The latest batch of polls are out, which contradict the increasingly worthless Zogby poll that showed Kerry with a large lead over Bush. The latest CBS Poll shows that Kerry still is just slightly ahead of Bush and well within the margin of error, while Bush’s issue numbers have improved slightly. The latest Harris poll shows the same 47%/47% split that’s been the norm through most of this race.
My observation is that 47% provides a baseline for both candidates at this point. Any poll that shows a significant deviation from 47% for either candidate should be looked at with a jaundiced eye. The latest Gallup information indicates that Bush’s base of support is solidifying, and it seems highly unlikely that we’ll see much movement until the GOP convention.
As for what the future may hold, I’m predicting that the convention will be the turning point for Bush – provided he gives one of the best speeches of his political career. Like Kerry, Bush has to not only hit it out of the park, but he must appeal to those few undecided voters that will be a key part of this race. The convention is his best hope to do so. (But not his last, as the debates will also be crucial.)
At the same time, it’s now a virtual guarantee that the protests in New York will turn disastrous. As much as the media likes to ignore things that make Kerry look bad, the protestors are going to be hard to ignore. The more the protestors try to act like little thugs, the more people will be turned off towards the wave of anti-Bush invective that has poisoned American politics. Conventions are boring, scripted events. A protest that results in violence isn’t. 2004 could well become 1968 if the black bloc and other radical leftists have their way – and the 1968 convention is one of the bigger reasons Richard Nixon won that year.
This race has found its equilibrium, and both candidates have a solid base of support that ensures that neither is likely to dip below a certain level of support. Kerry won’t woo many committed Bush voters, and Bush isn’t going to appeal to the rabidly anti-war and anti-Bush Democratic base.
If Bush does well in New York, the economy continues to recover and picks up strength from a relatively weak summer, and Kerry continues to try and have it both ways on Iraq, I see the possibility of a Bush victory to be strong.
UPDATE: Bloomberg has more on the CBS News poll including some interesting information. The Swift Boat attacks may actually be working against Kerry (or more likely his vitriolic attacks are backfiring). Among veterans, Kerry’s support has fallen 9% from 46% to 37%. (Well outside the poll’s margin of error.) What’s even worse for the Kerry campaign (but good news for Bush) is that independents are moving away from Kerry, from 50% to 44% while Bush’s support has risen from 33% to 39%.
If Kerry loses independent voters and Bush gains them, Kerry is toast. It will be interesting to see if these trends continue. I think the Swift Boat charges didn’t help Bush or hurt Kerry by themselves – I think Kerry’s counterattacks have hurt him severely. Kerry talks a lot about his “band of brothers” in Vietnam – yet when some of them start questioning him, he attacks them in a way that can only be described as virtriolic. Veterans are understandably appalled at this, and the primary theme of Kerry’s convention is beginning to fall apart.
There’s also an interesting Survey USA poll that shows Bush and Kerry within 3 points of each other in California. Now, the sampling for this poll is entirely inadaquate, and I doubt the margins are truly that close, but if Bush can whittle Kerry’s lead down to less than Gore’s lead in 2000 it could have Bush winning the popular vote.
Bush is neck and neck with Kerry in Ohio, and the latest Florida polls shows Kerry has a very tenous lead in that state.
For the record, I stand by my assertion that Bush will win Florida and Ohio. Based on recent polling, I’m also saying that Bush has a strong chance to win Wisconsin as well. My unscientific guess at the Electoral College results would be Bush 279 to Kerry 259. If Bush wins Wisconsin, it would also mean that a Kerry win in Nevada and West Virginia would be negated. I think Nevada is in play for Kerry, but I don’t particularly see West Virginia as a Kerry pickup.
Of course, one other likely scenario has Bush not winning Wisconsin and losing Nevada and New Hampshire – which would make the EC vote a 269-269 tie. If that happens, expect things to get very nasty very fast.
Funny how Republicans trivialize Kerry poll leads when they’re occurring, but when Bush’s numbers nudge ever-so-slightly better, they speak retroactively of the “big Kerry leads” that were. Kerry’s meager post-convention bounce tells me the polarization of the electorate is such that nobody will have a landslide. Voters have even less reason to respond to the GOP’s infomercial the week after next since they already know everything they need to know about Bush, and either like him or hate him. I’d be very surprised if Bush gets more than a couple-point bounce from his post-convention polls. On the other hand, the state-by-state numbers are reflecting very good news for Kerry. We could easily see a popular vote-electoral vote split again this time, only this time I have to suspect the EV would favor Kerry.
The “strong showing” for Bush you speak of in Wisconsin is from a Strategic Vision poll. This a Republican pollster and the fact that they can’t produce a Bush lead in a published poll for Wisconsin is telling. With that said, I do believe WI is Kerry’s weakest link among the Gore states. Yet I maintain Bush will get nowhere in Minnesota or Wisconsin hyping Iraq or his anti-terrorism efforts. If Bush to compete here, he needs to appeal to the gluttony of the privileged with fear-mongering about Kerry raising their taxes. I submit that most swing voters in both states are affluent suburbanites who would be in the Bush column were it not for their dissatisfaction over Iraq. Bush needs an ad campaign targeting their avarice. If he does, he has a great chance in Wisconsin and a modest chance in Minnesota.
I’ve seen no consistent data showing Bush even competing with Kerry among independents. If Kerry slips below a five-point lead among indies, it’s trouble for him, but the aggregate poll average indicates a 10-point advantage for Kerry among this demographic. Bush could certainly peel some of them off, but I’m not worried about it thus far.
I don’t see Kerry as having a prayer in West Virginia unless the coal miners’ union makes a major case about Bush’s proposal to roll back safety regulations for workers that would result in miners dying of black lung disease at younger ages to save their bosses some money. If the union isn’t smart enough to call Bush on this ferocious assault on workers’ health, the wedge issues will dominate in WV and the booming coal economy will not yield Clinton-esque margins in the Democratic strongholds in coal country. Kerry is likely to do better in northern WV steel counties than Gore did, but not nearly well enough to make up for the 6-point margin Bush won by. On the other hand, I give Kerry 50-50 odds in Nevada, am more optimistic about Florida even though a poll lead of five points or more is necessary to overcome GOP dirty tricks in the state, and see little chance of Bush prevailing in Ohio. Overall, Kerry has a pretty comfortable advantage IMHO.