Kerry's disapointing Poll numbers

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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[quote]scrumscab wrote:
I’m always curiuos on how these polls operate. How do they randomnly choose people to represent the broad spectrum. Are people in rurals areas equally represented?

I personally don’t know.

All I do know is that I’ve never been officially polled, nor have I’ve ever known anybody to be polled either.

Is there anybody here who has been polled, or knows anybody who has?[/quote]

Link to one of the polls and they have a synopsis at the bottom. Basically they just call people at phone numbers generated at random, and then, depending on the level of accuracy they want, either accept answers from any adult male, only from callers who self-report as “registered voters” or only those who self report as having voted in the past two election and have plans to vote in this one (likely voters).

The number of people they survey generally goes to the “confidence” of the results – that little number at the bottom that’s usually something like (+/- 4%). I don’t think they control for actual geographic diversity, which probably explains some of the jumps in poll numbers, or the differences between various polls of ostensibly the same groups that aren’t explained by differently worded questions.

Just remember though, that any poll other than a poll of likely voters is worthless, and polls of likely voters are still only really useful to track directions (kind of like bodyfat measurements). Still, I guess they’re kind of fun to discuss…

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Follow the link below if you want to see all the internal links in the post (there are many):

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_8_13_04_0953.html

KERRY IS NOT THE FAVORITE: As Mickey Kaus pointed out yesterday the conventional wisdom of the Washington punditry appears to be coalescing around the idea that “this is now John Kerry’s contest to lose.”

ABC’s The Note stepped onto the John Kerry bandwagon with a laundry list of why Bush is going to lose. National Journal’s Charlie Cook chimed in:

President Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term. The sluggishly recovering economy and renewed violence in Iraq don't seem likely to positively affect this race, but something needs to happen.

The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics Larry Sabato shook up quite a few Republicans with his recent speech to the Business Council of Alabama where, more or less, he suggested President Bush is finished.

The Bush campaign knows it is in deep trouble.... He really will need a miracle to win, and the last miracle was for Harry S. Truman.

While I don’t want this to simply be a rehash of my comments a couple of weeks ago, I still don’t understand all of this Kerry bullishness. Clearly, President Bush is not a lock to win in November, but the prospects for his reelection are considerably better than the current conventional wisdom.

To start, I think it is unwise to make such definitive statements about where this race is until we get at least a week past the GOP convention and the anniversary of September 11.

Even from the standpoint of the national poll numbers, I don’t know where all the optimism for Kerry is coming from. Simply put, I don’t find his 2-4 point lead in the post-convention head-to-head and three-way polls all that impressive. He should be ahead by more - and the fact that he isn’t suggests bad news for his ultimate chance of winning.

I don’t know what kind of bounce President Bush is going to get from his convention and the 9/11 anniversary. Perhaps, like Kerry, the President may get little or no bounce at all. But it appears all the prognosticators writing Bush off this past week seem to be totally ignoring the possibility that the President could get a real and significant bounce from these two events. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched that Bush could move out to 2-5 point lead after all the dust settles in late September.

As I’ve said before, I think the biggest mistake many people seem to be making is misapplying post-WWII polling and electoral history to the current political situation. It is this type of backward-looking analysis that failed to anticipate the possibility of the unprecedented GOP victory in 2002.

This is the first presidential election post-9/11 and it is not an insignificant fact that we are very much involved in a war. That reality is constantly being underestimated in trying to make sense of all the disparate polling information, and I think Sabato, Cook, Halperin and the rest aren’t giving it enough due in their analyses.

Our lead op-ed on Wednesday was the NY Times’ Nicholas Kristoff writing persuasively about the potential reality of a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan killing some 500,000 people. We have over 150,000 troops overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan battling terrorists and insurgents. Economically we’re dealing in a post-financial bubble, oil at $45 per barrel (and rising), and we’re saddled with all the additional inefficiencies associated with the constant vigilance and increased security associated with defending against a possible terrorist attack that could come at any time, any where.

