There have been some signs that the rural vote might be a bit soft for Bush this year, given continuing economic problems and disenchantment with the war in Iraq. Now here is some hard evidence: a just-released poll of likely rural voters in swing states by the Center for Rural Strategies (CRS). The CRS poll finds these voters giving Bush a weak approval rating of just 52 percent, with 44 percent disapproval–a little better than he has fared lately in national polls certainly, as one would expect among rural voters, a group that has been famously sympathetic to Bush, but not terribly impressive. And only 43 percent of these voters think the country is going in the right direction, cmpared to 48 percent who feel it is off on the wrong track.
In terms of vote intention, these voters do tend to favor Bush (51-42), but this 9 point margin is not as wide as one would expect from these voters. For example, voters in this poll who reported voting in 2000 said they favored Bush in that electiion by 18 points (55-37).
There are times when you lose by not winning big. Bush in swing state rural areas in 2004 could be such a time. If his margin in those areas is shaved too much, he will not be able to make up the healthy deficits he is likely to run outside of rural areas in most of these states.

As everyone is presumably aware, Nader did not get the Green Party nomination last Saturday, proof perhaps that there is a God. Chris Bowers over at MyDD has an interesting post on how this impacts Nader’s chances to affect the 2004 election. You should read the post, but his basic argument is that, without the easy ballot access and semi-legitimacy conferred by the Green Party nomination, Nader is toast as a serious factor in the 2004 election. Bowers asserts:
From now on, no poll that includes Nader should be taken seriously. Libertarian + Constitution now probably poses a larger threat to Bush than Nader + Cobb poses for Kerry. It is time for everyone in the Democratic Blogosphere to relax their sphincters and allow their blood pressure to drop. It is time we started paying Nader the attention he deserves in this campaign–none. To continue complaining about him would border on mental illness.
Ron Gunzburger over at Politics1 is somewhat less adamant but observes:
The Kerry folks must be thrilled knowing that now — unlike the threat seemingly posed by Ralph Nader just a few days ago — Nader will now only matter in a few key swing states (Florida and Michigan, plus maybe one or two others). Otherwise, the Green Party nomination of David Cobb on Saturday…gave ballot spots in 22 states to a candidate who plans to largely run a “safe states” strategy. Cobb’s website states he “will focus his campaign on states neglected by the corporate parties, he has also said that he will visit and campaign in any state that invites him.” In other Nader news, it appears that Nader on Saturday may again have missed the goal of obtaining Oregon ballot status in his second attempt. While more than the requisite 1,000 people attended the “short-cut” mass rally event — thanks to help from two conservative GOP groups — the Dems also filled some of the 1,100 seats to thwart Nader from collecting his needed signatures. Nader’s folks only turned in 950 signed petitions, although some had multiple signatures. Presuming a few signatures are bad, as is always the case, Nader will have missed again. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll [still] get on the ballot,” said Nader. At this pace, Nader appear likely to win spots on so few state ballots that he will struggle just to finish ahead of Cobb, Constitution nominee Mike Peroutka, and Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik in terms of national vote totals.
I am inclined to agree that this decision by the Green Party drastically reduces the probability that Nader will be much of a factor this November. As regular readers of DR know, I have always been a skeptic that Nader would be much of a factor even if he did manage to get the Green Party nomination. But I am glad we will not have an opportunity to test that hypothesis.
I also agree with Bowers that it is time to stop taking those Kerry-Bush-Nader trial heats seriously. Arguably, Nader’s best shot at influencing the election at this point is not through getting actual votes, but by keeping his name in the national and state trial heats and thus inflating perceptions of Bush’s electoral strength.
Is that sad or what? There’s a simple solution though (pollsters are you listening?). Stop putting his damn name in the trial heats.

There have been two major polls (I don’t consider Fox a “major”) since the middle of June–The Washington Post and Gallup–and in both of them Kerry leads Bush among registered voters (in the Post poll by 8 and in Gallup by 4). Not bad for John Kerry, not bad at all.
Some are dissatisfied, however. Why isn’t he farther ahead? What about some of the minor polls where he isn’t doing do well? Why does Kerry’s lead sometimes vanish, even in the major polls (as indeed might happen tomorrow for all I know)?
