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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July 20: What Biden Should Say If He “Steps Aside”
In all the talk about whether Joe Biden should “step aside,” there hasn’t been enough discussion of the rationale he should present if he does so. So I offered one at New York:
The Democratic Party’s semi-public bickering over what to do with Joe Biden needs to come to an end very soon, lest it turn into a horrific party-rending conflict or a de facto surrender to Donald Trump. While he can technically be pushed out of the nomination, it would be nightmarishly difficult to do so given his virtually unopposed performance in the primaries and the lack of precedent for anything like a forced defenestration of a sitting president. It would also express disloyalty to a brave and dedicated leader. But Biden has already lost the united, confident party he needed to make a comeback. He’s trailing in the polls right now. And even more importantly, his own conduct and fitness for office will command center stage for the rest of the general-election campaign, which is precisely what he cannot afford given his poor job-approval ratings and the sour mood of the electorate.
So Joe needs to go of his own accord, and it needs to happen quickly before Republican and Biden-loyalist claims of a “coup” become all too credible. But it’s obviously a humiliating exercise. So if Biden comes to realize the futility of going forward, what can this proud and stubborn man say that will make him something other than an object of derision or pity?
I have a simple answer: He can tell the truth.
The truth is that Biden’s firm commitment to the pursuit of a second term, despite his advanced age and increased frailty, hardened into inflexible determination when Trump made his own decision to launch an initially unlikely comeback. When Biden took office, Trump was a disgraced insurrectionist whose very defenders in his second impeachment trial mostly denounced his conduct, even as they urged acquittal on technical grounds. The 46th president was in a position to serve one distinguished “transitional” term and retire with a wary eye on his fellow retiree festering in anger and self-righteousness in Mar-a-Lago. But as Trump slowly recovered and eventually reemerged as a more dominant figure than ever in a MAGA-fied Republican Party, Biden became convinced that as the only politician ever to defeat Donald Trump, he had the responsibility to do it again and the ability to remind voters why they rejected the 45th president in 2020.
As this strange election year ripened, Biden had a perfectly plausible strategy for victory based on keeping a steady public focus on Trump’s lawless conduct (including actual crimes), his erratic record, and extremist intentions for a perilous second term. The polls were close and Biden wasn’t very popular, but these surveys also showed a durable majority of the electorate that really didn’t want to return Trump to power, particularly as economic conditions improved and the consequences of Trump’s Supreme Court appointments grew more shockingly apparent each day.
Then came the June 27 debate, and suddenly Biden lost the ability to make the election about Trump. He needs to look into a camera and say just that, and conclude that just as the threat posed by Trump motivated him to run for a second term, the threat posed by Trump now requires that he withdraw so that a successor can make the case he can’t make as he’s become the object of endless speculation about his age and cognitive abilities. Biden does not need to resign the presidency, since his grounds for withdrawing his candidacy are about perceptions and politics rather than any underlying incapacity. Biden would be withdrawing as a weakened candidate, not as a failed president.
For this withdrawal to represent a stabilizing event for his administration and his party, it’s critical that Biden not equivocate or complain, and that he show his mastery of the situation by clearly passing the torch to the vice-president he chose four years ago. For all the talk of an “open convention” being exciting (for pundits) and energizing (for the winner), the last thing Democrats need right now is uncertainty. No matter what the polls show and how badly his old friends want him to succeed, it’s the prospect of 100 days of terror every time Biden makes unscripted remarks that is feeding both elite and rank-and-file sentiment that a change at the top of the ticket is necessary. The fear and confusion needs to end now, and Biden effectively made his choice of a successor when he made Kamala Harris his governing partner. The president needs to reassert his agency now, not look like he is abandoning his party and his country to the winds of fate.
A straightforward and honest admission of why Biden 2024 is coming to an end could go a very long way toward enabling Harris and other Democrats to shift the nation’s gaze back to the ranting old man whose acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention showed that he has not mellowed or moderated at all. Of course Biden wants to solidify and extend his legacy over the next four years. But right now, the clear and present danger is that it will be extinguished altogether. He alone can address that threat, not as a candidate, but as a president and a patriot who recognizes his duty.
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!