John Kerry Will Emerge Victorious
October 29, 2004
by Jim Stier
I hear a lot of my fellow Kerry supporters expressing dismay at the state of the pre-election polls. This is mostly due to the widely distributed CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll, which has systemically over sampled Republicans since John Kerry won the Democratic nomination. It’s unfortunate for Gallup that their long history of prestige will meet an end following November 2, but they should’ve known better. If the latest Gallup poll, which has Bush up by five points, were weighted according to the Republican/Democratic turnout of 2000, Kerry would be leading. I guess that’s what happens when your top pollster claims that “the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God”—as George Gallup Jr. said last May. In any case, it looks like heads are going to spin (or roll) when Kerry wins this Tuesday. And Kerry will win—here’s why:
Gallup aside, Kerry leads in the Washington Post tracking poll, the ABC News tracking poll, and the Rasmussen tracking poll. Meanwhile, Bush leads only in the Reuters/Zogby tracking poll and the TIPP poll.
Now, here’s the thing—not one of the abovementioned polls is the least bit accurate. All are based on samples of “likely voters,” a criterion that is typically determined by whether the surveyed individuals voted in the last election. That’s a good theory and all, but—thanks to our current President—this election won’t be like the last. A recent Harris poll found that when a sample is comprised of voters who say that they are “absolutely certain” to vote on November 2—regardless of whether they have voted before—there is a six-percent shift from Bush to Kerry. I think “wow” is the word that you’re looking for.
But if there is one lesson every voter should have learned from the 2000 election, it’s that the popular vote doesn’t matter. The Electoral College is the key to victory. Consequently, this race is going to come down to two states—two states that are tied on all accounts: Ohio and Florida. If either candidate wins both states, it’s a done deal—they win the election. And, while Kerry would likely win the grand prize by carrying only one of these two states, Bush has to win both or make up for the lost ground by winning Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Mexico (three states that Gore won in 2000). That scenario is a long shot for the Bush-team. However, it’s a long shot that they seem to be counting on.
With almost every poll showing Kerry slowly pulling away in Ohio, it appears that Bush is about to throw in the towel in the Buckeye State. The President’s brief visit to Canton on October 23 was his first in nearly three weeks and a recent surge in the Ohio unemployment rate spells bad news for the President. No wonder Bush has considerably upped his visits to Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Mexico in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Kerry and Bush have been running neck and neck for months (Kerry has actually spent more time on top of most polls). Furthermore, Bush remains a long ways from the 50% mark that has historically been the true “litmus test” for an incumbent seeking reelection. About a million new voters have registered in Florida since 2000, with a huge majority of the new registrations coming from counties that typically vote Democratic by significant margins. And, while Republicans continue their efforts to suppress Democratic votes, Mother Nature recently joined the Democratic side and hit some of the largest Republican areas with a barrage of destructive hurricanes. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but homeless people rarely vote. Florida could surprise anyone in this election—but if I had any money, I’d put it on Kerry.
Where I come from—Olympia, Washington—there is a church called “The Church of the Holy Volcano.” It has one member—a man who routinely walks through downtown with a large placard on his chest that describes how the sins of mankind will soon bring about the eruption of Mt. Rainier and, thereby, the apocalypse. Well, the original date of this event came and went, so the man simply set another date for a few years from now. I am not at all like the volcano-man from Olympia. I am giving you my straight, sane analysis, and I will stand by it. To tell you the truth, my church of “believers” has quite a few respectable members. One of them—Craig Crawford at the non-partisan Congressional Quarterly—wrote last week that “the Democratic nominee will win the Presidential election on Nov. 2nd.”
You’d be hard-pressed to find a single “Bush will win” prediction that carries the same kind of clout. The list of my fellow parishioners has recently expanded to include Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute, Paul Krugman of The New York Times, Doug MacEachern of the Arizona Republic, and Charley Reese of the Orlando Sentinel. However, it is not the size of our respective congregations that most distinguishes the volcano-man and me; it is the nature of our predictions. While he, on the one hand, thinks that the world will end if he’s right, I think the world will end if I’m wrong. At least one of us has got to be correct.