If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

National Democracy Corps poll of 14-17 June apparently had Kerry up over Bush by 49% vs 48%. Pretty much exactly where the race was in mid-May (49/47) and late-April (48/49).

Face it, thus far we've just been saying in a hundred different ways: "the race is tied". The rest is just us entertaining ourselves.

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when asked today at the whitehouse press conference about the recent polls showing displeasure at how the iraq war is going, the Ari clone said, well, yeah but look at the polls in Iraq about how happy they are.

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nimh wrote:

One's courtesy of Fox News. Now Fox is partisan, all that. But that doesnt explain why Bush does so much better in the Fox poll this week than he did in the Fox poll two weeks ago:

Bush 47 (+5)
Kerry 40 (-2)
Nader 3

Fox didnt just release this very Bush-friendly (even to its own standards) national poll, but also a batch of state polls.

In Pennsylvania, where the last three three-way polls (Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA and Rasmussen) all showed a 1% lead (twice for Kerry, once for Bush), a new Fox poll shows a 5% lead for Bush.

In Michigan, where the last three polls (Epic/MRA, Rasmussen and Mitchell) showed Kerry with a lead of 2-6%, Fox now has Bush with a 2% lead.

In Ohio, where the last two polls (ARG and LATimes) had Kerry with a lead of 3-6% and before that, Rasmussen had Bush in the lead by 2%, Fox now has Bush with a 4% lead.

In Florida, where the last few polls have been erratic (ARG gave Kerry a 1% lead, SurveyUSA gave Bush one of 7% and Rasmussen had them equal), Fox has Bush in the lead by a whopping 10%.

Now, eh ...

Does anyone else feel that the above list says more about Fox than about Bush?

But there might yet be a rational explanation - more rational than Bushie Fox honchos gathering in the attic to doctor polls, that is. Note that the Florida poll, for example, had Bush in the lead by 48% to 38% (Kerry polling 5-9% less than in other polls). That must be an awful lot of undecideds. More even in Michigan: Bush 42%, Kerry 40%.

OK, so thats the obvious bit that Dales' blog pointed out. The Fox polls feature more undecideds because probably they push for an answer less (eg by not asking, "if you're not sure, who do you lean to", for example). And considering Bush's support is "harder" while Kerry relies more on "leaners", that will skew results Bush's way. Without any doctoring, though its anyone's guess whether the choice of methodology might have been inspired by the expected effect on the outcome ... :wink:

Interesting stuff, this. Lot to learn <nods>

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dyslexia wrote:

when asked today at the whitehouse press conference about the recent polls showing displeasure at how the iraq war is going, the Ari clone said, well, yeah but look at the polls in Iraq about how happy they are.

That musta been one selective reading of the polls in Iraq he was doing ... damn.

Quote:

[..] the main findings of the poll, which was commissioned by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) last month and which was leaked yesterday, reveal that only 2 per cent of the Iraqis polled in mid-May see coalition troops as liberators, while 92 per cent said they were occupiers. [..]

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Quote:

Bush's Rating Falls to Its Lowest Point, New Survey Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER

Published: June 29, 2004

resident Bush's job approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found Americans stiffening their opposition to the Iraq war, worried that the invasion could invite domestic terrorist attacks and skeptical about whether the White House has been fully truthful about the war or about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A majority of respondents in the poll, conducted before yesterday's transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government, said that the war was not worth its cost in American lives and that the Bush administration did not have a clear plan to restore order to Iraq.

The survey, which showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 42 percent, also found that nearly 40 percent of Americans say they do not have an opinion about Senator John Kerry, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, despite what have been both parties' earliest and most expensive television advertising campaigns.

Among those who do have an opinion, Mr. Kerry is disliked more than he is liked. More than 50 percent of respondents said that Mr. Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.

Read more

Something very odd about that report, though.

It repeatedly claims that his current job rating "is the lowest such figure in a Times/CBS News survey since the beginning of Mr. Bush's presidency in January 2001".

It isn't; last month it was worse. In the poll held on May 20-23, his approval rating was a point lower still (41%) and his disapprocal rating a point higher (52%). So if anything, Bush did not fall into some hole like the article suggests, but stabilised (if at a low level), the past month.

Same with the favourability rating. "45 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion of Mr. Bush himself, again the most negative measure the Times/CBS Poll has found since he took office", the article claims. But thats not true; it's in fact two points lower than last month. And his current favourability rating of 39%, if dreadfully low, is still 3 points higher than last month and 1 point higher than two months ago.

The Bush vs Kerry numbers also point to a stabilisation of Bush's dropping numbers, or in fact even a rebound. As the report points out, "Nationwide, Mr. Kerry has the support of 45 percent of registered voters, with Mr. Bush supported by 44 percent. When Ralph Nader, who is running as an independent, is included, he draws 5 percent, leaving 42 percent for Mr. Kerry and 43 percent for Mr. Bush". What the report doesnt point out is that this means that, compared to last month, Bush rebounded 3% and Kerry is down 4%; in the data that includes Nader, Bush is back up 2% and Kerry down 5%.

