As The Nation Goes, So Do Swing States

By Charlie Cook
© National Journal Group Inc.

August 31, 2004

This column was originally featured on National Journal on August 31, 2004.

It really is pretty amazing how fast the conventional wisdom can change. Three weeks ago, most political insiders in both parties gave Sen. John Kerry a slight edge over President Bush. Granted, Kerry's lead appeared to be only 2 or 3 points, but it showed up consistently in the national polls and was corroborated by public and private polling on the state level that showed Kerry ahead in seven or eight of the 10 most competitive battleground states. Experienced Republican operatives, particularly pollsters, were worried. Their Democratic counterparts were pinching themselves.

Since then, Kerry appears to have lost a point or two, maybe three, and Bush has picked up a point or two. State polls are showing Bush ahead in five or six of those same 10 battleground states.

On one level, this change tells us that even the most subtle shifts can move a state from red to blue, or blue to red. A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows Bush and Kerry tied in Pennsylvania with 47 percent each; just a couple of weeks ago, Kerry was 5 or 6 points ahead, according to a variety of polls. A pair of Florida newspapers released a poll on Sunday showing Bush and Kerry tied in the Sunshine State; a couple of weeks ago, polls showed Kerry ahead by as much as 4 points.

Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn't taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling 18 battleground states. These polls, Dowd said, reflected almost digit for digit what the national polls showed. Rarely do you see one candidate gaining in one state when the tide seems to be flowing the other way.

Bush campaign operatives argue that one cause of this small shift from Kerry to Bush was Kerry's statement that he would have attacked Iraq. My own view is that Kerry has been dinged by the questions raised about his record in Vietnam. Plus, the swift-boat controversy dominated the political news coverage, suppressing other issues. A week when the focus is on the economy and jobs, or on Iraq and casualties, the management of the war, and weapons of mass destruction is a good week for Kerry and a bad week for Bush. When the focus is on almost anything else, it's very likely to be a good week for Bush and a bad week for Kerry.

The point is that in the absence of some major external event or a monumental screwup by Bush or Kerry in this fall's presidential debates, neither candidate is likely to build a significant, sustainable lead. One can look at all the relevant factors in the race and shade it in one direction or the other.

For example, I put great weight in the enormous levels of pessimism among undecided voters and their apparently low opinion of Bush. I think the president's climb is still a bit uphill. My experience tells me that undecided voters invariably break against well-known, well-defined incumbents.

Bush strategists acknowledge that the undecided voters are a tough nut to crack. But they argue that the campaign can offset the undecided voters who will break for Kerry by turning out a pool of conservative and Republican-leaning infrequent voters. Given the experience of 2002, when Republicans were able to elevate voter turnout far above normal in their strong areas, this is a plausible tactic, although it's obviously harder to do in a presidential election when turnout is going to be higher anyway.

The bottom line is that this election wasn't over three weeks ago when Kerry was ahead, albeit narrowly, and it isn't over now that President Bush is ahead by a comparable margin.

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Correction: In my Sunday Convention Daily column on presidential election computer modeling, I erroneously reported that the forecast by Yale University's Ray Fair predicted a Gore landslide victory in 2000. In truth, Fair's model predicted that Gore would win 50.8 percent of the major-party vote and said that the race was too close to call. The actual Gore (major two-party) vote percentage was 50.3 percent -- pretty darn close.