Wampum

I noted in a previous post that I was cautiously optimistic about John Kerry’s chances to unseat George W. Bush in the fall. That optimism was based, in part, on the current national polls showing Kerry with a small lead. In addition, I noted that undecided voters are likely to break for the challenger. The fact that most of the undecideds are women made me more optimistic.

Jay Caruso thinks optimism for Kerry’s chances is misguided, arguing that Kerry should be up 8-10 points in the polls. Over at Real Clear Politics, J. McIntyre also thinks Kerry’s chances are overrated:

Now, maybe these people are looking at something different than what I'm looking at, but I just don't see all of this positive news for John Kerry. I see a President that has had a hostile, partisan press beating up on him relentlessly for months now hoping they can drive his job approval into Jimmy Carter territory still standing strong in the high 40's.

I see a Kerry/Edwards campaign that should be ahead today by at least 5 points nationally tied in the polls. I see a lack of appreciation among Democrats and the press for just how unappealing a candidate they are about to nominate.

I would be a lot more optimistic if Kerry had the 8-10 point bulge mentioned by Jay or even the five point spread McIntyre thinks is appropriate. Nonetheless, I prefer a small lead over a deficit any time.

There are a number of reasons for my optimism other than the national polls. For instance, the polling in battleground states seems to favor Kerry. Please consider:

* Larry Sabato’s Electoral Road Map has Kerry leading in every state Gore won in 2000, as well as in West Virginia, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

* The Electoral Vote Predictor has Kerry ahead in all of the Gore states as well as Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri. It also has Kerry even in Tennessee. Tennessee!

* The Election Projection also has Kerry holding all of the Gore states and has him leading in red states such as Florida, Ohio, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

* McIntyre’s own Real Clear Politics has an excellent compilation of polls from seventeen battleground states. That page links to more than ninety polls. George Bush cracks fifty percent in exactly four of the polls. An incumbent polling under 50% is in the danger zone.

* Professor Sam Wang of Princeton has a model to predict the current electoral chances of each candidate based on recent state polling. If the election had been held last Monday, Wang calculates that Kerry would have had an 85% chance of victory (Quick, hold the election tomorrow. The terrorists will not have time to disrupt it.).

Secondly, Kerry and the Democrats seem to have the political momentum. For instance:

* Bloomberg reports:

Kerry … leads 47 percent to 41 percent in states where the November election is likely to be closest, Pew said on its Web site. Bush led Kerry by as much as 11 percentage points last month.

* Betsy R. Vasquez, writing in the Moderate Independent, reports the following:

According to American Research Group's (ARG) Dick Bennett, things are moving in Kerry's direction, in particular in the all-important battleground states.

We asked Mr. Bennett if would it be accurate to say that there is no battleground state in which Kerry is trending negatively. Mr. Bennett agreed that is the case with regard to the states ARG has been tracking. He attributes Kerry's positive movement to three things.

Mr. Bennett told us, "Kerry has benefited by (1) a shift of independents to him from Bush, (2) becoming stronger among Democrats so that he runs about the same among Democrats as Bush runs among Republicans (and this give Kerry a slight advantage because there are slightly more Democrats), and (3) some softening among Republicans in Kerry's favor."

* As Kos notes, Democrats are three for three in Special Elections for the House since 2002.

* The Democrats seem to have offset some of the traditional GOP fundraising advantage.

Third, George W. Bush has failed to make inroads with Hispanics, despite a four year effort undertaken by Karl Rove. Perhaps the more important point is that Bush has lost ground with Florida’s Cuban-American voters. As Barry Ritholtz of the Big Picture writes:

Cuban American voters in Florida continue to be a potential problem for President Bush in the upcoming election.

Not in the sense that incumbent won’t garner a majority of Cuban votes cast in Florida; He is presently polling somewhere between 60-65% of Floridian Cuban Americans. But compare those numbers with the 82% of this voting bloc Bush won in the 2000 election.

A near 20% drop in support in a demographic representing 400,000 voters in a crucial state represents a swing of potentially 80,000 votes. That’s quite significant in a state the President won last time around by a mere 537 votes.

Fourth, Bush has lost support since his post 9/11 surge. It is more difficult to regain a vote that one has lost than to persuade a voter who has never had an opinion.

Finally, there is the point made by Slate’s Chris Suellentrop:

Even a casual viewer of Hardball knows that the first rule of an election that involves a sitting president is that it's a referendum on the incumbent. This election, however, has turned out to be the opposite. It's a referendum on the challenger. Kerry probably isn't responsible for this turn of events, but he's benefiting from it: The referendum on the incumbent is over. President Bush already lost it. This presidential campaign isn't about whether the current president deserves a second term. It's about whether the challenger is a worthy replacement.

J. McIntyre’s argument is that Bush is in pretty good position because the voters are likely to find Kerry unacceptable. Maybe so, maybe not.

I am optimistic because George Bush has in fact lost the initial referendum. Lyndon Johnson lost the incumbent referendum and withdrew. Richard Nixon won the referendum and was reelected. Jimmy Carter lost the referendum but remained close until the voters decided that Reagan was acceptable. George H. W. Bush lost both the incumbent referendum and the election. Ronald Reagan won the incumbent referendum and had a second term. So did Bill Clinton.

Where is the example of an incumbent who lost the referendum but won reelection because of the failure the other candidate? Other than perhaps Harry Truman, it seems that incumbents who lose the referendum lose the election.

That makes me optimistic.