Nothing But Words

During the dark days of the Kerry campaign – two weeks before the debates – when many pundits were seeing nothing but doom and gloom for his Presidential bid, I called the election for Kerry. Now I’m going to step up and put a number on it: 8% over Bush in the popular vote. My escape clause: I’m assuming no electoral fraud, and no major dirty tricks. Here’s why I’m predicting such a clear margin of victory when the polls show it as a dead heat:

The undecideds: the Votemaster has written a good summary of the historical patterns which indicate that undecideds typically break for the challenger by a 2:1 ratio (it’s in the bottom third of the page). Based on this, he’s generated a predicted final electoral college map. With the unusual dynamics of this race, I’m not quite so comfortable relying on historical precedent alone, but the trend line for Bush among Independents is terrible.

Polling inaccuracies: the problems in many of the mainstream polls that I described in previous posts are still problems (see here and here). I argued they were artifically lowering Kerry’s standing, and I think they still are. Political scientist Ruy Teixeira has written several articles taking Gallup to task for their methodology – here’s his latest.

Turnout: The Christian conservatives will turn out for Bush like never before. But their numbers will be dwarfed by the turnout among newly registered Democrats (e.g. the newly registered in traditionally Democratic areas of Ohio outnumber those in traditionally Republican areas by 10:1 – see this New York Times article). What these Democrats may lack in the strength of their support for Kerry will be outweighed by their sheer numbers, and the dedication of the DNC and other groups to get them to the polls.

Fraying support for Bush among Republicans: this falls more in the anecdotal category, but I think it’s telling to see some well known Republicans making trouble for Bush. Here are just a few examples: former Congressman and anti-Clinton crusader Bob Barr, former Michigan governover William Milliken, former Kentucky Senator Marlow Cook, and Pat Robertson today made some politically inconvenient statements (and didn’t back off them). Also, there’s growing discontent among many Republicans with their party leadership. On a personal level, my neighbor is in his 70s, is an army vet, a lifelong Republican, and he’s voting for Kerry; my father and his friends almost always vote Republican, and they’re all voting for Kerry. While attending a Kerry rally isn’t exactly like going to an early Beatles concert, you simply don’t see this kind of fracturing among the Democratic base.

The Black vote: tonight Fox News was making a big deal out of Bush doubling his support in the black community (you can see it at the end of this bit of wishful thinking by Bill O’Reilly). If you actually analyze the poll results, you’ll find that you have to go all the way back to Barry Goldwater in 1964 to find a Republican Presidential candidate that had less support from blacks than Bush did in 2000. So he doesn’t have anywhere to go but up. The increased support he’s received is from older, Christian conservatives, which I think says more about his Christian base than it does about the black community in general. Also, the poll was concluded before the debates, and another poll from that time frame indicated a much smaller increase in his support among blacks. Lastly, with the recent voter registration drives bringing more blacks into the electorate, and with Clinton (known by some as “the first black President“) stumping for Kerry in the final week of the campaign, I don’t think you’ll see any meaningful shift towards Bush.

The current state of the Bush campaign: I’m actually amazed to see the Bush campaign has been playing defense in these closing weeks of the campaign. While they’ve kept up the “incompetent/liberal” attacks on Kerry, they’ve been forced off-message by the flu vaccine issue and concerns about a draft. The Republicans were running a better campaign than the Democrats until the debates, but they’ve been stumbling since then. Conversely, Kerry is living up to his reputation as a strong closer: his team did a good job in the post-debate “spin wars,” and they’ve kept the campaign on-message since then.

It comes down to this: aside from a smattering of evangelicals, you’re not going to find many people who voted for Gore last time say “gee, I think I’ll vote for Bush this time.” But there are clearly many who voted for Bush in 2000 who are not happy with him now, and even if it’s a small percentage of the electorate, every vote counts in this race. Also, both sides will bring new voters to the polls, but the pool of newly registered voters is decidedly Democratic. Even though their support may be soft, the DNC and other groups are planning unprecedented efforts to get them to the polls.