Washington state polling

[Tommy Duncan]

2000 Election: Gore won by 5.6

Gore 50.2
Bush 44.6
Nader 4.1


www.strategicvision.biz/p...ington.htm (http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/washington.htm)

Kerry 47
Bush 45
Nader 4.1


www.usatoday.com/news/pol...8-poll.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-09-08-poll.htm)

Kerry 52
Bush 44
Nader 1

[Tommy Duncan]

www.economist.com/researc...id=1527355 (http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=2900081&subjectid=1527355)

Swing states: Washington

Diversionary attacks

Jul 8th 2004 | SEATTLE
The Economist

John Kerry should win Washington state. But how much time and money will it cost him to do so?

“YOU can see all the voters you need from the top of the Space Needle,” is how the late Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a Democratic senator for three decades, once described Washington's political landscape. The geography still holds: in a state of 5.9m the Seattle landmark overlooks more than half the population, from Microsoft millionaires to Boeing assembly workers. They live west of the mountains that psephologists call “the Cascade curtain”, and they traditionally vote for Democrats, in contrast to the less numerous rural Republicans east of the Cascades.

Washington's governor, both its senators and six of its nine congressmen are Democrats. In 2000, Al Gore beat George Bush by a handy 5.6 percentage points, despite Ralph Nader getting 4% of the vote.

Some swing states will remain toss-ups right up to election day in November; Washington isn't—or, from John Kerry's point of view, shouldn't be. Both sides still consider it a battleground state for the moment and are advertising accordingly; but if Mr Kerry is to have any chance of getting into the White House, he must try to move the state over the summer from the “Kerry-leaning” column to the “safe Kerry” one. If not, in the final phase of the campaign, he will have to spend time and money that would otherwise go to Ohio or Florida.

In 2000, Mr Bush popped up to steal a few once supposedly Democratic-leaning states—notably West Virginia. And his surrogates are talking tough in Washington. Chris Vance, chairman of Washington's Republican Party since 2000, trots out two of the usual arguments: the economy is improving, and so is the situation in Iraq. But then, citing extended Medicare, the proposed guest-worker programme for illegal Latino immigrants and extra funding for education, he adds an unusual third reason: “George Bush's record is not that conservative...There's something there for everyone.”

Mr Bush will doubtless try to burnish his compassionate-conservative credentials at the Republican convention. But Mr Vance's pitch probably has less to do with the product than the audience. Washington state, as Mr Vance admits, is one of America's most secular, least overtly patriotic places. It is “culturally different from other parts of the country”.

In the case of Seattle and voter-rich King County, that means being a northern version of San Francisco and the Bay Area. Patty Murray, a pro-choice “soccer mom” who is now running for her third term in the Senate, voted against the Iraq war and in 2002 contrasted Osama bin Laden's popular development projects in the Middle East with America's bombing campaigns. Jim McDermott, the congressman for Seattle, criticised the strikes on Afghanistan, went to Baghdad in September 2002, attacked Mr Bush for his willingness to “mislead the American people”, and was one of 11 Democrats refusing to vote in support of America's troops and president as the Iraq war began. Yet, for all that, his seat is rock-solid safe.

http://www.economist.com/images/20040710/CUS928.gif

If the Democrats swing towards one extreme, the Republicans veer towards the other. In 1988, they chose as their presidential candidate not the incumbent vice-president, George Bush senior, but Pat Robertson, a right-wing televangelist with not a hope in heaven or hell of being elected. Four years ago they chose another ultra-conservative, a talk-show host called John Carlson, to run against Gary Locke, the incumbent governor, and managed to lose not just west of the Cascades but to their east, too.

This time there are signs that Mr Vance has managed to restrain the state party, forcing it to choose moderates who just might appeal west of the Cascades. Dino Rossi, a former state senator with a record of firmness on law and order, is running to succeed Mr Locke (who has decided not to run for a third term); George Nethercutt, a congressman who won his seat in 1994 by beating the then speaker, Tom Foley, is running against Ms Murray for the Senate.

The Democrats profess to be unworried: they are ahead in the polls for both the Senate and the governorship. And they are adamant that Mr Bush is a hard sell in a state which has lost some 67,000 manufacturing jobs (many of them at Boeing) since he entered the White House. Unemployment in the Seattle region was under 3% in 2000; now it is double that level and worse than Anchorage's.

http://www.economist.com/images/20040710/CUS917.gif

In principle, Mr Kerry is the sort of liberal Democrat who will go down well in King County, whose attacks on outsourcing will appeal to Washington's unions, and whose war record will impress the 15% of voters who are veterans. But there are plainly vulnerabilities for Mr Bush to exploit. Stuart Elway, an independent pollster, notes that after the Bush campaign used a batch of aggressive TV ads to greet Mr Kerry's effective nomination in March, Mr Bush was only five points behind Mr Kerry, compared with the 14-point gap with the “Democratic opponent” in January—though the president seems to have fallen further behind since then, even in Republican territory.

Another problem for Mr Kerry, in a state with no party registration, is that the electorate is an independent bunch. In 1994, they changed the congressional delegation to Washington from 8-1 Democrat to 7-2 Republican. In 2000, they turfed out Slade Gorton, a veteran Republican, and sent Maria Cantwell, a Clintonian New Democrat, to the Senate.

So there is hope for Mr Bush. But David Olson, a professor at the University of Washington, still thinks that the Republicans' main aim is to force Mr Kerry to spend money in the Pacific north-west. If he succeeds in that, Mr Bush will probably be very happy.

[Yonivore]

Please, Tommy, I beg you...stop the madness!

[Nbadan]

SUSA
Sept 20-22
627 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin of Error

Bush 46
Kerry 51

SUSA (http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_Elections/WA040922pressengovag.pdf)

[Nbadan]

Strategic Vision*
9/20-22
801 Likely Voters
3.0 Margin of error

Bush 45
Kerry 47
Nadar 01

[Nbadan]

SUSA (http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_Elections/WA041005wpresvgovusenxag.pdf)
10/2-10/4
640 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin Of Error

Bush 43
Kerry 54
Nader 00

A Rasmussen Poll (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Washington_Fall%202004.htm) taken before the first Presidential Poll had Kerry with a comfortable margin of 7 points. Looks like Washington is out of play.