Is it any wonder why the polls pick up angst and nervousness among the public? The mistake here is interpreting that angst and nervousness as a repudiation of President Bush and his administration. Maybe it is, but it is not inconceivable that by mid-late September when the public if forced to focus on the real choice between the leadership of George W. Bush and John F. Kerry, this race may appear to be quite different.

What perplexes me most about all the negativism over Bush’s chances is the failure to explain - even absent a decent bounce for Bush in the national polls in the next 4-6 weeks - exactly how John Kerry is going to get to 270 electoral votes. Again, don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that Kerry can’t get to 270 or beyond, just that given the current position the President is in, I think Bush has an easier route to 270 than Kerry.

From an electoral college standpoint, the race is somewhat easy to analyze because most states are going to follow the Bush-Gore 2000 results. Because of reapportionment, this year if all states stayed the same Bush’s total would rise to 278 from 271 and Kerry’s number would fall to 260 from Al Gore’s total of 267. (Late clarification: Officially Gore received 266 electoral votes, because of one abstention form the District if Columbia.) So the question for the Democrats is how does Kerry get to 270?

Let’s stipulate up front that if Kerry wins wins either Florida or Ohio Bush is more than likely finished. But if we leave aside Florida and Ohio for a second and assume they stay in the Bush column, suddenly Kerry’s path to 270 becomes very difficult.

Realistically, Kerry would have to sweep the trio of New Hampshire, Nevada and West Virginia - which would be the political equivalent of drawing to an inside straight. Not impossible, but pretty unlikely.

New Hampshire is by far the most likely Kerry pickup and, for the sake of argument, we’ll give that to the Dems. So with NH’s 4 electoral votes Kerry gets to 264. WV and NV have 5 electoral votes each, but the problem for Kerry is 269 is not going to get it done because the House will split the 269-269 tie in Bush’s favor.

So in reality he will have to win all three states. (Theoretically he could carry WV and NV, lose NH, and get to 270, however everyone agrees that NH is his best chance for a pickup so its hard to imagine a scenario where he carries NV and WV, but not NH.)

But West Virginia is the real issue here. Winning NH is easy for Kerry - if not probable - and winning NV is very doable, but it would seem impossible for Kerry to win West Virginia while at the same time losing Ohio. Coal, Guns, God and Country aren’t going to be working for John Kerry in West Virginia.

Kerry supporters might ask, “well aren’t there other states our man can win to get us over 270?” The problem for the Dems is, what are they? Again, assuming FL and OH are off the table for now, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, Colorado and Arizona are not exactly high value targets. It’s not that Kerry can’t win one of these states, it’s just that if Bush does win FL and OH the chances of Kerry winning any of these states is less than 5%. It just isn’t going to happen.

Which brings us to what the election really is going to boil down to, at least today, Florida and Ohio. Given the electoral math, one would have to assume that the pundits predicting defeat for President Bush are calculating he will lose at least one of these states. The problem with this analysis is it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to suggest that Bush will “need a miracle” to carry both Florida and Ohio.

Maybe people are putting a lot of stock in the Florida polls that show Kerry ahead. I don’t. In my estimation Bush will have an easier time winning Florida than Ohio. Don’t forget all the big talk from Terry McAuliffe who declared that “job number one” was to send the President’s brother packing in 2002. Jeb Bush went on to win by 13% and the GOP swept the state from top to bottom.

This year, there won’t be any boost in the Jewish vote from Lieberman, African-Americans don’t seem particularly excited about John Kerry, Florida’s a big pro-military state, and George W. Bush will still handily win the Cuban-American vote - especially if Mel Martinez is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.

So, if the Democrats’ optimism comes down to a couple of Florida state polls taken in mid-summer, I think they’re making a big mistake. Let’s see where these same polls are October 1, and if the FL polls are still showing the same type of Kerry lead at that time, then I would agree that the Bush reelection will be in serious trouble.

Bush doesn’t need a miracle in Ohio, either. Even today in the period after Kerry’s convention, the polls in Ohio are split. With Gallup’s just released poll showing Bush ahead nationally by 2-3 points and his job approval above the supposed magic 50% level at 51, I’m perplexed why the Democrats are so confident the Kerry/Edwards ticket is going to carry a state that typically is two-four points more Republican than the national vote.

