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

I still think that Edward's pretty-boy, slick trial lawyer thing would have worked against him. You want to hand the reins of the country over to this BOY in wartime? This boy with hardly any experience to speak of, who has never had anything to do with the military, we want HIM inc charge in these perilous times? Sure, he's got a killer smile and the ladies love him, but you think Al Qaida would be skeered?

Etc.

Anyway, we'll never know. I think the most pertinent point is that the 80-million-machine would have been targeted differently. I think the gravitas and war experience of Kerry have been very much in his favor.

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timberlandko wrote:

Remember, PDiddie, you and I have a bet goin' here.

Yes, let's pull those predictions forward:

timber, on Sunday, December 14, 2003, wrote:

I will conjecture that come November, Bush the Younger will pull 57% to 59% of the popular vote, and that the Republicans will pick up at least a dozen House seats and at least four in the Senate

The July 5 issue of TIME has an article on improving Democratic chances for retaking the Senate. Polling data from tight races in the South and the West indicate that popular local Democrats have a good shot at winning in Red states across the country:

Quote:

Seven months ago, the Democrats' quest for the Senate appeared hopeless, and Republicans, who cling to a slim 51-to-48 majority (with one independent), were confidently predicting they would widen that lead. Especially in the Republican-friendly South, Democrats were staring at a wipeout, with five of their Senators -- Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, John Breaux of Louisiana, John Edwards of North Carolina, Zell Miller of Georgia and Bob Graham of Florida -- all deciding to retire.

But Democrats have since recruited credible-enough candidates that the party now has a shot at holding on to three or four of the Southern seats -- in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. And in the West, Democrats are hoping to nab the open seats left by the retirement of Republican Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Don Nickles of Oklahoma, and to take on the vulnerable Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. So suddenly the math has changed: Democrats can see their way to a net gain of two seats, which would give them a slim advantage in the Senate. 'We're at the cusp of a victory in November,' says Senator Jon Corzine, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Yousa in trouble, jefe...

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Here's a graph update that will make the Bush people happy ...

http://home.wanadoo.nl/anepiphany/images/bush-kerry_midjune.gif

I'm not posting the average-of-polls graph update yet, cause more polls for the period up to June 30 might still appear and then I'd have to update the update again. But I can tell you ... it does not look good. Nothing like Timber's 58% of course, but we are looking at the best score for Bush since January. And the sharpest upswing for him yet. Of course, thats based on the average of only four polls - but among them, three with a 7% swing, as noted before.

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I'm thinking that when you do, nimh, your graph is going to look a bit like a soufflé.

This is more along the lines of what I have been finding:

Quote:

Rep. Jay Inslee knows about political tidal waves, because one of them almost sank his political career.

Inslee, who now represents a suburban Seattle district, was tossed out of Congress from another district in the 1994 Republican sweep. "When you see a tidal wave go over your head about 35 feet high," Inslee says, "you notice it."

But he came back to the House in 1998, and now what he's seeing "is the same tidal wave moving in the opposite direction... There's a passion out there." And the passion, Inslee says, is running against George W. Bush...

"I've never seen a time with so many Republicans expressing consternation about their party and a willingness to support the other party," said Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat whose district, in Washington's southwest corner, went for Bush four years ago.

Baird, a psychologist who has worked with statistics, is also skeptical of making too much of anecdotes. But he is running across plenty of them on the anti-Bush side. "If you contrast this campaign to the campaign of four years ago, you saw George Bush stickers everywhere and very few Al Gore stickers," he said. "Now, it's at least 50-50" between Bush and Kerry. Baird speaks of a man in a health club wearing a John Kerry T-shirt who told him: "What you have to understand is that I am a lifelong Republican." And the congressman chuckles over a car he spotted that "had an American flag, an 'I'm the NRA' bumper sticker and a John Kerry bumper sticker."

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The Sovereignty/economy/Reagan bounce...?

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I wish they'd start asking "Has your opinion changed in the lastmonth---if so, why?"

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the lifelong, diehard republicans (like my father) are seriously wanting a republican back in office and will probably not vote at all in the coming election.

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PDiddie wrote:

Quote:
"I've never seen a time with so many Republicans expressing consternation about their party and a willingness to support the other party," said Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat whose district, in Washington's southwest corner, went for Bush four years ago.

See, I'm also coming across lots of anecdotal assertions like that - but I have seen hardly any poll in which over 10% of Republicans said they'd vote for the other side. And there's almost always more Democrats saying they'll vote Bush. Are the polls somehow systematically wrong on this? As long as most of the anecdotes, like the ones you now quote, are recounted by Democrats/liberals, I'm not getting my hopes up.

Same goes with conservative non-voters. Read a lot about them, sure they're around. But again, most every poll records a stronger share of the Bush than of the Kerry voters who say they are "sure" they will indeed vote for the guy. Kerry's support is softer. Thats only logical, as people have had 4 years to decide on what they think about Bush, while Kerry only appeared on most people's radars this year ... but unless those numbers turn around after the Dem convention, I'm still assuming that Kerry is more prone to suffer from disappointing supporter turnout.

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good point sofia

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Three state polls (sorry I'm relying a lot on Dales' blog now, pollingreport.com doesnt do state polls, not for free anyway):

Florida, Quinnipiac (reliable):

Bush 44, Kerry 46, or
Bush 43, Kerry 43 when Nader is included.

So much for that Fox poll last week that suddenly gave Bush a 10 point lead ... but thats no surprise.

