The pollsters for John McCain’s campaign sent out a memo challenging the findings of a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg. Hundreds of polls are released during a typical campaign without such a public objection. One finding in particular caught their attention. According to the L.A. Times, 22 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Republicans, 39 percent as Democrats, and 27 percent as independents. The party identification in this poll, argued McCain’s pollsters, “is greatly out of line with what most other surveys are reporting.”
They’re right. And that fact probably helps explain why the L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll has Barack Obama beating John McCain by 15 points (in a field including Nader and Barr)–a much larger margin than most other respected polls. (The Gallup daily tracking poll, the McCain campaign eagerly points out, has McCain down just 3 points.)
McCain’s pollsters point to the findings of other surveys on party identification. That they would do this suggests just how damaged the Republican party brand is heading into the 2008 general election. Although the L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll shows a larger gap between Democrats and Republicans than all others–+17 for Democrats–the news for Republicans is uniformly bad.
Among the numbers the McCain campaign highlighted: AP/Ipsos’s +14 for Democrats; CBS News/New York Times’s +14 for Democrats; and Democracy Corps’s +12 for Democrats. The average advantage for Democrats in the ten surveys the McCain campaign cited was 9.3 points. So Republicans are clearly at a significant disadvantage.
The conventional wisdom, adopted and internalized by many on the McCain campaign, is that McCain must move to the center to appeal to independents. So that’s largely what he’s done. Immediately after McCain became the de facto nominee, he toured the country touting his biography. Shortly after that he spent a week on a trip informally dubbed the “Places Republicans Don’t Go” tour. Not long afterwards, he traveled to Washington and Oregon talking about global warming. He has launched radio ads explicitly targeting Hispanics and last month held secret meetings with Hispanic and gay leaders. Twice in recent weeks, McCain has participated in virtual town halls targeting disaffected Democrats and moderates.
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“Where are they going to go?” asks one McCain adviser, expressing a sentiment I’ve heard from several others.
One possibility: nowhere. Unmotivated by a candidate who would rather talk about global warming than gay marriage, conservatives might simply stay home. This lack of enthusiasm for McCain among conservatives was evident in the Washington Post/ABC News poll taken in mid-June. Ninety-one percent of those who identified themselves as Obama supporters say they are “enthusiastic” about their candidate; 54 percent say they are “very enthusiastic.” Seventy-three percent of self-identified McCain supporters say they are “enthusiastic” about his candidacy; but only 17 percent say they are “very enthusiastic.” More ominous, while almost half of the liberals surveyed are enthusiastic about Obama, only 13 percent of conservatives are enthusiastic about McCain.
Republican pollster David Winston believes that McCain can close this enthusiasm gap by campaigning on issues where there are sharp differences between the candidates. “We are still a center-right country,” says Winston. “And voters will still prefer a center-right candidate to a liberal one.” …
All surveys are showing declining Republican affiliation over their time series. Whether it’s Dems +8 or Dems +15, Republican party ID has collapsed over the past 12 months.
At this point in the horse race, the guy arguing against the data trends is the guy who’s losing.
Oil prices aren’t going anywhere until Asian economies stop subsidizing oil consumption, which incidentally would cripple the Asian export advantage by forcing businesses to pay the full cost of energy. Therefore, inflation-driven discontent against the incumbent administration won’t subside in the near term.
