Swing State Project

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Kerry Down in PA

Posted by DavidNYC

Just quick hit here (relating to the post immediately below): Kos points to a new F&M poll (PDF) which shows Kerry slipping several point behind Bush in PA. Feb numbers in parens:

Bush: 46 (46)
Kerry: 40 (47)

As always, I simply think we need to get on the airwaves here as elsewhere. So far, word is that the 527s have been doing some good ads on their own. Let's see the Kerry campaign follow suit - especially since Terry Mac's been bragging about the millions that the DNC is supposed to be forking over to Kerry right about now.

P.S. Veteran Kossack RonK has some thoughts on what these ads should look like.

Posted at 08:11 PM in Pennsylvania | Comments (3) | Technorati

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Bush Ads Hurting Kerry in Swing States

Posted by DavidNYC

Garance at TAPPED discusses a USA Today article which observes that Kerry's approval rating has dropped dramatically in the 17 battleground states where Bush has started running ads. Garance's most salient point is that "the Bush campaign is working on a long-term project to undermine Kerry that could pay massive dividends later this year by framing Kerry now in such a way that whatever he does come autumn is viewed through the Bush campaign's narrative about him."

In other words, just as Al Gore was branded as a dishonest exaggerator, Kerry will get smeared as a flip-flopping liberal - and, if the image sets in deeply enough with voters, he won't be able to overcome it. This is, in my estimation, the most dangerous thing that can happen to us. The only way to counter this, of course, is to get on the airwaves ourselves. But we can't just play defense: We have to create a counter-narrative about Bush that successfully portrays him as the dishonest, screw-the-little-guy President we know he is. The other day, I commented that it was still early - that it's always early - in politics. But this is one area where it's almost always late. That is to say, you have to start defining yourself from Day One.

Back to the poll results: One frustrating thing is that (at least in the version of the article I could find) they discuss Kerry's approval rating delta (from +28 to -6) in the swing states but don't mention the actual head-to-head (ie, "who would you vote for") for the same group of states. USAT only tells us that Bush leads nationwide, 51-47. Obviously, I'd like to see the swing state breakdown for this question as well. This is an important point because approval ratings, while seemingly meaningful in the abstract, don't matter much as long as people hate the other guy more than they hate you. As long as Bush's approval continues to tank, we can handle the inevitable downturn in our approval rating and still come out ahead in the end.

UPDATE: Billmon delves more deeply into this, in the way only Billmon can.

Posted at 02:34 PM in General | Comments (1) | Technorati

Monday, March 29, 2004

Nader Apparently Getting on Ballot in OR

Posted by DavidNYC

Though Oregon clocks in at a 5% margin according to my methodology, Al Gore actually won the state in 2000 by less that 7,000 votes, or barely .5%. Nader took in 5% himself, his third-best swing-state performance. He did better only in MN and CO.

This is of concern because Nader appears poised to get on the ballot quite easily in Oregon, without spending much, if any, money at all. Manny at DKos points us to this article which describes an unusual way in which candidates can seek ballot access: Basically, you get a thousand petition-signers to come to you all at once, rather than the other way around. I'll be curious to see how well this works in practice, though.

As always, I'm not really sure what Nader voters are going to do this time around. The CW says that many (but surely not all) one-time Naderites now hate Bush so much that they're willing to pull the lever for a Dem, and of course I pray that this is true. As a friend pointed out to me, one argument that won't fly this year is that Nader is simply trying to build up the Green Party because, of course, he's running as an independent. I think that may have been a compelling reason for some people (particularly those who were so-called "Nader traders") back in 2000. But I think many people might still find what they think are good reasons to vote Ralph over Kerry.

Ultimately, I still believe that, as Kerry's name recognition grows and he gets on the airwaves in more and more states, Nader's support will flag. And, relating back to Ralph's independent run, he simply won't have a party apparatus to help him out nationwide. Ross Perot could overcome this with his personal fortune, of course. If there are any old-time political hands out there, I'd be curious to know how John Anderson pulled down his 6.6% as an independent back in 1980.