So I’ll reiterate what I said a couple of weeks ago:

Let's wait and see how things look after the conventions and the anniversary of September 11. It's quite possible all this midsummer optimism about a Kerry victory might look very different in mid-October.
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BB:

Very good article!

Great insight with the jewish and black vote not being motivated to vote democrat! (who has done more for Israel than Bush?)

And I think that this unmotivated feeling transcends the jewish and black vote. There are few groups of democrats who are truly excited about John Kerry. Yes, they hate Bush, but hating the other guy usually does not mean a motivated voter base for your guy!

Remember during the democratic primary? Gov. Dean was in the lead and the democrats were on fire! They were excited about his candidacy. When John Kerry pulled ahead beacause of his superior team and overwhelhming finances it seemed that the air was let out of the democrats. Even the most staunch democrat will admit that John Kerry is lacking something as a candidate. Call it charisma, I don’t know for sure but something is lacking!

No doubt those liberals who hate Bush will turn out in droves. That is what will make it a fairly close election. However, key democratic groups such as blacks, jews etc. are not motivated this time around and that will be one major reason why John Kerry will lose in November!

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Even some of the ABB crowd – the political realists at least – are beginning to understand that “anyone” in Anyone But Bush should have had a caveat for the most electable candidate.

http://www.cincypost.com/2004/08/18/schram081804.html

Kerry blowing election
By Martin Schram

Privately, but no longer quietly, Democrats are beginning to despair.

They cannot fathom why their man, John Kerry, cannot seem to fathom how easy it should be to put President Bush away, seize the high ground and take command of the issues of the war on Iraq and the war on terror.

They see polls showing that Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of Iraq and the war on terror. They see that three years after 9-11, and two years after Bush turned away from al-Qaida and focused on Iraq, al-Qaida has been allowed to get stronger again. So strong that Bush’s Department of Homeland Security had to declare that the United States is again under a high state of alert – because al-Qaida is determined and able to strike us again.

Democrats despair because, given all of that, a majority of America’s voters still tell pollsters they believe that Bush, not Kerry, can better command the war on terror. And mainly, the Democrats privately despair because they know why the people feel that way. They know it is because Kerry has been pathetically unable to answer, clearly and forthrightly, the simplest questions about the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Kerry cannot explain just what he would have done and what he will do now to better command and win the unwon war on terror.

Democrats say privately they don’t know what is wrong with Kerry. Here is what’s wrong: The Democratic presidential nominee has no clearly defined conceptual framework that is the basis of what he thinks about the war on terror and the war in Iraq.

Here’s the conceptual framework that Kerry should internalize until it becomes the bedrock and basis for all of his responses on these issues: America has become less safe due to President Bush’s egregious mistakes, misjudgments and mismanagement of the war on terror. Bush made the classic blunder of diverting U.S. military forces, economic resources and diplomatic goodwill away from the war to crush al Qaeda before that war was won – diverted them into a new war to topple Iraq’s evil dictator before we had accomplished our mission to vanquish the evildoer who attacked the United States mainland.

Without that conceptual framework as a foundation, Kerry has been despairingly unable to clearly and forthrightly answer even the simple question a reporter put to him during a photo op moment at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Here’s what Kerry was asked: If you knew at the time the Senate voted on the resolution authorizing the president to go to war in Iraq all that you now know, would you still have voted for the resolution?

Here’s what Kerry should have answered: “If we had all known back then what we now know, there is absolutely no way that the Senate would have passed that resolution. I wouldn’t have voted for it. Most of my fellow senators wouldn’t have voted for it. If we had known that we were being selectively fed portions of cooked intelligence, that we wouldn’t find that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that made him an imminent threat to us, that we’d rush to war without a plan to win the peace – plunge Iraq into a civil war that could create a potential new haven for Islamic terrorists – that resolution would never have been brought up for a vote!”

But here is what Kerry actually did answer. Kerry answered that, yes, he would have voted for the resolution anyway. “I believe it’s the right authority for a president to have,” Kerry added. Which was not just a lame and lousy answer, it was untruthful. But at least it was better than what he once said when a similar question prompted him to forthrightly declare: “You bet I might have.”