Arizona, Arizona State University:

Bush 47, Kerry 35

Yes, really. Evil or Very Mad

It's not the poll, either - just last month the same ASU pollsters had Bush in the lead by only 5%; two months ago, by just 3%. Now, 12%. The Arizonians seem to have looked at Kerry and decided against him ... and this was supposed to be one of those Rep states he'd turn into a battleground.

Musta been an awful lot of undecideds in that poll, tho - but again, if Bush is at 47% already even when there are so many undecideds, it makes him pretty hard to catch up with.

Maine, Strategic Marketing Services (never heard of):

Bush 41, Kerry 43.5

Kerry in a narrow lead. But thats quite a drop from last month, when two other polls had him with a 10 and 19 point-lead. And SMS itself had Kerry with a 13% lead back in March.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

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?

sozobe wrote:

I think the most pertinent point is that the 80-million-machine would have been targeted differently.

About the argument that Kerry's benefited so little from all the disastrous news and publicity for Bush because, in turn, he was the target of a ruthless "80-million-machine".

Not to be anal about it, but if you really want to make a realistic assessment about this, you've got to first add that Kerry himself spent $45 million in the same time.

So its just a $35 million, not an $80 million difference thats supposed to have outbalanced all the advantages you would have expected Kerry to derive from the Bush admin's Fallujah, Abu G., 9/11 Commission etc PR disasters.

Meanwhile, you gotta wonder about where that $45 million went (emphasis mine):

MSNBC wrote:

a real drop from 68 percent in the NBC/Journal March survey.

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How do you suppose poll respondents account for the precipitous decline in their knowledge of Kerry from 68 to 57 percent since March?

Could they actually have forgotten so much so fast? Rolling Eyes

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He might just not have made a very lasting impression ...

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Quote:

Not to be anal about it, but if you really want to make a realistic assessment about this, you've got to first add that Kerry himself spent $45 million in the same time.

nimh, I don't think so, actually. We were talking about Kerry vs. someone else as the Democratic nominee, like Edwards. The 80 million dollars (or however much has been spent between when it became apparent Kerry would be the nominee and now) would have been targeted to whomever the Democratic nominee-apparent was. Thus, Kerry's been targeted, not Edwards (for example.) As such, there is no basis for a realistic assessment of what I thought the subject was; not how well (or badly) Kerry is doing, but how well (or badly) Edwards (for example) would do in comparison.

I think that there were a lot of weaknesses with Edwards that the Bush campaign could have gotten ahold of and made political hay with. My main point is just that a) we can't know, because b) the challenges/ targeting would have been different. Kerry is doing badly in terms of making a good impression/ rallying the troops, and we think huh, Edwards would have been better at that, but there are a whole host of other tests that Kerry has either passed to get here or wasn't even faced with because he obviously would have passed (like "too inexperienced to take over during wartime.")

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nimh wrote:

He might just not have made a very lasting impression ...

I don't think that's it...

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I also don't think that you can measure $80 million dollar worth of negativity against Kerry's $45 million of introduction and come up with a $35 million dollar measurable difference.

What the dollars are buying isn't quantifiable.

edit: fixed the math...

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Re: If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elect

nimh wrote:

EDIT:

The original question was:
"What odds would you set for the presidentials 2004 (primaries and real ones)?
And remember - you're a bookie, it's your business that's at stake here - you have no time for ideology or wishful thinking!"
16/05: Edited the title of this thread, to make it more generally about all opinion poll news and "other" bets on the candidates' chances ...

getting back to the original premise here, i would respectfully suggest, that as "Americans", you people should do much more than just "bet" on the coming election!
[for example - working your asses off to ensure that the current 'landscaping' in the oval office, is removed!]

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All Bush can hope to accomplish with his negative advertising is to try to pull Kerry's negatives up.

There's nothing for Bush to tout. Nothing.

Elections involving an incumbent are always a referendum on the incumbent. Always.

Bush may have gotten a slight bounce from Reaganpalooza, but that's gone already. It won't be reflected until you see next week's polling.

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Re: If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elect

BoGoWo wrote:

getting back to the original premise here, i would respectfully suggest, that as "Americans", you people should do much more than just "bet" on the coming election!
[for example - working your asses off to ensure that the current 'landscaping' in the oval office, is removed!]

True enough. Time for me to go now... :wink:

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Well, here's one graph that seems to confirm both of Sozobe's theses (it's on last week's Battleground Poll):

- Kerry is doing badly
- Edwards would probably not have done better

The latter is to say that I have to admit the very points Kerry seems to be failing on would have been hard for Edwards to do better with: steady and strong leadership.

I do think Edwards would have done better on "says what he believes" - he may be a lawyer (which would be a big minus on this point), but the one thing he scored with in his campaign was how he made people believe he was sincere, that he meant it. Like Clinton did, way back then.

http://www.pollingreport.com/images/BATTLEcares.GIF

Oh, I'd be willing to bet that Edwards will not be the VP candidate, by the way. Because

1) Kerry prefers to err on the cautious side - better someone boring, but experienced and reliable than any kind of experiment or gamble.
2) Kerry doesn't seem to like or respect Edwards much (at all).
3) Kerry, who seems to be of the frail ego kind in any case, would be afraid to be upstaged by young John.
4) The make-up of Kerry's campaign team suggests a strong preference for working with a small group of familiar associates, rather than a more varied group of people he hadnt worked with before already - even if it means passing on greater talents or experts and sticking with more mediocre friends.

Dunno who it will be, then. Gephardt? All of the above would plead for him. Then again, considering that (imho) Kerry's consistently opted for the wrong choice, he might just go for Tom Vilsack ...

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

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