John Kerry leads George Bush among LV’s in OH +2 and NJ +8, but lags behind George Bush in MO -6, NV -7 and VA -4, according to a new series of polls by SurveyUSA, conducted 10/16-18.
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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.
Where does Zogby say Bush is leading? I heard Kerry leading in all battleground. Is it a Texas thing? I looked over the site. I read on Kos that early voting favored D. Can someone find some public data?
Here are the new battleground states according to Zogby:
Four New Battleground States
Colorado – Bush 2000
Arizona – Bush 2000
North Carolina – Bush 2000
Virginia – Bush 2000
I find that surprising the positive Bush vote reports given the poll trends. NC? VA? In Play? With R incumbent? This is amazing.
And the real Big Dog is on the case – Bill Clinton in action.
Excellent news to see OH moving in Kerry’s favor. We get Ohio or Florida, and it’s a done deal. I think the seniors in Florida will break for Kerry giving us the edge their as well.
It was so hard to see the country clearly in Bush’s favor months ago, praying that people would wake up and see things for what they were. I believe deep down that most everyone believes that Bush mislead the public while he “rushed to war in Iraq”, but that they did not want to fault a United States President for something so horribly wrong. It was almost like they themselves would have to admit they were wrong and partly to blame. Now, with the debates done, people are making decisions for whatever reason they use to justify, but again, deep down, they are voting against Bush because he has lost their trust and can not be trusted as a Commander in Chief.
Look for a significant shift in the polls after this weekend. I look for one more event to effect this election, hopefully it will be a leak or something that is damaging to Bush and then it’s lights out for the Bush experiment.
Point of curiosity. In Zogby today, those who have already voted are 50-48 Bush leading. Where is the majority of early voting going on? Is this significant? Zogby stated that two things that bear watching are this figure, and the newly registered voters being overwhelmingly for Kerry, but I had just assumed that early voting would tend Democratic.
A.
I’d add to this list that SUSA shows the Bush lead at only 3% in North Carolina. Their poll from two weeks before had Bush up 7%. Maybe this is another option for an upset…
Slate gives a list of 10 states that are the tightest. 4 are Bush 2000 states, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, and Nevada. 6 are Gore 2000 states. Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, Maine, Pennsylvania, Minnesota.
They then give 9 for possible upstates. 5 are Bush 2000 states. Colorado, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia, and Arizona. 4 are Gore 2000 states. New Jersey, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington.
Of these last 9, all are described as safe or pretty safe to go the same way as 2000, except WV and Virginia. So…Virginia is starting to get some press. That 4% is pretty remarkable. With 13 EV’s, that would be one heckuva a big pickup. Great news.
From the SimonsWorld blog (via Andrewsullivan.com)
Interview with John Zogby, who expressed the following views on the election:
[…]
The Running
* The race is Kerry’s to lose, barring unforeseen events. If he loses, it is only his fault.
* Why? Because Bush’s numbers have not gone above 48%. Three other key polling indicators are all terrible for Bush amongst undecideds:
– Presidential job performance: 35% positive versus 60% negative
– Is the country headed in the right direction? net negative
– Does the President deserve re-election? 15% yes versus 40% no.
These numbers have always been net negative for Bush amongst undecideds. The last 3 Presidents with those numbers were Carter, Ford and Bush snr. None won.
* Another reason: undecideds tend to break for the challenger. Zogby sees them going like in Reagan in 1980, so that the margin is 2% but it is the same in each key state and it is in favour of Kerry, thus the Electoral Vote ends in a decisive victory.
* A higher turnout favours Kerry. 2000 election had 105 million voters. Anything over 107 million this time and Kerry will win.
* The youth vote: always heavily Democrat, this time the youth vote are unusually motivated and may turn out in bigger numbers than expected, tipping the race to Kerry.
* If the focus of the final two weeks is the War on Terror —> Bush wins
If the focus of the final two weeks is Iraq and/or domestic issues —> Kerry wins.
* If the result is like in 2000 there will be masses and months of litigation. Neither side will back down and it will be complete chaos, far worse than 2000.
Nader
* Nader is a spent force and irrelevant to the campaign. He does not take votes from Kerry.
* Voters for Nader would otherwise have not voted at all, so no loss to either side.
I second Greg’s comment. Why doesn’t Virginia get more attention considering the race is as close as other battlegroudn states? I’m biased, of course: I live in Virginia and I’m working to help him win Virginia. But what’s the argument over ignoring Virginia and pursuing Missouri or Colorado?,
RT
I’ve heard this before and in other elections. Evidently the kids are reflecting what they hear at home.
Kids Pick Kerry to Be the Next President (AP)
AP – Kid power! Democrat John Kerry is the winner, and the rest of the country should pay attention because the vote on Nickelodeon’s Web site has correctly chosen the president of the United States in the past four elections.
Yahoo! News | October 20, 2004, 11:01 am
Why isn’t the Virginia number getting more attention? If PA and OH are competitive swing states with similiar spreads, why not VA?
Obviously, given it’s history VA is traditionally more red, but still, I’d love to see the headline “Bush vulnerable in VA”