“It’s frustrating as hell,” said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., as quoted in the New York Times. He said Kerry is being “asked to explain Bush’s failure through his own vote. I saw a headline that said ‘Kerry Would Have Gone to War.’ That’s bull. He wouldn’t have. Not the way Bush did.”

Kerry’s problem is that he has been spooked by Bush’s political basher-in-chief, Karl Rove, who so successfully painted Kerry into the political landscape as a flip-flopper that every time Kerry is asked that perfectly fair question, all he thinks is: Oh-oh! Gotta be sure I don’t look like I’m flip-flopping!

So Kerry gives another knee-jerk nuanced response. But all that the people want to hear is straight talk. From someone. Just once.

Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service.

Publication Date: 08-18-2004

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Schram points out what will be very clear in most voters minds by November: Kerry has no strong position either way! He, not unlike Clinton, puts his finger to the wind (and pollsters to the test) and bends in the appropriate direction.

Unlike President Bush who holds certain core values to be important. Bush is decisive and knows what he wants for this country. The liberals on this forum may not like that, but the majority of voters do!

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Zeb, you hit the nail on the head.

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QUESTIONS FOR RAY C. FAIR
Bush Landslide (in Theory)!
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

Published: August 15, 2004

Q:As a professor of economics at Yale, you are known for creating an econometric equation that has predicted presidential elections with relative accuracy.

A:My latest prediction shows that Bush will receive 57.5 percent of the two-party votes.

Q:The polls are suggesting a much closer race.

A:Polls are notoriously flaky this far ahead of the election, and there is a limit to how much you want to trust polls.

Q:Why should we trust your equation, which seems unusually reductive?

A:It has done well historically. The average mistake of the equation is about 2.5 percentage points.

Q:In your book ‘‘Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,’’ you claim that economic growth and inflation are the only variables that matter in a presidential race. Are you saying that the war in Iraq will have no influence on the election?

A:Historically, issues like war haven’t swamped the economics. If the equation is correctly specified, then the chances that Bush loses are very small.

Q:But the country hasn’t been this polarized since the 60’s, and voters seem genuinely engaged by social issues like gay marriage and the overall question of a more just society.

A:We throw all those into what we call the error term. In the past, all that stuff that you think should count averages about 2.5 percent, and that is pretty small.

Q:It saddens me that you teach this to students at Yale, who could be thinking about society in complex and meaningful ways.

A:I will be teaching econometrics next year to undergraduates. Econometrics is a huge deal, because it is applied to all kinds of things.

Q:Yes, I know one of your studies used the econometric method to predict who is most likely to have an extramarital affair.

A:In that case, the key economic question was whether high-wage people are more or less likely to engage in an affair. They are slightly more likely to have an affair. But the economic theory is ambiguous because if your wage is really high, that tends to make you work more, and that would cut down on how much time you want to spend in an affair.

Q:Are you a Republican?

A:I can’t credibly answer that question. Using game theory in economics, you are not going to believe me when I tell you my political affiliation because I know that you know that I could be behaving strategically. If I tell you I am a Kerry supporter, how do you know that I am not lying or behaving strategically to try to put more weight on the predictions and help the Republicans?

Q:I don’t want to do game theory. I just want to know if you are a Kerry supporter.

A:Backing away from game theory, which is kind of cute, I am a Kerry supporter.

Q:I believe you entirely, although I’m a little surprised, because your predictions implicitly lend support to Bush.

A:I am not attempting to be an advocate for one party or another. I am attempting to be a social scientist trying to explain voting behavior.

Q:But in the process you are shaping opinion. Predictions can be self-confirming, because wishy-washy voters might go with the candidate who is perceived to be more successful.

A:It could work the other way. If Kerry supporters see that I have made this big prediction for Bush, more of them could turn out just to prove an economist wrong.

Q:Perhaps you could create an equation that would calculate how important the forecasts of economists are.

A:There are so many polls and predictions, and I am not sure the net effect of any one of them is much.

So in that case, no one has much influence, including me.