Calm down. Say your mantra. And meditate on these recent words from Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of The Gallup poll:
Based on historical patterns, Bush’s job approval rating is thus underperforming the pattern of presidents who have won re-election. In the broadest sense, Bush’s job approval rating has generally been remarkably stable this year, averaging about 50% (which is a symbolic dividing line for an incumbent seeking re-election) since mid-January. The current downtick in his ratings puts him below the pattern of successful presidents. Having a rating below 50% (as is the case with his last four ratings) is not a good sign for an incumbent. If Bush wins this November, he would be the first president since Harry Truman to come from a below 50% rating to win re-election.
The fact that Bush has been behind the likely Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, in several Gallup Poll re-election trial heat ballots this year, means that Bush’s re-election probabilities are lower than those of his successful predecessors. None of the five presidents who won re-election were behind their eventual opponent in any trial heats after January in the year prior to their election. If Bush wins this year, he will become the first president to come from behind in election year spring polls to win.
The trial heat patterns of the three presidents who eventually lost were erratic enough, however, to suggest that fluidity is the norm rather than the exception in trial heat ballots at this point in the campaign.
Feel better (at least if you’re a Kerry partisan)? Eventually, of course, Kerry does need to take and maintain a solid lead, but it is unrealistic to expect that to happen this early in the campaign. Perhaps after the Democratic convention such a pattern might begin to emerge, but that would be the earliest.
So expect fluidity to continue for awhile. As many have pointed out, deciding you want to fire the incumbent (where we are now) is a different decision than deciding you definitely want to hire John Kerry (the stage of the campaign we are moving into). Once we reach that stage, many swing voters will come off the fence and the political picture should be clarified.
And, make no mistake about it, despite apparent shrinkage in the swing voter pool, there are still plenty of these voters around. According to a just-released report by the Pew Research Center, about a fifth of voters can be classified as swing at this stage of the campaign–sizable, though still down 6-11 points from the proportions of swing voters at analogous points in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 campaigns.
In the Pew data, swing voters who currently express a preference are about equally divided between Bush and Kerry. However, their approval ratings for Bush on the economy (36 percent) and Iraq (34 percent) are notably low. In addition, swing voters in their June data are heavily moderate (49 percent) and independent/no party preference (45 percent) or Democratic (36 percent). Thus, John Kerry appears to be well-positioned to make headway among these voters over time.
Two other interesting notes from the Pew report. They pooled their data from April to June to get enough respondents to look at Bush approval ratings in some key battleground states. Generally, the rank order of approval rating follows from the 2000 results: Bush approval is higher in states he carried in 2000; lower in states he did not. But there is one important exception. Among the nine states they provide data for, Ohio is ranked dead-last in Bush approval, with just 41 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval..
Another intriguing finding is an apparent narrowing of the “religiosity gap”–that is, the tendency for those who attend church more often to vote Republican with far greater frequency than those who attend less often. According to the Pew data, the gap in Bush support between those who say they attend church every week and those who attend seldom or never is now 14 points, compared to 27 points in the 2000 VNS exit poll.
Who knows if this will hold up in this year’s election, but it’s food for thought. After all, we have not always had the relationship observed in 2000 between church attendance and support for Republican candidates. For example, in the 1980’s, there appears to have been only a weak relationship between church attendance and Republican support. But that relationship became quite noticeable in 1992, strengthened in 1996 and strengthened some more in 2000.
Who’s to say that relationship might not start heading in the opposite direction? Despite Bush’s best efforts, he has had little success inflaming the culture wars and we are now 4 years past the sex scandals that dogged the last years of the Clinton-Gore administration. Keep an eye on this one as we head toward November.

At last! A poll that Matthew Dowd can be happy about. While the Gallup folks were busy collecting their data (June 21-23), the fair and balanced folks over at Fox News were busy collecting theirs (June 22-23). To say the Fox News results differ somewhat from the Gallup results would be to considerably understate the case.
The Fox poll has Bush up by 6 points (48-42) among registered voters (RVs). As I discussed in my previous post, Gallup has Kerry up by 4 (49-45) in the identical Kerry-Bush RV matchup. Kind of different!
