2004 User Predictions - Discussion

[NHPolitico]

On the other hand he's unlikely to pick up anything Bush won in 2000.

Which sort of makes it hard to win the WH.

[NHPolitico]

That makes the map look like this:



But, Polls have shown Kerru ahead in VT and WA, plus big leads for generic democrats in WI and MI, so the acuracy of the poll isn't all that great.


Well, I didn't go in and calculate how Nader voters would affect the margin, so a few of the states might be moved back over-- Vermont would be the first to shift back.

[NHPolitico]

I would trust a drunken farmer over a Zogby poll...

That's who does his polling.

That wouldn't suprise me at all...

Well, the problem with my analysis is that we are talking about individual states and not a Gore-merica nation. Still, I think it's interesting.  Zogby does have a history of doing well in presidential election match-ups, though.

[NHPolitico]

Edwards is a moderate on social issues, while being the most left wing candidate on economic issues.
This is often called "Populism".

Yeah you're right about that.  
This is unrelated but who is Elliot Richardson? A friend of mine mentioned to me about him being a potential running mate for Kerry if he gets the nomination.

Easy, he's a super-clone from the future. He's part Eliot Spitzer, fearless crusader against corporate corruption, and Bill Richardson,  fearless crusader against protecting our nuclear secrets.

[NHPolitico]

DURHAM, NH -- President George W. Bush’s approval rating in New Hampshire has dropped to the lowest level of his presidency. Bush is now bested by his two top Democratic challengers for the November presidential election.

These findings are based on the latest Granite State Poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The Granite State Poll is sponsored by the University of New Hampshire. Five hundred eleven (511) randomly selected adults were interviewed by telephone between February 4 and February 12, 2004.

The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/-4.3 percent.

Approval Continues to Slide
President Bush’s approval ratings in New Hampshire have declined to their lowest levels during his tenure as president. While Bush’s job approval has been sliding since the official end of the war in Iraq, the recent visibility of Democratic presidential candidates – and their rhetoric targeting the president’s troubles with the economy and Iraq – has hurt Bush in New Hampshire. In the most recent Granite State Poll, 47 percent of New Hampshire adults say they approve of the job Bush is doing as president, 48 percent disapprove, and 5 percent are neutral. The percentage of Granite Staters who approve of Bush is down from a post Iraq war high of 71 percent in the April 2003 Granite State Poll and down 9 percentage points from the October Granite State Poll. "Although Bush is currently in a tough spot, the large number of Republicans in the New Hampshire should pull his approval ratings upward as we get closer to the election," said Andrew Smith, Director of the UNH Survey Center. "But approval ratings in the 40s for an incumbent president are a cause for concern."

Bush's personal favorability ratings have also declined to a new low. Currently, 48 percent of New Hampshire adults say they have a favorable opinion of Bush, 48 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him, and 4 percent are neutral. Bush's net favorability rating, the percentage who have a favorable opinion minus the percentage who have an unfavorable opinion, is at 0 percent, down from +19 in October and his record high of +80 percent in October 2001.

Economic Approval Rating
While the U.S. economy grew strongly in the 3 rd and 4 th quarters of 2003, assessments of Bush’s handling of the economy continue to decline in New Hampshire. In the most recent Granite State Poll, only 41 percent of New Hampshire residents say they approve of the job President Bush is doing handling the economy, 54 percent disapprove, and 5 percent are neutral. This is down 5 percentage points since October, when Bush’s economic approval ratings dropped below 50 percent in New Hampshire for the first time.

Foreign Affairs & Iraq
When asked to rate the job Bush is doing handling foreign affairs, 44 percent of New Hampshire adults say they approve, 52 percent disapprove, and 5 percent are neutral. This represents a decline of 9 percentage points since October and the lowest since the September 11 attacks.

When asked about how Mr. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, only 44 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove, and 3 percent are neutral. This represents a 10 percent decline since October, and represents a significant decline since April when 79 percent of Granite Staters approved of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq.

Despite criticism of his handling of Iraq by candidates in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary, most New Hampshire residents still support the war with Iraq, but by an ever smaller margin. Currently, 58 percent of New Hampshire adults say they support the United States having gone to war with Iraq, 33 percent oppose, and 10 percent are neutral. Support for the war was highest in the April poll when 80 percent of New Hampshire adults said they supported the US having gone to war with Iraq.

2004 Presidential Election
Presidential approval ratings are closely followed by political analysts because of the correlation between approval ratings and reelection. In October, Bush led his two most likely Democratic challengers in New Hampshire in 2004 presidential election trial heats, but now has relinquished his lead to John Kerry. When asked to think ahead to a 2004 presidential matchup with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, only 38 percent of likely November voters say they would vote for Bush, 53 percent say they would vote for Kerry, 1 percent favor some other candidate, and 8 percent are undecided or will not vote.