That means that this is the third Bush vs Kerry poll in a row that shows a 7% swing to Bush.

Its still no all too great a reason for Republicans to cheer; it just means that Bush rebounded from last month's horrific news and got himself straight back to where he was two months ago: in a deadlock with Kerry. But that's something: last month's drop wasn't the inauguration of the final fall; instead he neatly flipped back up into place.

One hopeful sign for the Dems is the take of Independents on Bush. Predictably, only 12% of Democrats approve of the job Bush is doing and only 8% of Republicans disapprove. But 54% of the Independents disapprove, and only 34% approve.

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Thanks nimh!

I wonder if we have any information on the percentage of Democrats, Republicans, and independents in the electorate. In a climate as polarized as today's, I can imagine that there aren't enough independents around to swing the vote either way. Also, given the polarization, the election may well be decided by the parties' relative success at mobilizing their base to vote. But on both accounts, it seems hard to find numbers. Or am I just being ignorant?

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Thomas wrote:

I wonder if we have any information on the percentage of Democrats, Republicans, and independents in the electorate. In a climate as polarized as today's, I can imagine that there aren't enough independents around to swing the vote either way. Also, given the polarization, the election may well be decided by the parties' relative success at mobilizing their base to vote. But on both accounts, it seems hard to find numbers. Or am I just being ignorant?

I was just hopping over to Dales' blog and saw that he picked up on the same contradictions in that NYTimes story as I did just now.

Anyway, reflecting in an aside on whether the CBS poll's sample of respondents and the weightings it applied at least were reasonable (they were), he also had this answer to your question:

Quote:

Harris polls on the question of party self-identification every year. In February of this year, Harris found that 33% identified as Democrats and 28% as Republicans. (That is not to say that is it definitive, however. ABCNews did a similar poll last November, and found the parties at parity, 31% apiece.)

Lots of independents to go around still ...

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Well, TNR's Noam Scheiber picked up on the misguided NYT report too:

Quote:

DID THE TIMES MISS THE BEGINNING OF A BUSH COMEBACK?:
Today's New York Times breathlessly proclaims the recent Times/CBS poll to be miserable news for George W. Bush. But when you actually read over the results, they suggest Bush's numbers are either stabilizing or improving somewhat. The Times article claims, for example, that Bush's personal approval and job approval ratings are the lowest of his presidency. But that's only true when you restrict your data set to the Times/CBS poll. When you consider recent CBS polls in addition to Times/CBS polls (the CBS polls come out far more frequently and appear to use the same methodology as the joint Times/CBS polls), then you notice that Bush's personal approval numbers have actually ticked up slightly since May [..] Ditto Bush's job approval ratings [..] at the very least they show Bush stabilizing after a several-month-long slide.

The same goes for the right track/wrong track numbers (i.e., the response to the perennial question: "Do you think the country is headed down the right track or wrong track?"). The Times story points out that 57 percent of respondents said they felt the country was on the wrong track--a measure "used by pollsters as a barometer of discontent with an incumbent," according to the article. What the article doesn't say is that this one of the few categories in which Bush has enjoyed a statistically significant improvement since the May CBS poll. The percentage of people saying the country is on the "right track" has risen from 30 to 36; the percentage of people saying "wrong track" has fallen from 65 to 57. Oh, and other major category in which Bush has enjoyed a statistically significant improvement? The economy. His job approval rating in that category has risen from 36 to 40 since May; his disapproval rating has fallen from 57 to 52. [..]

Reporting on a new GWU Battleground poll, this AP report seems to offer a more realistic take on things:

Quote:

Leadership issues keep race close
Bush, Kerry polling 48% each in two-way contestBush leads on leadership

I still say that choosing Kerry as the Dem candidate was a very, very dangerous mistake, which may well cost the Democrats the elections.

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You think that a different candidate would win?

I think any candidate the Dems can muster right now (including the "wildcards" like Hillary) will lose.

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nimh--

Using hindsight, which candidate would you have prefered? <Legitimately interested>

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He has said Edwards in the past.

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Well, if its any consolation, Edwards seems to be first in line for the Veep sweepstakes... I wonder if he'd make a difference there?

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Yes, I sincerely believe Edwards would have done a better job.

He is no great politician himself, but he has shown the remarkable political skill to rally the Democratic base in a far more spirited way than Kerry seems to be able to do while at the same time reaching out to middle-class, middle-ground voters that get nervous when they think of an all-out liberal like Kerry.

I've also said that I thought Gephardt and Clark would have done a better job than Kerry. I'm having second thoughts about that, though.

Considering how much trouble Kerry is having fighting the impression (justified or not) of being a boring, uninspiring, old-school classical liberal, Gephardt would hardly have been a significantly more attractive alternative. The one thing Gephardt would be able to do that Kerry is having trouble with is connecting to blue-collar (union) folk. He'd have done well in states like Penn and Michigan where Kerry now is struggling. But among young and suburban, undecided voters, he'd probably do at least as badly as Kerry.