And check this out. Fox has Bush ahead by 20 points in the solid red states (Gallup had Bush ahead by 8), Kerry ahead by only 3 (!) in the solid blue states (Gallup: Kerry by 14) and Kerry ahead by an identical 3 point margin in purple states (Gallup: Kerry by 9). Huh?!? Kerry ahead by only 3 in the solid blue states–and up by no more there than in the battleground states?
Was Fox really polling the same country? You’ve gotta wonder. The survey dates of the two polls are virtually identical, we’re talking about the same universe (registered voters) and the same matchup–and yet the results are starkly different.
So who do we believe? Well, if it’s a choice between Fox News or the Gallup Organization, I don’t find this a particularly difficult choice to make. To tell the truth, I rarely pay much attention to Fox News polls, which are invariably and significantly pro-Bush relative to other public polls, but this one seemed so egregiously off and so directly contradicted by the Gallup data that I just had to comment on it.
You might well ask: how on earth do the Fox News folks get such weird results? I don’t really know, but one possibility is that they weight their data by party ID. Under this procedure, if you’ve got, in your view, too many Democrats (like in that pesky Los Angeles Times poll), you simply weight them down and weight the Republicans up so you get to the presumed proper distribution of party ID (those respondents can’t really be serious about indentifying with the Democrats!).
I don’t know that this is true of the Fox News poll. But it certainly would help explain why their horse race results differ so much from Gallup’s (who, like good girls and boys, never weight by party ID–see this good article in the Los Angeles Times explaining why public polling organizations worth their salt eschew this practice). Or how Fox News–again, polling on essentially identical days–could find John Kerry’s favorability rating at 42 percent favorable/43 percent unfavorable, while Gallup has it 58 percent favorable/35 percent unfavorable.
While we’re on the subject of Fox News polls, it’s worth mentioning their new polls of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, which also seem–well, a little surprising. Yesterday, I discussed the June 21-23 ARG poll of Ohio, where Kerry led by 6. Fox, polling on June 22-23, has Bush ahead by 4 in Ohio. Hmmm. Yesterday I also mentioned the June 21-23 ARG poll of Florida, where Kerry was ahead by 2. Fox’s June 22-23 poll of Florida has Bush ahead by 9!
Curiouser and curiouser said Alice. Now, if it was anyone but Fox, I might be tempted to ascribe these differences to ARG’s use of likely voters (LVs), rather than RVs, as Fox uses. But these are mighty big differences and this is Fox, so I don’t buy it.
I especially don’t buy it when we look at Fox’s Pennsylvania results. Fox, polling on June 22-23, has Bush ahead by 3 among RVs in Pennsylvania. But, the highly reputable Quinnipiac University poll, polling on June 21-22 and also polling RVs, has Kerry ahead by 6. What a difference a day makes–or, considerably more likely, what a difference the Fox News treatment makes.
I have a new slogan for Fox News: “Pro-Bush Results Guaranteed”. Unlike “Fair and Balanced”, this would allow them to stick closely to their empirical record.

The new Gallup poll is chock full of interesting data. Perhaps the most interesting finding is this: For the first time in this poll, a majority of Americans (54 percent to 44 percent) now say that US made a mistake sending troops to Iraq. Less than three weeks ago, the public was still saying, by 58-41, that sending troops was not a mistake.
Note that these data were collected before the wave of violence that was unleashed Thursday in Iraq.
Another turnaround is on whether the war with Iraq has made the US safer from terrorism. Just 37 percent now say the war has made us safer, compared to 55 percent who say it has not; when Gallup last asked this question in mid-December it was 56-33 the other way.
The poll also finds a majority (51-46) saying it was not worth going to war with Iraq, pretty much where this measure has been since late May.
Bush’s overall approval rating, compared to Gallup’s last measurement three weeks ago, is down a point to 48 percent. His rating on Iraq is up a point to 42 percent, while his rating on terrorism is down 2 points to 54 percent.
By far the biggest change is his rating on the economy: up 6 points to 47 percent with 50 percent disapproval. This is close to his mid-April rating in this poll (46/52), though still substantially below his 54/43 rating in early January.