When matched with North Carolina Senator John Edwards, 37 percent say they would vote for Bush, 51 percent say they would vote for Edwards, 1 percent say they prefer some other candidate, and 11 percent say they are undecided or will not vote.

Regardless of who they plan to vote for in the 2004 election, 45 percent of New Hampshire residents believe Bush will win the election, 42 percent think the Democratic party’s nominee will win, 1 percent think some other candidate will win, and 12 percent don’t know who will win the election. While Granite Staters still believe Bush will win in November, the 42 percent gap between the president and the Democratic nominee has slowly melted to 11 percent in October and only 3 percent in the most recent Granite State Poll.

SUB-GROUP ANALYSIS
New Hampshire is extremely polarized in how it views President Bush. Republicans are quite supportive while Democrats strongly disapprove of his performance as President. Bush gets his highest overall, economic, and foreign affairs approval ratings as well as his highest personal favorability ratings from Republicans, conservatives, those with an education level of high school or less, and people who have lived in New Hampshire between 6 and 10 years. He gets low marks from Democrats, liberals, and those who have attended graduate school.

And New Hampshire is even more polarized over Iraq with 83 percent of Republicans approving and 83 percent of Democrats disapproving of Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq. Similarly, 90 percent of Republicans support the US having gone to war with Iraq while 52 percent of Democrats oppose the war. Independent voters support the war, but at significantly lower levels than Republicans - 53 percent say they support the US having gone to war with Iraq.

[NHPolitico]

There are rumors that Roy Moore is going to run on the Constitution Party ticket for President.  Anyone have any predictions on a Bush vs. Kerry vs. Moore race?  Would Moore's candidacy put states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Utah into play?

That's a believable rumor. He attended the Christian Coalition's "Family and Freedom" rally in Atlanta and loved the attention he got there.  The Constitution Party has 320,000 registered voters nationwide and has guaranteed ballot access in some states and would probably end up in about 40-45 states this year with Moore on the ticket. He's been making the rounds at all the state party meetings.

[NHPolitico]

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True
After all, the states that Dubya's economic [mis]managment have hit hardest have a tendency to be small...

Which states are those?  The states in worst shape economically are mostly big, and mostly Dem.  Such as CA, WA, MI, IL.. also a few medium ones like OR and MA.  Its interesting how poorly the West Coast has done for a long time now - even before Bush was president.  
The only Republican states in anything close to bad shape are the Carolinas and they're not in any doubt going for Bush.  WV and PA are doing fine, better than OH, which is not that bad.
But the overarching truth is the economy isn't that bad anyway.

All politics is local, but all economics is personal.

And across time and the set of countries, the worst thing you can have for regime instability is high growth with most of the people getting very little of the proceeds.

A sustained disparity between market performance and net job creation (new jobs less net growth in the workforce) is not only bad news for the incumbent administration...it's bad news for the country at large.

Even people who are employed have high credit debt and slow wage growth and higher state and local tax burdens.

[NHPolitico]

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John Adams - What did he do great during his presidency?
Martive Van Buren - Who? lol
John Tyler - ?
James K Polk - Mexican war, maybe
Lincoln - 2 termer
McKinley - killed
Coolidge- Great Depression?
Kennedy- killed

Calvin Coolidge was a great president and would have been greater had his son not died.

[NHPolitico]

Bellwether Research & Consulting Indiana Poll (N=600)
Registered voters (87% of which are very likely to vote)

Bush: 55% favorable, 37% unfavorable
Kerry: 35% favorable, 40% unfavorable

52-37, Bush over Kerry
43% definite for Bush
29% definite for Kerry

(self-identification)
38% GOP
26% Dem
21% Independent

[NHPolitico]

Indiana Poll (N=600)
Registered voters (87% of which are very likely to vote)

Bush: 55% favorable, 37% unfavorable
Kerry: 35% favorable, 40% unfavorable

52-37, Bush over Kerry
43% definite for Bush
29% definite for Kerry

(self-identification)
38% GOP
26% Dem
21% Independent

Who did the poll?

Sorry, now check it out.

[NHPolitico]

Has Democrat strength in California peaked?

Between 2001 and 2004, Republican registration increased in 21 of 40 state senate districts and 39 of 80 assembly districts. Democrats lost registration in every state senate district and in 78 assembly districts. Republicans are watching Democrat Mike Machado's Stockton-area 5th Senate District where GOP registration grew 2 percent. The 5th is in the same neighborhood as the state's 12th S.D. where Republican Jeff Denham's 2002 victory stunned Democrats who had considered the seat safely in their column.