Clark, meanwhile, though far more sympathetic than Kerry (which is relevant considering the personality-related flak Kerry is getting), would have been much more of a wild card. In that sense he was kind of a milder version of Dean, who really only made sense as a choice if you were assuming the race was lost to begin with and thus only some spectacular upset could turn the tide. (After all, only a spectacular man can create a spectacular turnabout. When you're behind 3-0, its no use to put in a player who can all so carefully chip off some strategic space here or there - you need an all-or-nothing, upset-or-bust, most-probably-going-to-lose-but-he-might-just-pull-it-off kind of candidate.)

So - Edwards would have done better, imo. Gephardt would have done pretty much the same as Kerry. Clark might have done a lot better than Kerry - and might have done perplexingly worse. Dean probably would have been a disaster, but at least somewhere suggested the possibility of some surprise upset by somehow succesfully changing the rules of the game. Kerry will never change any rule of the game, and is either just going to scrape by (and if so, not thanks to anything he did himself) - or score a pale, unspectacular small- or moderate-margin defeat. Thats my take at the moment.

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nimh, do you think that maybe if it were a different candidate, Bush's 80 million ad burst might have simply done the characterization differently?

I'm not sure that it would be important for them to stand up to the tests Kerry is facing because I think it would be different tests, and that's why I think you may well have been right about Edwards.

I can't really see a good angle to take him down on. Then again, you never know what they could come up with and make stick.

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Well, if I were Rove and the Dem candidate had been Clark, I'd have tried to take him down as a political dilettant, an unpredictable amateurist, who mainly went into politics out of vanity. All powerful putdowns in a time of perceived national threat. Thats why I'm thinking he might have done better than Kerry - but might well also have done perplexingly worse.

If Gephardt were the candidate, being Rove, I would go ... well, pretty much for the same mix they're applying now. Gephardt, old-fashioned Washington liberal fixture, with enough of a track record to convincingly put down as a flip-flopper. So Gephardt, I'm thinking, would actually have faced the same tests. I think he might just have done a better job fending against them than Kerry has - he's shown himself a far more skilled political operator in the past than Kerry, whose Congress career has been one of relative political isolation, focused on abstract foreign policy issues aside from the in-the-spotlights political manouvring. But his appeal to the young would be even harder to work up than Kerry's, so that might equal each other out.

The good thing about Dean is that he was (seen to be) so out there, that Bush ads could have hardly added to the image <grins> - if he'd have been elected, it would have been because enough voters had decided they actually wanted what the Bush ads would be warning about: drastic political change from conventional politics Mr. Green

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Edwards, I think now, may have been harder to take down than Kerry.

He has MUCH less record to do 'gotcha' with.

The only problem is that can also be a negative. If we weren't in Iraq, Edwards might have sailed. But, inexperience in wartime doesn't float.

But, Kerry's other downside--lack of like-ability... Edwards nails. I think the Dem base could have gotten excited about a fresh face, without Kerry's baggage. Sometimes, people rally to an unknown--pinning hopes and such on them.

I thought Clarke was in the middle of a Dean-like implosion. Not ready for prime time. IMO.

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God knows the man-hours that have been put into finding something to throw at Kerry. The one thing that seems to have caught on (though quite possibly only because of the endless repetition of the talking point) is 'flip flop'.

That's not a particularly new or unique characterization...Mary Matalin threw that one out on Clinton regularly. It also has the hoped for advantage of supporting the contrast with Bush, who as we know, they have spent a LOT of time trying to portray as resolute, steady, certain, and unyeilding.

What they may have been able to pin on Edwards we won't find out until he's chosen as VP or until his own run for the Presidency later, if that happens. But that's a crap shoot, as we saw with Dean's 'scream'. That so little has actually been made to work against Kerry - after the millions spent and the man-hours put to the task - suggests to me that his win has a fortuitous aspect. Sometimes a flat demeanor can be an advantage.

The accepted wisdom, apparently, is that Kerry shows strength in the final quarter. I have no idea how accurate that is or how, even if so, that may play out in this instance.

But also, I am concerned not just about this election, but also concerning the next four years. The New Right machine that has been built up over the last two decades is formidable and it will go into full attack mode from day one of a Kerry administration. I'm not certain what set of criteria might be most desirable in a sitting president under such circumstances...someone with the smarts and savvy and charisma of Clinton was badly damaged by that machine. I hope Kerry has a vengeful bone somewhere in that tall frame.

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Thomas, I think you might be wrong on the influence of independents, this time. They may be few, but I don't personally know a Republican solidly supporting Bush. Likewise, the Democrates I know may favor Kerry over Bush, but I'm not seeing any enthusiasm.

Actually, I can imagine a significant number of voters remaining undecided till the moment they pull the lever.

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hi roger...very happy to see you again.

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Funny thing about that GWU Battleground poll reported in that AP piece above is that its done, in collaboration, by a Democratic and a Republican polling firm.

You could say, that guaranteed a degree of neutrality if not objectivity. On the other hand, it is perhaps no surprise that in this poll, Nader scores a mere 1% ...

Polls ... Rolling Eyes

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If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

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