Note that the latest Washington Post poll, conducted right before the Gallup poll, registered only a slight improvement in Bush’s economic approval rating (just 2 points) and had his disapproval rating dropping only a point, compared to Gallup, which has his disapproval rating declining by 8 points.
Despite Bush’s improved economy rating in the Gallup poll, voters still favor Kerry over Bush (53-40) on which candidate can better handle the economy. That Kerry advantage is essentially unchanged since early May.
On the situation in Iraq, Kerry and Bush are nearly tied (47-46 in Bush’s favor), a slightly improvement for Kerry over his 3 point deficit in early May. This tie is notable, of course, because sentiment is now so strikingly negative about the Iraq war. Perhaps Kerry’s failure to gain an advantage reflects the public’s view, captured in other polls, that Kerry does not have a clear plan himself for dealing with the Iraq situation.
Another interesting finding is that, while Bush has a modest lead (51-43) over Kerry in terms of who the public trusts more to handle the responsibilities of commander-in-chief, the public expresses an identical degree of confidence in the ability of Bush and Kerry to handle the responsibilities of commander-in-chief (61 percent in each case).
In terms of favorability ratings, it seems significant that Kerry’s net favorability rating (favorable minus unfavorable) is now substantially higher than Bush’s. Kerry is +23 on this measure (58 percent favorable/35 percent unfavorable), up from +17 in Gallup’s last measurement in April. In contrast, Bush is just +8 (53/45), down from +14 in April. These data are consistent with the recent New York Times story that suggested the GOP’s frontal assault on Kerry has not had much success creating an unfavorable image of him.
Turning to the horse race, as ever we must, Kerry leads Bush by 4 points (49-45) among registered voters (RVs). That approximates Gallup’s early June result when Kerry led 49-44.
Of course, there’s bound to be confusion about this, since Gallup and its clients tend to highlight the likely voter (LV) rather than RV results, which, in this case, actually show Bush ahead by a point (49-48) . And then some media outlets tend to report the Kerry-Bush-Nader results, rather than the Kerry-Bush results, which further clouds the issue.
Let me reproduce, as a public service, my thinking about why you are well-advised, at this stage of the race, to pay more attention to RV than LV results, especially when both are reported. As for why it is preferable to look at Kerry-Bush matchup results, rather than Kerry-Bush-Nader results, I will refer you to a recent analysis I did on the issue.
There’s been considerable confusion about which trial heat results to pay the most attention to at this point in the race. Here’s my take, which should help clarify why I choose to focus on certain results over others.
One issue is likely voters (LVs) vs. registered voters (RVs). At this point, most polls are surveying only RVs and I believe that’s appropriate and, in fact, preferable. It is way too early to put much faith in likely voter screens/models as representing very accurately the voters who will actually show up on election day. There is reasonable evidence that careful likely voter methodologies work well close to the election and do fairly accurately capture that pool of voters. But there is no such evidence for LV samples drawn this far out.
Indeed, my understanding is that Gallup does LVs this early not so much because they believe they are capturing election day voters this early, but more so that they can avoid having to explain sudden shifts in the horse race question as LV data replaces RV data in the fall (the traditional time to switch from RVs to LVs). There have apparently been some problems with this in the past, so reporting both from the very beginning of the campaign eliminates any potential embarrassments along these lines. But that doesn’t mean the LV data is any better at this point in time–it merely means they’re providing it.
In fact, since the sample size for LVs is smaller and since the composition of the LV sample will shift depending on how political developments are affecting interest and intensity levels among different groups of voters, additional volatility is built into the LV samples that is not there with the RV samples.
And then there are the comparability problems. LV samples are difficult even to compare to one another, since methodologies differ, and clearly can’t be compared very well to RV samples, which are the bulk of polls at this time. That’s another strike against paying much attention to LV results this early.
So, RVs and Kerry-Bush it is! Looking further at this match-up, Gallup shows Bush ahead by 8 points in the solid red states (won by Bush by 5 points or more in 2000), but Kerry ahead by 14 in the solid blue states (won by Gore by more than 5 points) and ahead by 9 in the purple states (decided by less than 5 points in 2000). And Kerry is carrying independents nationwide by 10 points and moderates by 24 points.
