BREAKING: DOLE LEADS CLINTON BY NINE IN NEW POLL FROM NEWSWEEK

[Beautiful Disaster]

From June, 1995:

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/jun/11/dole-edges-clinton-in-newsweek-poll/

Sen. Bob Dole would beat President Clinton by a slim margin if a head-to-head presidential election were held today, according to a poll released Saturday.

The Newsweek poll of 755 adults to be published in the magazine’s June 15 edition shows the Kansas Republican ahead of Clinton 49 percent to 40 percent.

The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points.

Dammit. I hope Clinton can pull it out and win in 1996 but right now it's not looking good. I'd bet the Republicans win the White House next year.

[PortTack]

1. Ha ha ha!!

[lees1975]

2. Didn't Newsweek come out with a poll that had Dubya 13 points ahead of Gore, with about 3 months

left to go?

[EarlG]

3. I think President Romney really benefited from that Dole victory

Obama trails Mitt Romney in new Quinnipiac poll

If the 2012 presidential election were held now between President Obama and Mitt Romney, Romney would win, according to a Quinnipiac University opinion poll released on Wednesday.

Forty-six percent would vote for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney while 42% would vote for Obama, the poll found.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-oct-05-la-pn-obama-trails-romney-20111005-story.html

[Cha]

8. That would have been so

Scary if I had read that poll

President Obama had other plans.

We know Romney may have believed the hype since apparently he hadn't prepared a concession speech.

[Takket]

4. +9

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

5. LOL. I recall reading the DU DISMAY when Obama became the candidate... yes, there was DISMAY

a Black man can't win!!!

is it bad for me to bring that up?

[Lovie777]

12. Yes I remember that.....................

even my family said Obama could not win, and I told he could.

H I S T O R Y

[speak easy]

20. And I also recall reading the DU JOY when Obama became the candidate

I don't remember much dismay after Barack gave his acceptance speech.

[DFW]

25. I remember that, too

What some overlooked, as I saw it: the reason the 2008 Primary was so hard-fought was because after the disastrous 8 years of Cheney-Bush, it was obvious that NO Republican would win the White House in 2008, especially after Howard's brilliant engineering of the re-taking of Congress in 2006. The race for the 2008 Democratic nomination was the race for the presidency.

At the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, on the first or second night, a big "Party for our Party" was held, and after Howard gave his welcoming speech, you could feel in the air that the momentum was so powerful that anyone showing up claiming to be a Republican would probably have been given a sympathy consolation drink instead of being rudely ushered out (as would any Democrat at the Republican convention).

[speak easy]

26. August 25, 2008. One month before Lehman failed.

[Silent3]

6. What's troubling about early polls showing Trump beating Biden isn't their predictive power

What is troubling is that we have an American public who, after having seen both Trump and Biden in action, does not consistently and always rank Biden more favorably than Trump, and do so by so wide a margin as to surmount the margin of error of even the most poorly conducted of polls.

It's like Toto has clearly and obviously pulled back the curtain to reveal "humbug" Professor Marvel, but a third of the country remains enraptured by the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz, and another third just think "meh, whatever".

[Beautiful Disaster]

7. I think it's easy to explain.

Republicans will vote Republican no matter what. Most every poll that shows Trump beating Biden, Trump is still nowhere near 50%. Both Biden and Trump likely have a floor and no amount of scandal, corruption and craziness is going to change that floor.

The days of the landslide are over.

The Republican is a lock for 40% of the vote.
The Democrat is a lock for 40% of the vote.

The election will be won or lost with the other 20%.

My guess is that Biden gets a majority of that 20% and wins similarly to how he won in 2020.

Trump won 47% of the vote in 2020 - one-percent higher than in 2016 and pretty much identical to what Romney saw in 2012. Even going back to 2008, in the popular vote, Trump did only 1.1 points better than McCain and that was when the Republican brand was awful.

In today's era, a four-point win is a landslide.

Polls that show Trump winning all have very high undecided numbers. I feel pretty confident they'll break for Biden but it's easy to not say Biden this far out when literally nothing is on the line.

[Silent3]

11. That "easy to explain" situation is what's troubling

If all that Trump has done hasn't eaten into that 40% lock for any Republican, and if the middle 20% haven't shifted decisively to Biden, then we have a frightening degree of stupidity, ignorance, and hate in this country.

I'm pretty sure myself that Biden will beat Trump, but there shouldn't even be a speck of doubt to worry about.

There still is.

[Beautiful Disaster]

13. There's only a speck of doubt because of the partisan nature of the US.

Yes, those 20% being uncertain is troubling - but that's due to the fact both sides are extremely divided and the US is a two-party state.

One or the other has to win. I'm sure a lot of those 20% aren't huge Biden fans. They might not even be that big of fans of the Democrats. It's a byproduct of the extreme polarization.

30 years ago when Clinton ran for reelection, that polarization was there but not near the level. So, not only did Clinton have cross-party appeal (Clinton won 13% of Republicans, compared to the 6% of Republicans Biden won in 2020), a lot of Republicans voted third party to boot (24% voted for Perot - to be fair, 23% of Democrats did too).

That's not going to happen in today's political world.

It's troubling, yes. But you're counting on voters who might actually HATE Biden, who would never ever think of voting for Biden but will because Trump is the GOP nominee.

[Silent3]

24. I'm not counting on anything except stupidity and ignorance

I'm not sure if we're even disagreeing on any major points here, but you seem a bit more accepting, or are perhaps calmly resigned, to this stupidity and ignorance (not to mention hateful, bigoted attitudes) simply being part of the natural landscape.

Smarter, kinder, better-informed people wouldn't mindlessly cling to their allegiance to Republicans, hatred of Democrats, or aloof faux-sophisticated "they're all the same" dismissals of party differences.

To have witnessed Trump in action, and to not fear for the country's fate in his hands vs. how Biden has and would handle the job, is ignorant, stupid, and/or hateful. No matter how often you repeat "the fact both sides are extremely divided" or "It's a byproduct of the extreme polarization" that doesn't improve my opinion of the people who aren't strongly against Trump. It certainly doesn't calm my fears of the fate of the country being partly in the hands of such people.

I've never held an extremely high opinion of humanity. That opinion has declined over the course of my life, and took a nose dive when Trump was elected.

[Beautiful Disaster]

27. I think 2016 was a massive anomaly election.

And 2020 Trump was an incumbent, which boosted his support.

I do not expect Trump to win the presidency again. In 2016, I felt differently. But 2024 Trump is not 2016's Trump and no poll being close right now worries me. That's just people taking advantage of the fact there isn't an election tomorrow.

[Blue Owl]

9. (clutches pearls)....

[radius777]

10. Billy-boy however was a master at shaping narratives,

in a way that the current Dems are not, and was highly charismatic against non-charismatic (Bush, Dole) stiffs.

Trump (and Trumpism) is difficult to deal with because he is a media mogul who creates an alternate reality, where facts don't matter.

The country is also different. Back then there were liberal Repubs and conservative Dems... those people have either died off or switched parties. So each base is locked in as has been mentioned with little wiggle room. Obama's landslide only happened because of the economy collapsing about a month before the election, but otherwise every election since 2000 has been very close.

[Beautiful Disaster]

14. Bill was so good at shaping the narrative that he failed to win a majority in either election

[radius777]

15. Only because Perot ran and took a chunk of the vote in '92 and '96.

Bill's polling numbers were high even after Lewisnky and if there were no term limits it's likely he easily would've won in 2000. Gore was un-charismatic and picked an even more boring running mate in Lieberman, both distanced themselves from Bill ... only reason we lost (putting aside the shenanigans in FL, Gore failed to win his own home state) in 2000.

[Beautiful Disaster]

23. Clinton spent most his first term with similarly low approval as Biden.

Even still, most America was unenthusiastic about Bill. As charismatic as he was, he still failed to deliver coattails and hardly motivated people to go to the polls for him. It's why turnout in 1996 was at a modern low. That's also why Perot did as well as he did because people weren't enthusiastic for Clinton.

In fact, I'd wager Biden is very similar to Clinton - except maybe less hated overall. Clinton didn't have a groundswell of base support like Bush or Obama did, support they relied on to win them very narrow victories. Similar to Clinton, Biden doesn't really have a strong base support of specific demographics outside maybe older Black Americans. The difference is that Biden won't be going up against Dole, who was perceived as a lackluster moderate. And for that, he probably stands a pretty good shot at winning since Trump is so extreme.

[First Speaker]

16. Heinrich Himmler would get at least 40% in the polls if he ran as a GOPer...

[SouthernDem4ever]

17. He would probably get more than that

more like 70% if they are just polling repuglicans.

[prodigitalson]

18. nice

[HardPort]

19. I mean ... I get the sentiment but 95 v. 23 is apples and oranges. There was a smidge of sanity then

[orangecrush]

21. I'm with Joe

That is all.

[dchill]

22. Point to you! ☝️