Posted at 10:27 PM in Oregon | Comments (8) | Technorati

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Small Hints on the Election from Small Places

Posted by Seamus

Those few of you who know me probably know that I live in a very rural community two hours northeast of Pittsburgh (my township has some 250+ registered voters). It is also a highly Republican area where Democratic candidates are few and far between. In fact, between 1996 (meaning after the 1996 election) and 2004 I cannot remember a single Democrat running for US House, PA Senate, or PA House. Which gets me to my reason for posting.

Many folks here and elsewhere have noted the outstanding turnout for many of the primary elections as a positive sign. And I think there are other signs that the left of center public is fired up and motivated for this 2004 election. I think it speaks to something because I haven't seen this kind of excitement for Democratic politics in a long time (indeed I've only seen it within third party work I do). And I think there small indications that this is spreading to even Republican areas in Pennsylvania. Democrats here are running candidates for both the PA Senate and House in 2004. Either 1) this is an indicator of growing election interest or 2) it will create greater interest in the election. I see this primarily as a good thing for Democrats winning Pennsylvania in 2004. To the extent that Republican votes in rural Pennsylvania can be countered even before the suburban and urban votes are tallied so much the better! This is something worth keeping an eye as the primaries approach.

Posted at 11:02 PM in Pennsylvania | Technorati

Saturday, March 27, 2004

The Heinz Factor & Western Pennsylvania

Posted by Seamus

It is often noted that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia & Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. While the basic implications of this are true it does overlook something else - the significantly different political landscape between eastern and western Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is the fourth largest media market in the country and much of the Poconos, although rural, is democratic and dominated by visitors from New York City, Philadelphia, and suburban New Jersey. Pittsburgh, in contrast, seems more like an island surrounded largely by a small suburban area (by eastern Pennsylvania standards) and very conservative rural areas.

One of the landscape differences that is unique to the 2004 Presidential election is the direct involvement of the Heinz Family through Teresa Heinz. Now, the Heinz family isn't new to politics but this is most definitely different by prior accounts given the national scope of the election and the state of the nation. I know from experience that in rural Pennsylvania, the Heinz Endowments, in which Teresa plays a significant role, themselves can be voiced as a sort of slur where the implication is often tied to some grand conspiracy of liberals. Actually, conspiracy theories are popular in these parts and are deep rooted in some of the bizarre power dynamics of western Pennsylvania.

Anyhow, the short of this is that the involvement of Teresa Heinz's husband John Kerry in the Presidential race will have some impact on the election in 2004. I think we will hear a lot of conservative hyperbole about the Heinz family and some of this will connect with voters. On the other hand, I think that the memory of Senator Heinz and the general positive feeling that people get from having a geographic representative of sorts can be helpful to Kerry. In either case, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette took a look at how the ketchup company itself is being affected and how this has already taken a hold on conservative talk radio.

Posted at 07:25 AM in Pennsylvania | Comments (1) | Technorati

Friday, March 26, 2004

Novak Says Kerry Ahead in OH & FL

Posted by DavidNYC

Atrios points to some prognostications from Bob Novak (shudder), who says that Kerry is now leading in Ohio and Florida, and would be poised for a (relatively big) 306-232 electoral victory over Bush - assuming Kerry holds on to all the Gore states.

If Bush loses Ohio, he's dead. That's because I'd have a hard time envisioning him losing OH but still winning WV, and taking back MN plus one more state. If we pick up OH but lose MN, we still win with a 270-268 squeaker. I'm picking on MN here because something - I'm not sure what exactly - tells me that this is our most vulnerable state. Sure, Bush could hope to pick up PA - but again, if he loses OH, I don't see PA heading his way. Assuming Bush can take MN, then unless something weird happens in addition, like Kerry losing NM or OR, I can't see a way for Bush to make up a loss of Ohio.