Pretty good news for Mr. Kerry. Some of you may have heard, though, that the latest Fox News poll has wildly different results from the ones just summarized. A bit later in the day I’ll offer some comments on the Fox News “findings”.

Good news from the provinces. A very recent (June 21-23) ARG poll of likely voters in Ohio has Kerry ahead by 6 (49-43), even with Nader in the mix. (He has an identical 6 point lead (50-44) when Nader is not included.) Polls taken in the last month or so have tended to show Bush ahead in this key state, so this is welcome news for the Kerry campaign.
Especially good news is Kerry’s wide 15 point lead among independents (53-38). That’s up from a 5 point Kerry lead in May. In Ohio, independents very much hold the balance since the numbers of Republican and Democratic voters in presidential elections are roughly equal and tend to be roughly equally polarized in favor of their candidate. In 2000, Bush won the state by 4 points and independents by 15 points. If Kerry can maintain anything like his current lead among Ohio’s independents, Bush will be toast in the state.
Another June 21-23 ARG poll has Kerry ahead by a point (47-46) among likely voters in Florida; two points if Nader is not included (48-46). The key here is again independent voters–in 2000, Gore and Bush were dead-even among these voters in Florida. In this ARG poll, Kerry leads Bush by 13 among independents (51-38), up from a 7 point lead in May.
Finally, Kerry leads a Kerry-Bush matchup 49-43 in a just-released Quinnipiac University poll of Pennsylvania registered voters. In their late May poll, Kerry led by only 3 in this matchup. Again, independents are swinging Kerry’s way, giving him a healthy 19 point lead (55-36). Pennsylvania independents also give Bush a stunningly low approval rating: 34 percent approval to 64 percent disapproval.

There’s some good news in the latest Annenberg Election Survey for President Bush. His overall approval rating in the poll, conducted June 8-21, is at the stratospheric level (for him these days) of 52 percent. (Note, however, that the latest Washington Post poll, conducted at the very end of the Annenberg period, June 17-20, pegged his approval rating at 47 percent, the Post poll’s worst rating ever for him.)
The poll also found Bush’s approval rating in specific areas like the economy and Iraq slightly improved over their late May levels, though still solidly net negative. And on a series of personal characteristics like “inspiring”, “trustworthy” and “shares my values” Bush’s ratings are generally up over their May values.
The bad news for Bush is that, among “persuadable voters”–that quarter of the electorate who seems open to changing their minds about which candidate to support–he has gone nowhere. In fact, on that series of personal characteristics I just mentioned, his ratings among persuadable voters have almost all gone down, not up, since the last Annenberg survey.
Moreover, only 27 percent of persuadable voters currently think the country is headed in the right direction, identical with the May figure. Bush’s approval rating has actually slid a point–down to 44 percent–among these voters. And his approval ratings of the economy (31 percent approval/59 percent disapproval) and Iraq (26/68) are also slight declines from his already-abysmal May ratings.
And check out these figures for persuadable voters on Iraq-related issues, all more negative than they were last month. Only 34 percent of these voters feel the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, compared to 59 percent who feel it was not. Just 17 percent believe the war in Iraq has reduced the risk of terrorism against the United States, compared to 71 percent who believe it has increased that risk. And a mere 37 percent of persuadable voters want to keep the troops in Iraq until a stable government is formed, while 57 percent now say they want to bring the troops home as soon as possible.
I guess you could say the persuadable voters haven’t been persuaded.

I agree with my friend and esteemed co-author, John Judis, that Kerry would be well-advised to put aside the “personal comfort” criterion in choosing a running mate. As John points out, the historical justification for ignoring that criterion is solid, while the justification for putting it front and center is thin.
So: back to politics. Who would help the ticket the most? Again, I agree with John that Edwards would likely help the most. I believe he would make a substantial contribution to increasing the ticket’s appeal among white working class voters in culturally conservative swing states, especially where it is most necessary–outside of the unionized working class. Even if one assumes that Gephardt has appeal to the unionized rank-and-file of the working class, as opposed to labor leaders, that still leaves out the vast majority of the white working class–well over four-fifths. And it is among these non-unionized white working class voters that Democrats have had the most trouble and where Gore got really hammered in 2000.
