Florida polling

[Tommy Duncan]

2000 Election: Bush won by 0.1

Bush 48.9
Gore 48.8
Nader 1.6


www.surveyusa.com/2004_El...ressen.pdf (http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_Elections/FL040914pressen.pdf)

Bush 51%
Kerry 45%

[Joe Chalupa]

Well...floriDUH!

[Tommy Duncan]

www.economist.com/researc...id=1527355 (http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=2921846&subjectid=1527355)

Swing states: Florida

Enter at your peril

Jul 15th 2004 | MIAMI, TALLAHASSEE AND TAMPA
The Economist

http://www.economist.com/images/20040717/2904US1.jpg

Our series on swing states looks at the biggest prize of all. Once again, everything is not quite as it seems in Florida

MARLOW COOK used to be a Republican senator from Kentucky in the 1960s. Now retired in Sarasota, Florida, the 78-year-old admits: “I know an awful lot of Republicans who tell me they are not going to vote for [George Bush]. I have eight grandchildren and I don't want to see any of them...fight an unnecessary war like the one we just had in Iraq. I think that all of this is going to hurt us in November.” Across the state in Miami, Naife Faillace, a 39-year-old Cuban-American, is blunter: “I'm a registered Republican but I can't support my own party.”

No doubt Ohio is the chief battleground of this year's election. Yet Florida, with 27 electoral-college votes, is worth as much as Ohio and Iowa combined. The opinion polls are tied. More money has been spent there on advertising and voter-registration than in any other state. And, as Mr Cook and Ms Faillace suggest, its old political patterns are changing, making Florida even more unpredictable.

Florida is huge. By road, Pensacola in the north-west is nearer to Indianapolis on the Great Lakes than to Key West. Around 1,000 people move to the state each day. It has a politics of the absurd. Carl Hiaasen's novels describe Florida as a place where people go when they are too mad to live in California.

http://www.economist.com/images/20040717/CUS936.gif

But you can make some sense of Florida by dividing it into four regions:

• Miami and the south-east form the Democratic heartland (see map). The land of condo canyons and pastel beaches is home to a third of the state's people. Except for Republican-voting Cubans in Miami, the region takes its liberal politics from New York and New England, whose oldsters retire there and bring Democratic politics with them. The I-95 highway runs from Maine to Miami.

• The Republican heartland, the south-western Gulf coast, is smaller: it holds only one in ten Floridians. This is the richest part of the state, a place of gated communities and manicured golf courses. Elderly conservatives roll in here from mid-western states like Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.

• The central portion, around the I-4, has grown rapidly to become the core of Florida, with 40% of the population. In the past, the suburbs and rural areas have produced a small Republican majority, though in 2000 the cities of Orlando, St Petersburg and Daytona Beach voted narrowly for Al Gore. As Lance deHaven-Smith of Florida State University points out, these three areas have tended to cancel each other out. Hence the electoral importance of the fourth region:

• The Panhandle. This is the northern bit of the state, from Gainesville upwards, that looks like a gun barrel. Its cast of mind is southern; its nickname used to be LA (which stood for Lower Alabama). In the southern tradition, it usually votes Republican yet remains Democratic by registration. Moderate Democrats can do well here; otherwise Republicans win. The Panhandle used to be the swingiest bit of this swing state.

At least, it seemed that way until 2002, when Bill McBride, a moderate Democrat, won the Panhandle and yet feebly lost the governorship to Jeb Bush. To some Republicans, his defeat showed that the state as a whole is tilting their way. In fact, each bit of the state is getting harder to read, and the I-4 corridor is now the swing region.

Behind the change is the driving force of migration. In the past, it was possible to think of Florida—like, say, Missouri—as a balance of America's regions: north-east, mid-west, South. Now, changing domestic migration and a flood of immigrants are turning it into a melting pot, like New York or California—and swirling up its politics.

