Kerry leads Bush by 1 point, 48-47, among Florida LVs according to a new Research 2000 poll, conducted October 18-21.
Kerry and Bush are tied at 46 percent of Florida LV’s, according to a new Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times Poll conducted October 19-21.
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
-
March 22: Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Can’t Decide Which Bad Ticket She Wants to Join
One of the odder phenomena of the 2024 presidential election is a certain 2020 Democratic candidate who has strayed very far since then. I took a look at her options at New York:
A month ago, when ex-Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential wannabe Tulsi Gabbard showed up at a Mar-a-Lago event, I wrote about the logic that could make her a highly unconventional but not entirely implausible 2024 running mate for Donald Trump. Once a major backer of Bernie Sanders, Gabbard’s trajectory toward MAGA-land has been steady since she left the Democratic Party in the fall of 2022, a main course she served up with a side dish of jarring candidate endorsements (e.g., of J.D. Vance). Even when she was still a Democrat running for president, though, her orientation was more MAGA-adjacent than you might expect, as Geoffrey Skelley explained in 2019:
“Gabbard’s supporters … are more likely to have backed President Trump in 2016, hold conservative views or identify as Republican compared to voters backing the other candidates. …
“In fact, Gabbard has become a bit of a conservative media darling in the primary, with conservative commentators like Ann Coulter and pro-Trump social media personalities like Mike Cernovich complimenting her for her foreign policy views. In a primary in which some 2020 Democratic contenders have boycotted Fox News, Gabbard has regularly appeared on the network. Just last week, Gabbard even did an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, a far-right political outlet. She’s also made appeals outside the political mainstream by going on The Joe Rogan Experience — one of the most popular podcasts in the country and a favored outlet for members of the Intellectual Dark Web, whose purveyors don’t fit neatly into political camps but generally criticize concepts such as political correctness and identity politics.”
So her parting blast at Democrats as controlled by an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness” didn’t come out of nowhere.
But much as Gabbard might be an outside-the-box running mate for the 45th president, it does seem there is another 2024 presidential candidate whose extreme hostility to mainstream institutions and difficult-to-categorize views might make him a better match for her: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And sure enough, according to NBC News, the wiggy anti-vaxxer is interested in Gabbard:
“The four-term former member of Congress from Hawaii is now getting consideration for both former President Donald Trump’s and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tickets, two sources familiar with the candidates’ deliberations told NBC News.”
The prospect of choosing between these two politicians appears to have left Gabbard feeling she’s in the catbird seat:
“As one source said, Gabbard would be more likely to seriously consider running as Kennedy’s vice presidential nominee had she not been swept up by the possibility of serving with Trump. This person said Gabbard ‘was enticed’ by the chance of serving on Kennedy’s ticket but is now focused on the possibility that Trump will select her.
“’My understanding is that Tulsi is convinced that Trump is going to pick her,’ this person said. ‘Had that not been the case, she probably would have gone with Kennedy.’”
Since Kennedy has scheduled a running-mate reveal for March 26 in Oakland, we’ll know soon enough whether he chose Gabbard and Gabbard chose him. Others rumored to be on his short list include New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, and California entrepreneur and major RFK Jr. donor Nicole Shanahan.
As NBC notes, it’s more than a bit unusual for people to be considered for multiple presidential tickets:
“[I]t’s exceedingly rare for a politician to attract interest from more than one presidential ticket or party. (Ahead of the 1952 election, Democrats and Republicans led dueling efforts to draft another politically ambiguous veteran, Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, for the presidential race.)”
It’s hard to say what Tulsi Gabbard would think of this comparison. After all, Ike was a bit of a warmonger.
Re: Florida
I’ve been making veteran-to-veteran calls for the Kerry/Edwards campaign in Palm Beach county and the independents and non-affiliated voters that I’ve reached have broken about 3-1 for Kerry.
The interesting thing is that the undecided voters are a bit on the testy side, which leads me to beleive that they are like my father: Republican-leaning, but they don’t want to vote for either Bush or Kerry. When pressed about their misgivings about Kerry, they cough up discredited republican smears. The bottom line seems to be that they don’t like Bush and Kerry hasn’t disspelled the smears (but there were so many, how could you possibly effectively cover them all?).
Just my thoughts, your mileage may vary.
Steve
the fact that Bush is at an average of 46.5 percent in these two polls is great news. it’s hard to see him getting enough of the independants to win.
Rasmussen has the race a dead heat again today (Bush +0.4), while Zogby says Bush had another incredible polling day yesterday but still has Bush ahead only +2.
Zogby said Saturday was Bush’s best day of polling, 50 to 43. Yet ABC News/WP said Saturday was Kerry’s best day of polling (!), which is why Bush’s lead dropped to just 1. Can someone explain this? Doesn’t this kind of make tracking polls pretty dubious?
The 8% undecided is somewhat good news for Kerry if the conventional wisdom of 75%+- of undecided will break against incumbent. Anyone know what Florida undecided did in 2000 or earlier?
Oct 24
Dead heat in AR!!!!!
Women, independents help Kerry erase 9-point deficit
Sunday, Oct 24, 2004
By David Robinson
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK – Sen. John Kerry has pulled even with President Bush in Arkansas after being down 9 points, according to a new poll for the Arkansas News Bureau and Stephens Media Group.
Kerry, a Democrat, and the Republican Bush each received 48 percent support from likely voters surveyed Monday through Wednesday by Opinion Research Associates of Little Rock. A poll two weeks earlier gave Bush a 52 percent to 43 percent lead, just within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
The story there is obviously Bush at 46%. The last poll, Scripps, had him at 43%. Those are really, really good for Kerry.
A couple more results like this and I’ll consider FL “lean Kerry.”
Latex me baffled, cause I never thought Ohio would look this good for Kerry before Florida. With the 600K new Dem registered in Ohio, I thought it in Kerry’s column if we’re within the MOE, on election eve. Same goes for Pennsylvania.
It’s 7 — and not 8 — percent undecided. Either way, good news for Kerry!