One particular trouble spot is among those with some college–the upwardly striving working class. Because of severe underperformance among whites with this educational credential, Gore lost the group as a whole by 6 points in 2000. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, won them by 8 points in 1996.
Where is Kerry right now? Gallup data indicate that he has gone from a 6 point deficit among some college voters in early May to a 9 point advantage among this group in their early June poll. That’s largely responsible for the overall shift in the horse race from a tie in early May to a 5 point Kerry advantage in the June poll.
Kerry needs to keep those some college voters down on the farm. One way that would help would be to select Edwards as his running mate. Regardless of whether he enjoys drinking beer and shooting pool with the guy.

Today through Saturday, I will be over at Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo guest-blogging while Josh is taking a well-earned vacation. So please stop by his site–as most of you do already, I imagine–to catch my latest thoughts on things political.
I will be back at Donkey Rising on Sunday with my usual data-obsessed ruminations. For all those who clicked through from Josh’s site to check out DR, I hope you’ll be visiting regularly when I’m back at my regular post.

The Washington Post had an interesting article today on how “Quality of New Jobs Is Focus of Election-Year Debate“. In standard fashion, the article quotes statistics from both sides of the dispute and makes no attempt to sort out who has the stronger case.
Let me try and remedy that. The article cites an interesting study by CIBC World Markets that finds:
…U.S. job creation since late 2001 has been concentrated in low-paying industries such as hospitality, education and personal services, while job losses have hit higher-wage sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, utilities and natural resources…..The message is clear: The vast majority of the jobs that evaporated during the job-loss recovery were high-quality jobs.
The Republican reply to this kind of claim is to say that many high-wage industries are now growing and adding workers. That’s true, but even if such industries are now adding workers, if they are growing slower than the average industry–which turns out to be the case–their share of overall employment will continue to decline and the employment share of low-wage industries will continue to rise.
Score one for the Democrats.
The article also quotes Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley, on the nature of wage growth in this recovery:
Despite the well-advertised pick-up of job growth, recent trends in real wage income remain very disappointing. This, in my view, underscores one of the most serious shortcomings of this recovery — an unprecedented shortfall of the most important piece of personal income growth, wages and salaries.
Democrats support that view, pointing out that “[a]fter adjusting for inflation, average weekly earnings fell 0.4 percent last month and 0.5 percent in the 12-month period.” In other words, real weekly earnings are declining, not rising.
The Republican counter to this is to say that “[a]verage hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, have risen 2.4 percent since Bush took office”. But most of that gain took place in the period immediately after Bush took office, before the recession really started to bite. In the current period, real hourly earnings, just like real weekly earnings, are headed downwards. According to economist Jared Bernstein at the Economic Policy Institute, real average hourly earnings declined .3 percent last month and are down a full percent in the last six months, which includes, of course, all the months of good job growth touted by the GOP.
Score another for the Democrats. And that’s even without mentioning the benefits aspect of job quality trends, as health care costs continue to soar and the availability and stability of coverage continue to decline. Or the inequality of what little wage growth there has been over the last three years. Or rising prices, especially for gas.
The most compelling hypothesis about why voters are not happy with the Bush economy remains the simplest: it’s not that good. In fact, it’s still pretty bad. Trust the people: they know what they’re experiencing.
Just as they did in the 1990’s. Bill Clinton’s administration presided over the creation of stunning numbers of jobs (2.8 million in 1993, 3.9 million in 1994 and another 2.2 million in 1995) before the labor market truly tightened in early 1996, real wages started surging and Clinton finally reaped the political benefits of economic optimism. Check out these month-by-month numbers (in thousands) for job creation from 1994 alone, more than a year before the public turned optimistic: 270, 192, 468, 357, 339, 310, 359, 303, 354, 206, 425, 270. Wow. And the Bushies think there should be a tidal wave of economic optimism because there’s (finally) been three lousy months of good job growth.
That’s what they call chutzpah. And, as they used to say in Papa Bush’s day, being out of touch. Way out of touch.