GOP strategists are also watching the southern San Joaquin Valley's 30th and 31st assembly districts where their Party's registration share jumped 2 and 3.2 percent respectively. Both districts have been trending Republican for several years.

The state's partisan registration gap shrank. A post-Primary analysis of California political trends shows the Democrat advantage in statewide voter registration has diminished to its smallest margin since the early 1930s, 7.65 percent.

Republican registration has leveled off at slightly more than 35 percent while the Democrat share has dipped to 43.2 percent. Decline-to-state registration stands at 16.43 percent, with minor parties accounting for 4.82 percent.

[NHPolitico]

I posted this in the governor topic, but thought it useful here, too. If Kerry chooses Richardson, he'll lose Louisiana, in my opinion, because of this sentiment.

New study suggests bias, ex-Duke voters key to Blanco's 2003 win

The Associated Press

April 3, 2004

BATON ROUGE (AP) -- A new study by two political scientists suggests that racial bias was likely a key factor in the defeat of Indian-American Bobby Jindal in the 2003 Louisiana governor's race.

Unexpected support from the so-called "David Duke vote" was decisive in Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco's victory, the detailed statistical analysis by two government professors at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., suggests.

White voters who had backed former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 1991, and who normally vote Republican, instead turned away from Jindal in the 2003 race, according to the analysis by Richard Skinner and Philip A. Klinkner. "Duke voters," particularly in north Louisiana, were enough to provide the new governor her margin, Skinner and Klinkner suggest.

The unusual Louisiana election provided the political scientists with a laboratory for studying an irreducible racial element in Louisiana politics.

In two other recent governor's races, for example, pitting a conservative white Republican -- Mike Foster -- against liberal black Democrats Cleo Fields and William Jefferson, the white's big win could arguably have been attributed to the political conservatism of the Louisiana voter.

But in 2003 Jindal himself ran as a conservative Republican, removing that element from the calculation. Or, as the authors put it: "It seems that the racial divisions in Louisiana are really about race, and not merely a surrogate for the ideological differences that often separate blacks and whites."

Their paper, "Black, White, Brown and Cajun: The Racial Dynamics of the 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Election," published by the Berkeley Electronic Press, founded by professors at the University of California at Berkeley, uses a technique favored by political scientists called regression analysis. This allowed the authors to track voting patterns based on ideology.

They demonstrate that Blanco's support came "from a different set of voters than other recent Democratic candidates," the two authors write, including Mary Landrieu in her successful U.S. Senate race in 2002.

In fact, the ex-lieutenant governor's vote "correlates strongly with the support won by Duke in 1991."

Several Louisiana political analysts praised the new study, saying its thoroughness furnishes strong evidence that Jindal's origins and skin color figured decisively against him in the Louisiana vote.

The authors themselves wrote that their numbers "provide important evidence that a significant number of northern Louisiana white voters defected from the Republican party because of race."

Throughout the campaign last fall, Jindal, a second-generation son of Indian immigrants who settled in Baton Rouge, strenuously downplayed the importance of his origins. The youthful former Bush administration official insisted that race was no longer important to Louisiana voters.

Some top Republicans in the state, however, were wary of his candidacy for that reason and backed others in the contest, who also wound up losing.

The new study appears to confirm the fears of the Republicans who turned away from Jindal.

"This analysis provides a solid case that Jindal's ethnicity was the reason a substantial number of voters who normally vote Republican, voted against Jindal," said LSU political scientist Wayne Parent. He called it the "last word" on the role Jindal's ethnic origins played in the 2003 vote.

"They applied sound political science methods to the election results and uncovered some voting patterns that should give us pause," said Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University.

Most notably, the authors demonstrate that where Duke did well in 1991, so did Blanco in 2003 -- far better, in fact, than Landrieu in 2002.

The openly racist ex-Klansman gained a majority of the vote in 26 Louisiana parishes; Blanco averaged 10 percentage points better than Landrieu in these parishes. And in nine parishes where Duke got more than 55 percent of the vote, Blanco averaged 17 percentage points better than the U.S. Senator.

Most conclusive, according to Parent, is the two political scientists' examination of results from a far smaller unit than the parish -- the precinct. And here again, in the north Louisiana precincts examined by the authors, where Duke had gotten more than 60 percent of the vote in 1991, Blanco averaged 13 percentage points better than Landrieu.

©The Lafayette Daily Advertiser April 3, 2004