The exit poll results, both national and state, cited in my previous post have now been substantially revised and do not look particularly favorable to Kerry. While some of the patterns discussed previously remain, others have changed fairly dramatically. Much more discussion to follow, of course, but way too tired to pursue it now.
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.
What about voting purges? Greg Palast, author of “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” writes on his website http://www.gregpalast.com that voting purges, some of which could be illegal, in the states of New Mexico and Ohio could have swung the vote to Bush and not to Kerry. The problem existed in Florida in 2000 and likely did in 2004.
Let’s face it….The R’s will do anything to hold power. The only thing for Dems to do is cheat better than them or to outsmart them in their cheating game. Maybe we need to run candidates for SOS in southern states as Republicans and after the win, lead as a Democrat. I feel the R’s care more about their party being in power than they care about their country being a democracy. Ironically, their voting habbits insure neither their political freedom or a country based on freedom.
The reasoning is mind boggling. Here’s how it goes: exit polls show Kerry is ahead in certain states. Final results show Bush is ahead. Therefore, voting machines must be broken or there’s a conspiracy.
Could it be true the exit polls were *biased*? Nothing evil or premeditated even… just biased, possibly leading, surveys?
Wouldn’t that be a shock.
Satisfying as it might be to do the Reps what DeLay did to the Dems, it would be the worst possible course of action–not only because it wouldn’t work (face it: Dems aren’t sufficiently bloody-minded) but because it would do great damage to the Republic.
So, let me understand this.
The exit polls are correct almost everywhere to within 0.1%. In Florida and Ohio, the two states where electronic voting critics have been complaining that there is no paper trail, the margin of error is 4%.
Yet, you think it’s the polls that are fault, not the electronic voting machinery. I’m not claiming there was deliberate fraud, although I am open to the possibility, just that it seems like closer scrutiny is warranted.
For example, there is anecdotal evidence that the computer interface was designed such that people whose hand grazed the edge of the screen caused the choice to be flipped. This may easily account for a few percent of the voters choices going awry.
I think the comment from onprotractedwarfare sums up the terrible situtation quite well. I can’t help wondering whether after the coming disasters a modern equivalent of FDR will emerge to help put at least some of the pieces back together. I also can’t help reflecting that FDR didn’t have to contend with CNN, Fox, and the like.
This is a huge defeat for us. Even if Kerry pulled Ohio he would be a minority president. We can’t say our message didn’t get out. The resources were there. The situation in the Senate and the House is very bad. I would like to know what kind of message we have that can be understood and bought by a majority of citizens, short of issuing a machine gun to every household, putting a Baptist preacher in every science room, and burning gays at the stake. (In retrospect it clearly was a stroke of Republican genius to have the anti-gay measures on the ballots. But we have to wonder why so many people fell for it.)
Speaking for myself, I am familiar with the literature on “critical realignments” and all I can say is we are definitely in a specific sort of electoral era. Reagan was the start and it jelled in 1994. This could easily last till 2014-2020 if past “electoral systems” hold. I’m running out of decades in my personal arsenal to be around for this to turn around. And there are a lot of lurking calamities: on the dollar, in the environment, in the Middle East, that are going to come crashing down in the next four years which the re-elected national leadership won’t be able to cope with and which won’t be reversible by Dems with a simple election victory, even if it is a sweep.
My predictions for the next four years: A severe financial crisis, probably associated with a decline in the dollar; the draft; a national sales tax; privatization of social security; reversal of R v Wade; and some kind of very bad news on the environmental front.
I do think that we should be thinking along the lines I have posted here before, to wit, that we should at a minimum be signing up for contributions of $10 to $20 a month to the Democratic party to help it get on its feet for a permanent mobilization.
The other thing I think we need to look at is whether in certain areas, like CA, MA, NY, maybe CT, we can do to the Republicans something analogous to what was done to the Dems in TX. Obviously there won’t be a redistricting opportunity. But in the current juncture having “Red” members of Congress in blue states is a luxury we can ill afford, so strategies need to be developed that chisel away at the very concept of a “safe seat.”
The bright side: we showed we can raise money en masse and mount a vigorous campaign. That’s about it.
Well, based on all the comments and analysis I read that said Bush would not win because his highest approval ratings were his ceiling in the popular vote, and all the polls were rated unfairly to rvs instead of lvs, I took two weeks off work to focus on this election. I read the blogs alot, did gotv efforts, donated all the spare cash I had to get Kerry elected, because based on all the analysis I read here and on MYDD, it seemed improbable Bush would win. All the major media polls were biased, they were oversampling repubs, blah, blah blah.
Turns out they were right. We’re living in a right-wing, Christian conservative nation and I don’t see anyway for the democratic party to compete nationally. Look at all the red on that map. It’s heartbreaking. The dems and all the hopefuls like yourself and your contributors need to wake up and admit — we are on the outside looking in.