The latest CBS News poll, conducted March 30-April 1, has Kerry beating Bush by 5 points among RVs. That’s consistent with the Los Angeles Times data I discussed yesterday.
There’s also new and strong evidence of Bush’s eroding credibility and the public’s declining confidence in his handling of the war on terror. Check it out.
TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 11: If Biden “Steps Aside” and Harris Steps Up, There Should Be No Falloff in Support
At New York I discussed and tried to resolve one source of anxiety about a potential alternative ticket:
One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the “Kamala Harris conundrum”:
“Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that they’re skeptical of Harris’s prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harris’s strength among the party’s most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position.”
The perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harris’s public standing shows she’s just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an “open convention,” “mini-primary,” or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket.
For a good while now, Harris’s job-approval numbers have been converging with Biden’s after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Biden’s is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. There’s just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep.
On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasn’t much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent).
After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harris’s strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters.
Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points.
Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasn’t as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points).
There’s been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. There’s not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women.
The bottom line is that one element of the “Kamala Harris conundrum” needs to be reconsidered. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible “replacement” scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her.
Try this site also. Good, intelligent reading.
http://gadflyer.com/
Dare I cite “nattering nabobs of negativism”?
To echo something RT said earlier, Dems’ pessimism and self-defeating psychology can be their own worst political enemy.
I live in liberal Seattle, and I’m amazed here how many people in one breath champion Kucinich / Nader / Sharpton, but then sigh that Bush will win anyway so they won’t even vote. They think that the GOP machine is unstoppable and grant it near-supernatural powers.
I often direct these people to DR to give them some positive signs and motivation!
Please give it some space, Space! Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.
Kerry = positive, Bush = negative.
Focus, focus, focus. Don’t fall into their false numbers game. The polls are useless in telling the real story. Polls are designed to brainwash the masses and are easily manipulated to do just that. The votes will rule. Think positive and talk positive about a future with President Kerry, show everyone the right way.
Save the negative for the liars cowboy club clan. oops.
Donkey Rising is engaging in nothing less than willfull ignorance. The CBS poll contains far more bad news than good. Among the disturbing numbers:
1. Kerry TRAILS Bush in battleground states.
2. Nearly twice as many people think Bush says what he believes than think Kerry does despite the fact that Bush has been lying to them for 3 years.
3. More people still think Bush will protect the U.S. from a terrorist attack.
4. More people think Kerry has been running a mostly negative campaign.
Yes, the numbers are trending away from Bush. But still, they should be much more favorable to Kerry.
How’s this for a play on their own words. Yes they are secretive evil doers who lie and try to hide what they are up to.
Someone said the other day that Nixon would be a tremendous improvement over this president. How sad of a state of affairs America has dropped to because of the Supreme Court’s installation of this person to run our country. Fortunately real American’s will have the last word come November. You know I used to think I hated Nixon and Reagan, just goes to show you how a new reality can alter what you think you knew ( I still hate them but now I have been shown that hatred has multiple levels).
Sorry just venting.
More good news in California where the latest poll has Bush at 38% approval rate to Kerry at about 50%. Bush never had a chance in California anyway, but the numbers have shown a tremendous downward slide for Bush in the last week or two.
Maxcat, They are a bunch of liars, but if I had to choose one word to describe this administration it would be “secretive”. They put Nixon to shame. John Dean’s book makes that clear.
Hey let’s start using the “L” word applied to this administration. All of them and their kind are always so fond of throwing that at the progressives like it means something dirty and bad. Well now it does but only when applied to them. That’s right, the “L” word as in LIARS.
Goodbye Mr. Bush.
Good News today. In addition to the Pew Report poll indicating the overall approval trend continues downward — now 43% down 5 points from March, Minnesota apparently went Kerry nuts over the last month. The previous poll had a 2 point spread, but today’s Star-Tribune poll puts Bush at 38 and Kerry at 50. A mite of progress. I was hoping Ruy was back, I am looking forward to his take on the Pew.
Prediction: Israel has the green light to assassinate Arafat. If there’s a suicied bombing in Israel that kills more than a few people, Arafat is gone.