Calculations by Bill Frey, of the Brookings Institution, show the extent of the change. From 1950 to 1980, the Panhandle was easily the slowest-growing region in numbers of people. Now it is catching up. Parts of what used to be dismissed as the Redneck Riviera are being concreted over. This year Republican registrations overtook Democratic ones in the north-west for the first time, probably putting the rural part of the Panhandle beyond the reach of even moderate Democrats. Yet the expanding university towns of Tallahassee and Gainesville seem to be turning left.

The Republican south-west, the fastest-growing bit of the state, is changing too. It is not just getting fewer people from the mid-west (the proportion of immigrants coming to Florida from there has dropped from almost 40% in the 1960s to 24% in 2000); it is also getting fewer old people and more young families, not reliably Republican. It would be too much to say that the south-west is becoming competitive. But for the first time Democrats are campaigning busily on the Gulf coast.

The changes also eat into the Democratic south-east. Miami was once the engine of Florida's growth (its population doubled in the 1950s). But the years from 2000 to 2003 saw a net outflow, probably for the first time since Florida became a state. And there are signs that Mr Bush's strong support for Israel may be winning over the Jewish vote in south-east Florida.

But the Democrats are recouping their losses elsewhere. The black population of the south-eastern area rose by 176,000 between 1996 and 2002, largely because affluent blacks are retiring to Miami from the north; most of them are reliable Democrats. And the pro-Republican Cuban lobby is being weakened in two ways. First, as a glance at Miami's restaurants will show, the Cubans are being challenged by a flood of “new Latinos”. The city is now home to 110,000 Colombians and 75,000 Nicaraguans. A quarter of the South American immigrants are university graduates; many are successful business people. Cubans now form less than half the Hispanic vote in this region.

Second, Cubans like Ms Faillace may be getting less reliably Republican. New rules by the Bush administration restricting travel and remittances to Cuba, in order to turn the screw on Fidel Castro, are proving unpopular with younger Cubans. As a result, according to a recent poll, only 66% of Cubans support Mr Bush, compared with 82% in the 2000 election. Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant, thinks the “missing” Cubans will come back to the party on polling day. But for the moment Latinos look like swing voters.

http://www.economist.com/images/20040717/CUS939.gif

The biggest swing, though, is in the I-4 corridor. Three out of every five Americans moving to Florida now come here. And this makes it even more of a political jumble. The area contains some of the most Republican towns in the state, and some of the most Democratic ones, connected only by that I-4 freeway. More than a third of its immigrants come to work, not to retire. Many of the newcomers are Latinos looking for unskilled jobs in shops and the building and service industries. The I-4 corridor contains 260,000 Puerto Ricans, who lean to the Democrats and have the vote. This increasingly multi-ethnic heart of the state is the most unpredictable battlefield in this battleground state.

Are there any statewide factors that might turn things one way or the other? Governor Jeb Bush remains popular, especially among Latinos (he speaks fluent Spanish). The economy is robust. But Susan MacManus of the University of South Florida thinks the big question is which party can most efficiently get its supporters to the polling station on election day.

Not long ago, the answer seemed to be the Republicans. President Bush's brother has built one of the most formidable party machines in the country, with 60,000 volunteers and captains in every precinct. Yet an extraordinary voter-registration drive by organisations such as America Coming Together and MoveOn.org has narrowed the gap: Democratic voter rolls grew twice as fast as Republican ones during the first four months of this year. Whether the Democrats can get these new voters to the polls remains to be seen. The more established Republican operation has the edge. But it is the narrowest of edges. Both sides have every reason to think they can win.

[Yonivore]

Why don't you start a Poll forum?