And if Bush loses Florida, well, break out your best bubbly. That'll just be icing on the cake. The Maker knows we'd all love to get a little payback for 2000 - and watch Jeb hopelessly fail his brother. I don't think Florida's headed our way, in the final analysis, but we can always dream, can't we?

One last observation: I hardly need to say that we shouldn't get too excited at this point. Bush may be on the ropes now, but you can be sure that things will ebb and flow considerably between now and November. (Never forget, among other things, that the press has a vested interest in a close, "interesting" contest.) All this is very, very early. Yogi Berra observed on the diamond that "It gets late early around here." But for better or for worse, in politics, it almost always seems to be early.

Posted at 09:45 PM in General | Comments (2) | Technorati

Sunday, March 21, 2004

WaPo on the Swing States

Posted by DavidNYC

The Washington Post has a broad summary article on the 18 states it thinks are in play this election. The list is the same as the one I use here, except it excludes CO, VA and LA. (Though the piece does mention that Democrats think LA is in play.) It does a pretty good job of hitting most of the major points.

The problem with stories like this is that you really can't try to assess 18 or so different states in just one newspaper-length article. For example, Balz and VandeHei say stuff like: "To offset possible Democratic inroads [in the Southwest], Republicans will be trying to pick up New Mexico, which Gore won by fewer than 400 votes."

But the closeness of the vote in NM is deeply misleading because that state is trending Democratic. It'll be a lot harder this time around for the GOP to win there, just as it will a lot harder for us to win Florida this time around, even though we "lost" it by 537 votes.

The bottom line is, there's not point in carping at the WaPo. I ought to get back to doing some more in-depth analyses - and I will, as soon as this brief is done. If I ever pen a "Letter to a Young Blogger," my first line will be, "Don't start a blog while you're in law school!" The bright side, though, is that many of the big political blogs are now focusing intently on the swing states, now that the primary season is over. So I don't think we'll lack for good swing state coverage.

(WaPo story thanks to ljm at DKos.)

Posted at 07:47 PM in General | Comments (1) | Technorati

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Nader Hurting Kerry in PA

Posted by DavidNYC

This is the kind of thing I hate to see: A new Q-Poll in PA shows the following:

Kerry: 40
Bush: 44
Nader: 7

Without Nader, here's how it looks:

Kerry: 45
Bush: 44

It goes without saying that I hope the Nader number heads steadily downward. The good news is that he only pulled 2.1% in PA in 2000, and I have a hard time imagining he can do better than that this time around. Furthermore, 18% of respondents said they still hadn't heard enough about Kerry to form an opinion of him, while only 1% said the same thing about Bush. So I think once the Kerry campaign gets into full swing in Pennsylvania (and it surely will), his increased name recognition will give him a boost - at Nader's (and maybe even Bush's) expense.

(Via Political Wire.)

Posted at 05:29 PM in Pennsylvania | Comments (14) | Technorati

Monday, March 08, 2004

Pennsylvania Solid Blue?

Posted by Fester

The Big Picture is posting a link to a Zogby analysis found in Barrons that is suggesting that Pennsylvania is not a swing state in the 2004 election. I am not sure what to make of this statement. I would like to imagine that Pennsylvania is not in play as it will go to Kerry as it would mean that West Virginia and Ohio are definately winnable without a massive expenditure of resources because a Pennsylvania win for a Democrat would mean strong support in the Philly corner and a good showing in Southwestern PA which is culturally and socially similiar to West Virginia and Appalachian Ohio.

However I look at the nimrods that significant portions of this state sends to Congress and I have to doubt that. I have been getting slowly more optimistic over the past two months about November, but I have not gotten that optimistic yet. It is likely in my opinion that Spectar will be re-elected in the fall barring a national revulsion against the Republican Party in general and that there are very few winnable Congressional seats in Pennsylvania for the Democrats to pick-up. The Allentown district is the best change, but Toomey is entrenched. Pennsylvania will be a tough fight regardless of what today's polling results show.

Posted at 05:39 PM in Pennsylvania | Comments (1) | Technorati