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The latest Harris poll shows Bush and Kerry tied at 47% each. Would you want to be tied with a sitting President one week before that Presidents convention? This spells more trouble for Kerry!

We all know by now (even though the media played it down) that Kerry did not get any sort of bounce in his numbers after his convention. All Bush has to do is get a modest 5pt bounce. The democrats will then have to chip away at that lead and will have only two months to do it.

The Kerry camp is in trouble!

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Nice try, but the incumbent is expected to be ahead in the polls, and Bush is not ahead.

Also, any president coming up for re-election with less than 50% approval rating is usually said to be doomed.

Look at the FoXNews approval polls for Bush, his disapproval numbers are highe than his approval numbers!

"Question: “Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president?”

48% Disapprove
44% Approve

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128679,00.html

Also, you can keep up with the electoral vote tally here:

Bush’s disappointing poll numbers are why he is running another dirty campaign this year. But his record stinks, so he has to resort to fighting dirty.

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Lumpy quoting Fox news Ha…Thank you for the laugh!

First of all, the fact that your man had ZERO bump after his convention should tell you that while America is not enchanted with Bush (were they ever?). They sure as heck were not captivated by John (I have 3 purple hearts) Kerry. Hmm why didn’t he talk about his voting record as Senator? Oh …that’s right he is the most (one of) liberal Senator in Washington. (When the republicans start running advertisements about this will you cry foul?)

Furthermore, the Bush campaign has not fought dirty. As you know there are splinter groups on both sides that are throwing mud.

In fact, let’s look back at the last presidential election to see who was fighting dirty. Two days before the election it was revealed that Bush had a DWI on his record. Gee…what a coincidence. No one new a thing about it until two days before the election!

However, I will confess that politics is dirty and yes, both sides will be throwing some serious mud before this thing is over! Make sure to scream foul when it happens to the republicans as well as the democrats!

As far as the polls go the telling part was, as I stated Kerry did not get a bump from his convention. Perhaps the first candidate in modern times not to get one. This is how I look at it judging from the “no bump convention” The independents and undecideds do not want John Kerry!

If you throw Ole’ Ralph in the mix that will suck up about 3% of the crazy liberal vote. President Bush gets a modest 5% bump from the convention (it could be more). The dem’s then whittle it down to about 1% to 2% and Bush is reelected!

It sort of makes you sick huh?

(Keep in mind I am not taking into account an improved economy. An imporved Iraq. Kerry’s wife talking out of her (very wealthy) butt. More news about Kerry’s now questionable Viet Nam days. Edwards being exposed as an ambulance chaser (albeit a sophisticated one). And a host of other things that could easily make this a full 5% victory margin for President Bush.)

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[quote]ZEB wrote:
In fact, let’s look back at the last presidential election to see who was fighting dirty. Two days before the election it was revealed that Bush had a DWI on his record. Gee…what a coincidence.
[/quote]

Two months before THIS election, the Swift Boat Liars release a book, that contradicts the official Navy records, as well as their own previous statements. The co-author of the book Jerome Corsi is a documented racist and bigot.

Then you go on to say that Kerry’s Vietnam record is “in question”.

ZEB, I am sad to say that I think all your talk about decency is starting to look like lip service. I think all you care about is a victory, and any means will justify the end.

I am prepared to deal with another 4 years of Bush. I’ve had 4 years of practice. But a Kerry presidency to you is simply unacceptable.

That’s why you’re willing to condone dirty tricks.

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lumpster,

Dirty trick book writing…see also Micheal Moore, Moveon.org, etc. Lets not forget the Democrats wrote the book on 527’s as a means to circumvent a law that many republicans oppose. Because some republicans are using democratic tactics to even the playing field is important to note

thanks,
me

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Lumpy:

“Decency” is attacking the problem and not the person! I think that most of us on this board, with only a few exceptions do that.

As far as me not being able to accept a Kerry Presidency, I could. I just know it won’t happen.

I look at it this way: If Kerry is somehow elected President that means that Hillary Clinton is out of luck for at least eight years! That my friend makes me very, very happy! :slight_smile:

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Gee, I wonder why Edwards is not helping Kerry in the South?