My fear is that the Administration is rapidly reaching a point where they are willing to take a gamble on sheer global chaos to win.
Am I paranoid??
John Kerry will win in November by a considerable margin. Bush has betrayed his own parties agenda, betrayed democracy, and betrayed all good Americans. No amount of semantics will erase what Bush has led this country into. Nothing will wash the blood of our soldiers from his coat tails. All of America will speak and Bush will be silenced.
Joe, Kerry comes across to me as someone who–like Bill Clinton, and when he has the time to do so–prefers to be able to collect factual information and differing views and mull it over before making especially important decisions. To that I say “Hurray!! I miss that.” I agree with that part of what you said.
He does not come across to me as someone who makes decisions with a lack of self assurance, though. I think that’s what the Republicans want the public to believe. But I don’t have that perception of him at all. He comes across to me as generally quite sure-footed, in fact.
What really has to be done is a bit more organizing on the ground. Someone put up a dairy-entry on Kos about the lack of an organization in Ohio. There’s the same weakness here in Illinois.
This has got to change — rapidamente
Grush, it’s very tough to disengage your own feelings, your fear, your hope, from what is really going on out there in 50 different media markets – especially when you’re in one of the markets that is not in a target state.
Plus, the media saturation of NY leads people to buy into the “who’s up, who’s down’ mentality. If one candidate gets more press one week, it feels like they had a better week. Well, if that happens 6 weeks in a row, there’s a shift. But 1, 2, or even 3 weeks are too small of a time frame, unless we’re in October.
Sara: I too live in a swing state but in a very Republican area, West Michigan. Consequently, Kerry isn’t making any cable buys here to speak of. I suspect that the ad buys are heavier in the Detroit metro region.
I also suspect Kerry is in the process of developing a more centrist message and firming up campaign strategy. It will be a slow process for Kerry in that he doesn’t appear to be a person who makes decisions quickly or with a great deal of self assurance.
I hope he speaks out soon though on the need to finance our Iraq operations with a tax cut roll back for those higher income people. It would (1) help explain his vote on the $87 billion, (2) remind voters that we went there for no good reasons and(3) spread the sarifices of the war more equitably, something voters can identify with.
Sara,
That’s great, and encouraging. I live in New York, so the general din of life drowns out such things. Maybe Warren Buffet does have it right investing from Omaha.
Plus, I make it a point to listen to and read the enemy: Hannity, New York post, etc (plus, Page Six beats anything the Times has). So I have trouble separating signal from noise.
Still, after the Clarke testimony, Rice’s ridiculous waverings and the increasingly anarchy in Iraq, Bush should be down by 20 points.
It is simply not in Kerry’s interests to engage in the kind of tit for tat advertising war Bush undertook when he went up with his ads a few weeks ago.
Kerry needed the rest, and his primary centered staff needed to be re-organized, built out, and re-focused on tasks for the long haul. It is to Kerry’s advantage to be off the hot trail while this is done. Moreover, some other matters, such as the 911 commission were scheduled, and the better part of valor was to get out of the way and let them happen on their own., Kerry needed to raise big time money, and he is doing so effectively.
From where I sit in a battleground state, I see lots of advertising — Kerry’s stuff plus a number of good 527 efforts. I see lots of party planning meetings being announced, I see campaign staff being recruited and appointed to camapign jobs, I see announcements that surrogates are visiting town and making appearances. I would much prefer to see good organization and the finances to sustain it through to November than I would witness a hot altercation now about an issue that could easily be moot come November.
Not a very scientific or quantifiable observation here, but does anyone else sense the momentum slipping away from the Dems?
I feel as though Kerry is invisible… and that the major media is covering the candidates in proportion to their advertising spend.
Images of Bush crosscut with Iraq carnage, I’m afraid, will help him. “The world is a terrifying mess, don’t take any chances right now.” (Of course, the world is aflame because Bush decided to throw gasoline on the fire after 9/11).
One key dynamic is that Kerry really CAN’T affirmatively define himself. Bush’s deficit makes any spending on social programs impossible, cultural issues are a minefield, and there is general ‘consensus’ among the ‘elites’ on current foreign ‘policy.’
I’m concerned.