out at the Left Coaster, this is actually even better news than it seems. The internals of the current Gallup sample show that it is even more biased in favor of Republicans, but yet Bush’s lead went down! More Republicans, less support! Yow, that’s gotta hurt.
Zogby posted their one day results for Friday and Saturday nights. Bush took Friday 49-46, Bush also took Saturday 50-43. However, the three day rolling average for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday has Bush up 48-45. This means that Kerry took Sunday 46-45. Let’s give the poll at least two more days to flush the 49 and 50 out of the rolling average. Then we’ll see how good the President-select is doing.
Btw, WP has Kerry up 49-48 and Rasmussen has Kerry up 48-46. Gallup has Bush up by only 1 point among registered voters, with Kerry up by 2 in the Battleground States.
What was the party ID breakdown? Steve Soto has a post up, and says that Ruy Teixeira contacted him with a correction of sorts, but Soto doesn’t explain what the correction is. Can Mr. Teixeira clue us in? (Soto, at “The LEft Coaster,” has a post up saying Gallup’s party IDs are even worse than before, but then has an update — based on Teixeira — which seems to question his own post.)
I am scratching my head over some of the internals on the recentl polls. Zogby has Bush
leading among Independents by 12%. CBS
and Gallup according to this latest poll have
Kerry up by 5% by Independents. The only
explanation I can think of for this anamoly is
sampling error or respondents are making up
answers to all of the poll calls. They must be
getting tired of the calls. I am a political junkie
and I am growing wearing of these polls
What’s up with Zogby? Are they still weighting according to 2000 exit polls (democrat advantage in sample)? If so, shouldn’t their current numbers be cause for concern?
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thats what i thought but then i looked up the 2000 poll of 9 days before the election and it showed the same 3 point bush lead that we see now.
It doesnt mean anything, its all within the margin of error.
I have the same concerns as chillmoth. Gallup is one thing, but Zogby is a more reliable organization, and they have Bush pulling ahead. Is there any reason not to be troubled by this, aside from the 50% rule which Zogby says might not be in play this year?
Gallup?
I call them Foul-up.
They’re doing the same thing they did four years ago. They’re showing Bush up, but they will close it to 2-3 points in a week and act like that makes up for bogus reports the past 3 months.
Both Kerry and Castor pull ahead in Florida.
http://www.surveyusa.com/currentelectionpolls.html
Sometimes poll respondents are reluctant to express their true opinion.
1) They are talking to a stranger who may not be a legitimate pollster. Few people have heard of more than a few of the 20+ national polling organizations.
2) There may be someone else in the room listening, a person not sharing their opinion.
3) There is a reluctance to “go negative” on an an incumbent President. Especially if one is uncertain about who is calling.
In most urban areas. It is easy to acknowledge support of Democrats, even Nader. But in a suburban or rural community, it can invite unwanted attention if supporting anyone other than the Republicans.
The ballot is secret, but in telephone polling, Democrat support may be understated.
What’s up with Zogby? Are they still weighting according to 2000 exit polls (democrat advantage in sample)? If so, shouldn’t their current numbers be cause for concern?