[Nbadan]

The race in Florida was pretty close until the latest Survey USA poll gave W. a (over)generous boast...

http://www.electoral-vote.com/states/florida.png

[Tommy Duncan]

www.rasmussenreports.com (http://www.rasmussenreports.com)

Sep. 17

Bush 48
Kerry 47

[Tommy Duncan]

www.quinnipiac.edu/x12942...easeID=405 (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x12942.xml?ReleaseID=405)

Sep. 18-21
819RV
MoE +/-3.4

Bush 49
Kerry 41
Nader 5
Undecided 5

[Nbadan]

Gallup
Sept 18-22
674 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin of Error

Bush 49
Kerry 46

Gallup (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-09-22-nev-wv-poll.htm)

[Tommy Duncan]

I-4 Corridor Poll (http://cfn13.com/story.asp?id=59)

Sep. 17-19
400 LV
MoE +/-3.5

Bush 51
Kerry 38
Nader 2
Undecided 9

[Nbadan]

Gallup
9/24-9/27
704 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin of Error

Bush 52
Kerry 43
Nadar 01

[Nbadan]

Mason-Dixon
10/4-10/5
625 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin Of Error

Bush 48
Kerry 44
Nadar 03

--

ARG
10/2-10/5
600 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin Of Error

Bush 47
Kerry 49
Nadar 00

The Mason-Dixon poll was broken down into the following party affiliations

Democrats 279 (45%)
Republicans 258 (41%)
Independents 88 (14%)

The Arg Poll with Kerry in the lead is broken down to the following party affiliations...

Republicans 38%
Democrats 42%
Independents 20%

Based on this sampling, a assumption can be made that independents in Florida right now, prefer Kerry, and that can't have the Bush administration feeling good about their chances with only 28 days to go. Look for W to appear on TV, Jimmy Carter-like, saving the people from those horrible hurricanes with lots of rebuilding bucks and taxpayer money, for the next 4 weeks.

[Nbadan]

Crucial Florida Vote May Hinge On Burgeoning Latino Population

By Dan Balz and Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 16, 2004; Page A01

The state that decided the 2000 election remains as deeply divided over the choice for president today as it was four years ago, with President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry deadlocked in Florida amid signs of extraordinary intensity and partisanship among voters, according to a new survey by The Washington Post, Univision and the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute.

With less than three weeks before Election Day, Florida and its 27 electoral votes represent the biggest single prize left on an electoral map that has seen the number of truly competitive states shrink to a dozen or fewer.

The new poll shows that Florida may be headed toward another photo finish. Among likely voters, Bush and Kerry each received 48 percent of the vote in a hypothetical ballot test -- mirroring the race nationally. Independent Ralph Nader, whose votes probably cost Al Gore the state, pulled 1 percent, slightly below his statewide percentage four years ago. Bush and Kerry were also tied among registered votes, at 47 percent each, with Nader at 1 percent.

The Post interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults in Florida between Oct. 4-10, including 823 self-described registered voters and 655 likely voters, to produce the overall statewide results. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for the overall sample and plus or minus four percentage points for the sample of likely voters. The Hispanic results are based on a sample of 800 Hispanic registered voters in Florida, who were interviewed between Sept. 23 and Oct. 1. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36823-2004Oct15.html?sub=AR)

[Nbadan]

Mixed bag in Florida. Democrats need the youth and Latino vote.

Rasmussen (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Florida_Fall%202004.htm)
10/8-10/14
684 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin Of error

Bush 49
Kerry 46
Nadar 01

--

Wash Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36823-2004Oct15.html)
10/4-10/10
655 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin Of Error

Bush 48
Kerry 48
Nadar 01

[Nbadan]

Still a mixed bag in Florida...

Quinnipiac (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x12942.xml?ReleaseID=485)
10/15-10/19
808 LV
3.5 MOE

Bush 48
Kerry 47
Nadar 01

--

SurveyUSA (http://www.surveyusa.com/2004_Elections/FL041018pressen.pdf)
10/15-10/17
601 LV
4.1 MOE

Bush 49
Kerry 50
Nadar 00

---

Mason-Dixon (http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/9960736.htm)
10/14-10/17
625 LV
4.0 MOE

Bush 48
Kerry 43
Nadar 00