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Saturday, May 15, 2004
General Election Cattle Call, May 15
Posted by Chris Bowers(Cross posted from MyDD)
National Two-Party Vote Projection
Kerry: 52.1
Bush: 47.9
Electoral Vote Projection
Kerry: 317
Bush: 177
To Close to Call: 44 (AZ, MO, NV, WV, VA)
By now you have probably heard one pundit or another claim, without anyone putting up a significant argument otherwise, that in the final week of a campaign most undecideds break for the challenger. Of the three most important poll numbers--trial heats, approval rating, and favorables / unfavorables--the numbers best able to measure this often overlooked aspect of a race is the most overlooked metric of the three: favorable / unfavorable numbers.
The advantage of the challenger is that the challenger almost always has lower unfavorables than the incumbent. When, after four years, people still cannot make up their mind, votes break in favor of the least disliked candidate. This even happened for Dole in 1996, as he ended up losing by 8.5 instead of the 12-13 points most polls had projected during the final week of the campaign.
For nearly two months now, Bush���s re-election campaign has hinged far more on attacking Kerry and driving up Kerry���s negatives than it has on building up Bush���s record. His administration may be immoral and incompetent, but it is not stupid.
However, despite spending over $100M in this task, so far Bush���s team has failed miserably. This may be directly connected to the waning influence of television ads, something which Jerome Armstrong of MyDD could speak far more intelligently about than I. Anyway, here are the most recent unfavorables for Bush and Kerry in fourteen of the twenty-two states where ads are being run (the other eight, AR, AZ, CO, DE, LA, ME, TN and WA, do not have recent data available):
Florida
Bush: 45 (47)
Kerry: 45 (41)
(American Research Group, 4/18-4/21, 600 LV, MoE 4, March 4 results in parenthesis)
Illinois
Bush: 37
Kerry: 19
(Mason-Dixon, 3/8-10, 625 ���active voters���, MoE 4)
Iowa
Bush: 44
Kerry: 34
(American Research Group, April 18-21, 600 LV, MoE 4, no trend lines)
Michigan
Bush: 48
Kerry: 38
(EPIC/MRA 3/28-4/1, 600 LV, MoE 4, no trend lines)
Minnesota:
Bush: 46
Kerry: 31
(Star Tribune, 3/28-3/31, 562 LV, MoE 4.1, no trend lines)
Nevada
Bush: 37
Kerry: 36
(Mason-Dixon, 3/15-3/17, 625 ���active voters,��� MoE 4)
New Hampshire
Bush: 45
Kerry: 41
(UNH, 4/19-4/26, 542 Adults, MoE 4.2, no trend lines)
New Jersey
Bush: 44
Kerry: 27
(Star Ledger/ Eagleton-Rutgers, 4/28-5/4, 643 RV, MoE 4)
New Mexico
Bush: 45
Kerry: 19
(American Research Group, 3/30-4/1, 600 LV, MoE 4, no trend lines)
Ohio
Bush: 52 (!)
Kerry: 36
(American Research Group, May 10-12, 600 LV, MoE 4, no trend lines)
Oregon (No link, from the subscriber section of Polling Report)
Bush: 46
Kerry: 32
(Research 2000, May 6-8 and 10, 603 LV, MoE 4, no trend lines)
Pennsylvania
Bush: 37
Kerry: 31
(Q-poll, 4/13-4/19, 769 RV, MoE 3.5, no trend lines)
West Virginia
Bush: 43
Kerry: 43
(Ipsos, 4/26-29, 984 RV, MoE 3.1, no trend lines)
Wisconsin
Bush: 54 (!)
Kerry: 26
(American Research Group, 3/23-3/25, 600 LV, MoE 4. Also, there was a slightly more recent Badger poll, 3/23-3/31, showing different unfavorables, 41 Bush and 34 Kerry, but the Badger poll has consistently been a massively pro-Bush outlier in the state).
Rove's plan appears to be succeeding only in Florida, Nevada and West Virginia, all states that Bush won in 2000. Who knows why he continues to waste money in New Jersey and Illinois (or even Ohio for that matter!).
Posted at 03:41 PM in General Election Cattle Call | Technorati
Comments
Chris, thanks for the awesome research. I didn't realize Bush was on the air in IL - who is he kidding?
Can Kerry's unfavorables go higher, do you think, if Bushco (and their newly-empowered 527s) spends even more money?
Posted by: DavidNYC at May 15, 2004 05:45 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I think Kerry's unfavorable could go higher with more ad money, but they probably won't. The era of TV ads being highly effective might be over.
For Kerry's negatives to really go up, the mass meida needs to start trashing him. It wroked against Dean, it could work against Kerry.
Posted by: Chris bowers at May 15, 2004 06:37 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
You guys are doing a fantastic job with this blog. Thanks!
I once read that evil GOP toad Lee Atwater (now dead) said that driving a candidate's unfavorable numbers up higher than 35% is a death knell for him. Is this true? If so, what does it mean if BOTH candidates have similar numbers???
Posted by: steve at May 16, 2004 06:13 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
The Most recent Michigan Poll has Bush ahead of Kerry.
Posted by: Howie at May 16, 2004 01:37 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Great job!
However, I wonder if your WV numbers from Ipsos are a bit off. Bush 49, Kerry 45 was my take.
Posted by: shari at May 17, 2004 01:06 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
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Posted by: Dan at November 11, 2004 10:14 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment