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[historian]

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Several recent polls provide a wealth of information about how the political terrain is shifting against Bush and the GOP.

Start with the latest Pew Research Center poll. According to this poll, Bush's favorability rating has dropped from 72 percent last April to 53 percent today. And, when respondents were asked to supply a one-word description of Bush, they were evenly split (36 percent/36 percent) between those who supplied negative or positive descriptions. That compares to almost a two-to-one split (52 percent/27 percent) in favor of positive descriptions last May. And the most common negative description today? "Liar," which nobody even mentioned last May.

Bush's approval rating in the poll has fallen to 48 percent (down eight points since mid-January), the lowest Pew has ever recorded. His approval rating in the last month has dropped has dropped nine points among white women, 10 points among those 30 to 49 years of age, 11 points among women under age 50, 11 points among white Catholics (a critical swing group), 12 points among high school graduates, 12 points among white nonevangelical Protestants, and 16 points among those in rural areas.

The Pew poll has Kerry and Bush tied in a trial heat question (47 percent/47 percent), while other current polls show Kerry ahead, but this is still quite a shift from Pew's mid-January poll, when Bush was ahead by 11 points (52 percent/41 percent) in a matchup with Kerry. Republicans haven't budged in the last month, while Democrats have consolidated behind Kerry in the trial heat question and independents have dramatically shifted away from Bush, going from 52 percent/37 percent Bush to 51 percent/41 percent Kerry, a swing of 25 points. Similarly, political moderates have gone from 49 percent/43 percent Bush to 55 percent/39 percent Kerry, a shift of 22 points.

Another huge shift has been among white nonevangelical Protestants, who have gone from 57 percent/36 percent Bush to 49 percent/46 percent Kerry, a swing of 24 points. It's also interesting to note that Bush's current lead over Kerry among white men is 16 points—believe it or not, a sign of weakness. In 2000, Bush beat Gore by 24 points among this group.

Big shifts among independents also can be seen in changing evaluations of the political parties. Last June, independents gave the Democratic party a 55 percent favorable evaluation and the Republican party a 54 percent favorable rating. Now 65 percent of independents rate the Democratic party favorably, compared to just 50 percent favorable for the Republicans. And it is entirely because of this shift among independents that the overall public now rates the Democrats more favorably than the Republicans (58 percent to 52 percent).

It's also intriguing to note that independents rate the state of Massachusetts (76 percent favorable) more highly than the state of Texas (70 percent), possibly indicating that Kerry's geographic identification may not be quite the electoral handicap it's generally assumed to be.

The latest Democracy Corps report is titled "New World: Bush in Peril." While Democracy Corps can sometimes be a bit over-optimistic about how the Democrats are faring, in this case their optimism seems justified.

In their latest survey, they find some significant evidence that the tide is turning. For example, they find that the Democrats now have a five-point lead in party identification, a lead that first emerged in their polling five months ago and now seems solid. Public Opinion Watch has been arguing for awhile that this was occurring and Democracy Corps is kind enough to credit him with correctly predicting the emergence of this trend.

The poll also finds that likely voters give Democrats a seven-point lead in a generic Congressional ballot and give Kerry a four-point lead over Bush. In addition, by 13 points, voters say that the country is off on the wrong track and by eight points they say that they want the country to go in a "significantly different direction" than the direction Bush is headed in. They also say that they want to go in a significantly different direction in a wide variety of specific areas: by 32 points on the federal budget; by 25 points on health care; by 22 points on prescription drugs for seniors (more evidence that the GOP has lost the debate on the prescription drugs bill); by 22 points on jobs in America; by 15 points on the economy; by 11 points on taxes (another highly significant finding); by 10 points on creating more employment opportunities; by nine points on income and wages; and by nine points on middle class living standards. (For more detail on these sentiments, see Democracy Corps' recently released report on focus groups with swing voters.)

Democracy Corps also finds that independents and voters in swing areas are moving rapidly away from Bush. In their Bush-Kerry trial heat, independents favor Kerry by 11 points, voters in swing states favor him by six points, and voters in swing congressional districts back Kerry by four points. And, on the question about whether the country should go in a significantly different direction, independents favor a different direction by an impressive 23 points (60 percent to 37 percent), voters in swing districts favor a new direction by 11 points, and voters in swing states want the same by 10 points.

The latest Newsweek poll has more on the increasingly chilly climate for Bush. The poll finds his approval rating at 48 percent, with 52 percent saying that they would not like to see him re-elected, compared to just 43 percent who say that they would (an all-time low in this poll for Bush). He also receives poor ratings on tax policy (45 percent approval/47 percent disapproval); the situation in Iraq (45 percent/44 percent); the economy (41 percent/52 percent); health care (37 percent/50 percent); and (a new and interesting question) job creation and foreign competition (32 percent/55 percent).

Of course, many observers still dismiss this latest wave of poll results as just an artifact of all the free publicity the Democrats have been getting from the primary campaign. Once the primary campaign is over and Bush starts spending his money, they argue, things will turn around for the GOP.

Maybe. But Public Opinion Watch suggests these observers pay heed to the following words of wisdom from Bob Dylan:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

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Princeton Survey Research poll of 1,500 adults for Pew Research Center, released Feb. 19, 2004

Stan Greenberg and James Carville, "New World: Bush in Peril," Democracy Corps, Feb. 19, 2004

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll of 1,010 likely voters for Democracy Corps, released Feb. 19, 2004

Princeton Survey Research poll of 1,019 adults for Newsweek, released Feb. 22, 2004

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NASCAR Dads, Meet the Real Swing Voters

Gary Langer, ABC News polling director, has a very good article up on the ABC News Web site about the silly idea that "NASCAR dads" will be the swing vote that decides the 2004 election. Langer points out that the definitions of NASCAR dad vary wildly and—the fatal flaw—tend not to be swing voters, no matter what the definition. Here's what he came up with when he took the typical characteristics commentators have attached to this group and actually ran the numbers:

When we run data from our recent polls we find that married, middle- and lower-income white men account for a single-digit share of the national population, and support President Bush in precisely the same proportion as all white men. (Make it rural white men, and it goes down to low single digits.) And white men, particularly Southern white men, are a solidly Republican group, highly unlikely to swing anywhere, anyhow. For good measure, we checked rural, suburban or small city married white men with children and incomes under $50,000 in the 2000 exit poll. They accounted for 2 percent of all voters, and supported Bush over Gore by 70 percent to 27 percent. You really want to call this a swing voter group?

Not over here in Public Opinion Watch-land, Gary, we know better! And just to stick a fork in this one, here's what one of Public Opinion Watch's favorite analysts, Charlie Cook, had to say on the subject:

But this business about the "NASCAR dad" being the swing voter group of the 2004 election, or any other national election, is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard in my 32 years in and around politics. In NASCAR fans, we are talking about an overwhelmingly white, disproportionately male and Southern electorate. It's also disproportionately working- and middle-class, and in the 30-39 year age bracket, the age group where Bush is strongest. Don't get me wrong—these are terrific, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth type people. But any group that is disproportionately white, male, Southern, working- and middle-class 30-somethings is not made up of swing voters.

You tell 'em, Charlie! So, who are the real swing voters? Back to Langer, whose simple definition is a thing of beauty: "In our view, a swing voter group ought to fit two basic criteria—its majority vote ought to swing between Democratic and Republican candidates from election to election; and it ought to be big enough to make a difference in the outcome."

Exactly. And one of the groups that fits this definition quite crisply is an old Public Opinion Watch favorite: independent voters. Rather than wasting our time trying to figure out the politics of NASCAR dads, it's more politically salient to figure out where independent voters are coming from this year.

Fortunately, that isn't so difficult. We can just ask them. According to the just-released CBS News poll, independents give Bush a 46 percent overall approval rating, a 45 percent approval rating on foreign policy, a 46 percent approval rating on Iraq, and a 40 percent rating on the economy. They think that the country's off on the wrong track by 55 percent to 37 percent and they give Bush only a 41 percent favorability rating. By 52 percent to 40 percent, they think that Bush doesn't have the same priorities for the country that they do.

They favor a generic Democratic presidential candidate over Bush by 48 percent to 38 percent and they also prefer John Kerry over Bush by the same margin.

By 53 percent to 42 percent, they're uneasy about whether Bush can make the right decisions on the nation's economy. About three-quarters think that Bush administration policies have either decreased the number of jobs or had no effect and three-quarters also think that his policies either have made their taxes go up or have had no effect on their taxes.

In terms of foreign policy, 51 percent think that Bush is a "war president" because of the choices he made, not because world events caused him to be one (38 percent). By 52 percent to 39 percent, they think that the result of the war with Iraq has not been worth the loss of life and other costs. In addition, 62 percent believe that either that Iraq was a threat the could have been contained or that it was not a threat and 61 percent believe that the Bush administration either hid important elements or mostly lied about what they knew about Iraq's WMD.

So, not only are independents real swing voters, they also seem likely, unlike NASCAR dads, to be more of a hindrance, than a help, to Bush's re-election.

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[ithacan]

1. very interesting, but

if the Bushies sense this kind of threat, I can see them pulling all kinds of really really nasty stuff, and I would not rule out simulated terrorist attack or "prevented" terrorist attack.

These guys do not care at all about democracy. They just want to stay in power.

In 2000 they showed that they would stop at nothing to get power, they'd be willing to send this country into civil war to keep power.

let's hope they get overconfident ar really start making stupid decisions based on their own ideological blindness...