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eponymous polling firm gave a talk in Hon g Kong on the state of the current election. His speech covered a wide n umber of topics and thoughts on the election. Zogby himself is a Democra t but takes pains to eliminate bias from his surveys. He also had a few words about his polling rivals, especially Gallup. "The Armageddon Election" Differences between red and blue states and the key predictor of voting intention (it's not what you think) The missing centre of American politics Mistakes in the Kerry and Bush campaigns The Nader impact The impact of blogs and the internet on elections and politics.
For the most part they are in the order he spoke, with some cutting and pasting where similar topics were discussed. Undecideds * The undecided vote is down to about 6% of voters. In past elections in March the num ber of undecideds is around 20-25%. He takes care to maintain the same proportion of politica l affiliations in these groups to keep consistency. The election is bigge r than the two personalities involved. Zogby was very clear that once they move out of a camp, a voter the n tosses up between not voting or voting for "their" candidate. Very few are prepared to jump across the gap to the other candidate. All he can do is keep challenging Kerry and raising enough questions about him that it ke eps the undecideds at home. He's made it h ard for people to support Kerry because the US cannot pull out of Iraq s o there's little Kerry can do; it's unlikely multilateral support will s tream in for Iraq regardless; and there's little Kerry can do to fund hi s education and health plans given the big deficits, even with his tax h ike on the wealthy. Tactics * He cannot understand why the Democrats have pulled out of Arizona, Colo rado and Missouri, among others. His polling is showing those states as close enough to at least force the Republicans onto the back foot. He al so thinks the Democrats lost momentum in the South after appointing John Edwards, especially in potentially winnable Virginia and North Carolina . The Christian Conservative Myth * The 4 million Christian Conservatives (CCs) that Karl Rove obsesses abo ut are a myth. He has done extensive polling and found no evidence that there were large numbers of CCs who chose to stay at home in 2000. As Zo gby put it, why would these people choose not to vote knowing that could land Al Gore in the White House? Blue * This election is a repeat of 2000 in many ways, and Florida and Ohio ar e the key states this time.
On eve ry poll this is the key predictor of voting intention, even when broken down by sex and age. The Missing Centre * In the past the candidates tend to move to the centre in the last few w eeks of the campaign and sound similar as they fight over the middle gro und. This time each candidate is talking to their bases as if the centre doesn't exist - because it doesn't. Bush won in 2000 with 48% of the popular vot e but rather than reaching for the centre, he started out from the right (Zogby though this was a squandered opportunity). The 4 million Christi an Conservative "myth" of Karl Rove meant Bush wanted to pander to them to shore his support up and push his numbers up over 50% and hold them t here for 4 years, rather than reach across to conservative Al Gore voter s This explains why Bush quickly rescinded Clinton's environmental orde rs and decision on Government money for family planning groups that supp ort abortion - he was chasing the CCs.
incident when Bush was ta lking to a group of iron workers, police and firefighters at Ground Zero (when some called out "We can't hear you", Bush responded "I can hear y ou. And the people who knocked these bu ildings down will hear from of all us soon," as two key attempts to conn ect with the entire population. When asked would the support the Wo T if it lasted one year, it went down to 77%; Zogby took this to mean the US still suffered from a post-Vietnam syndrome of wanting wars won quickly and troops out of harms way as quickly as possible. Post bombing bounces to 67% but the bounce didn't last long: by mid-May he was back to 50% and it didn't budge. Over the ( northern) Summer of 2003 the opposition to the war on Iraq turned angry, and that is the first time that talk of the "stolen" 2000 election emer ged. In December 2003, when Sadaam was captured, Bush went to 56% but within 2 weeks was back to 50% again. The Democrats * Before the primaries started 66 - 73% of registered Democrats in key st ates thought they couldn't beat Bush. When asked, they stated in 2:1 rat io they wanted someone they believed in rather than someone who could be at Bush. By December Dean was up 7% in Iowa, 36% in New Hampshire and a couple of points in South Carolin a Dean's problem was the primaries happened too late. Zogby cannot expl ain why but he didn't poll between Christmas and New Year. When polling restarted in January 2004 suddenly things shifted. The new polls had 85% of Democrats thought a Democrat could beat Bush and now in 3:1 ratio th ey wanted someone who could win. There had been too much "nuance" and explanations that would fi t trains, not bumper stickers. Zogby said "Presidential candidates need bumper stickers, not trains." Suddenly in January 2004 his message was s implified to three points: I can win, I'm a veteran and I'm experienced. He gained a point a day while Gephardt and Dean lost a point a day each and so once Kerry won Iowa the momentum was unstoppable. once his numbers crossed Dean's then Kerry's num bers took off and didn't look back. The Presidential debate was another example of this, getting th e message right at the right time (although hopefully not too late). His latest numbers are showing 46 Kerry 45 Bush but no clues on the undecideds still. Money * It is unusual but at this stage of the race Kerry has more money than B ush to spend. The Running * The race is Kerry's to lose, barring unforeseen events. Three other key po lling indicators are all terrible for Bush amongst undecideds: - Presidential job performance: 35% positive versus 60% negative - Is the country headed in the right direction? These numbers have always been net negative for Bush amongst undecideds. The last 3 Presidents with those numbers were Carter, Ford and Bush snr. Zogby sees them going like in Reagan in 1980, so that the margin is 2% but it is t he same in each key state and it is in favour of Kerry, thus the Elector al Vote ends in a decisive victory. A nything over 107 million this time and Kerry will win. Neither side will back down and it will be complete chaos, far wor se than 2000. Nader * Nader is a spent force and irrelevant to the campaign.
He i s using higher weights this time compared to 2000 due to increased activ ism. Differences between polls * While being diplomatic, Zogby basically said Gallup's numbers are junk. They use different methodologies but Gallup's variations from poll to p oll are too big to be creditable. In Zogby's polling Kerry and Bush both bounce between 44 an 48, and haven't deviated from that range. Asia in the election * There are three Asian issues in this election: North Korea, the Chinese currency, Taiwan.
outsourcing, but th at was overlooked despite it perhaps being the most prominent issue of t he four. In 1996 about 4% of voters go t most of their political information from the net. Firstly Howard Dean, the n John Kerry have used the internet to balance out and neutralise the fu ndraising power of Bush and the Republicans. Ironically Al Gore, the "fa ther" of the net, didn't capture this avenue in 2000.
My thoughts: Zogby has an obvious personal bias to Democrats but I take h im at face value when he says his research is impartial. His speculation that the race is Kerry's to lose didn't convince me, but nor do I buy t hat it is Bush's to lose either. I think the struggle for both candidate s now is to go and win the race. Otherwise his thoughts on the missing c entre certainly make sense and gel with my impressions of American polit ics (admittedly from afar). The small amount of undecideds are the key b attleground, but I'm not sure they will break for Kerry in the numbers Z ogby exp...
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