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
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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.
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!