Tag Archives: Zogby

Joe Biden, “Spoiler”

By Jim Ellis — Friday, May 3, 2024

President

President Joe Biden / Photo by Gage Skidmore

Joe Biden: Presidential Election Spoiler? — The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (I) campaign not only refutes the analysis that it is principally a presidential race spoiler but goes a wild step further to claim that President Joe Biden is the candidate who should exit the campaign.

Obviously, to arrive at such a bizarre conclusion means the Kennedy strategists’ logic is questionable to say the least. The supposition is based upon a Zogby Strategies poll (dates not released; 26,408 US respondents; online; claiming a 0.6 percent error factor). Zogby generally has not been particularly well regarded in the polling industry. According to the most recent FiveThirtyEight pollster ranking chart (February 2024), the parent Zogby Analytics firm ranks 226th on the aggregate list and is awarded only one of three possible stars.

The first scenario Zogby produced for purposes of demonstrating Biden weakness was a Biden-Trump head-to-head ballot test. Nationwide, counting all 51 voting entities, the poll results projected former President Donald Trump as defeating President Biden with an electoral vote spread of 294-244, or 24 more than needed to re-claim the presidency.

This configuration showed at least two states going Trump’s way that no other survey had projected in such a one-on-one pairing. Along with the critical swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin, the Zogby conclusion yielded Trump victories in Maine and Virginia.

These results are obviously dubious. As mentioned, Maine and Virginia do not appear to be in play for Trump, at least in a flat Biden-Trump contest. Additionally, in the Great Lakes, it is mandatory that one of the three regional states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, land in the Trump column if he is to have any chance of cobbling together a national victory coalition. Typically, polling has shown Wisconsin to be Trump’s weakest state of the three, but the Zogby result shows the Badger State as the only one favoring the former president.

When the pollsters added Kennedy’s name to the survey questionnaire, Maine and Virginia reverted to Biden, but the end result was still a 278-260 Trump victory.

Kennedy’s Zogby poll then tested the completely unrealistic scenario of a Biden-Kennedy pairing. There was no explanation as to why they believe Trump would drop out, but the prevailing point for devising such a scenario was to illustrate Biden weakness.

In this configuration, Kennedy would defeat Biden with a whopping electoral vote count of 367-171. Under this unrealistic scenario, Biden would carry only 11 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illiniois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Vermont) along with the District of Columbia. Note: the configuration of these particular states contains only 170 electoral votes. There is no illustration that the 2nd District of Nebraska votes for Biden, but it is possible that the district was contained in the count but not shown on the map.

The final tested polling scenario is a head-to-head pairing with Trump and Kennedy. In this configuration, the pollsters predict a very close race, with Kennedy upsetting former President Trump by the smallest of margins, 270-268. Under this outcome, Trump loses Georgia but wins Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The remainder of the map appears similar to what is projected for the traditional Biden-Trump election.

The major flaws in these scenarios, outside of the virtually impossible scenario of Kennedy pairing individually with either Biden or Trump with no explanation as to why there would not be a Democratic and Republican nominee under all circumstances, involves the states of Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

There is one poll that found Trump winning Maine, but only with a significant vote for an unnamed “other” candidate. There is no published research data that finds any result where Biden fails to carry Virginia.

In the Great Lakes, again a region in which Trump must claim at least one state to have any chance at winning the presidency, aggregate polling generally finds Michigan to be Trump’s best state of the three targets and Wisconsin the weakest. In the Kennedy polling scenarios, Michigan is the only state that Trump doesn’t win, and Wisconsin appears as his strongest.

The purpose for the Kennedy campaign releasing this information with a video explanation is to simply draw attention to their candidate through media discussion and wild speculation that Biden is the race’s actual “spoiler,” while not bringing forth realistic statistical data.

The most credible fact is that Kennedy looks to draw support in the mid-teen range with the other minor party candidates accumulating enough combined vote to possibly see as much as 20 percent of the cast ballots going to someone other than the Republican or Democratic nominee. There is no realistic scenario that yields a Kennedy win, and none factoring a race without either Biden or Trump.

Romney Strikes Back

Just before the Oct. 3 presidential debate, conventional wisdom held that the national race had effectively ended and President Obama was on the threshold of clinching re-election. He was consistently ahead in all nationwide polls, and in every key swing state. Oh, what a difference a week makes.

With his debate performance as the catalyst propelling Republican nominee Mitt Romney back into contention, a series of new polls now shows a complete race reversal.

Eight national surveys were released yesterday and, for the first time, it is Romney who leads or is tied in the preponderance of them. Gallup, the American Research Group (ARG), Public Policy Polling, and the Investors Business Daily’s TIPP poll all post Romney to a lead of one or two points. Two studies, Ipsos/Reuters and Rasmussen Reports, project a tie between the two candidates, while UPI/CVoter and Zogby Research for The Washington Times still find the President leading by a lone percentage point.

But the national data tells only part of the story. In the most important core and secondary states of North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada, Romney has gained strong momentum and leads in several polls.

North Carolina, by all accounts a critical core conversion state, yields to a Gravis Marketing study (Oct. 6-8; 1,325 likely North Carolina voters) that projects Romney to a major 50-41 percent lead, obviously his biggest margin of the campaign in the Tar Heel State. Along with Florida, Ohio and Virginia, North Carolina is in virtual must-win status for the Romney campaign.

Ohio, another of the four core states, features trends that are mixed in declaring a leader, but all polls show significant movement for Romney. The American Research Group (Oct. 5-8; 600 likely Ohio voters) gives the challenger a one-point 48-47 percent edge. Survey USA (Oct. 5-8; 808 likely and actual Ohio voters) also finds a one point difference between the candidates, but their data still has the President in front, by a scant 45-44 percent margin. Finally, in better news for Obama, the CNN/ORC survey (Oct. 5-8; 888 likely voters) gives the president a 51-47 percent lead.

In the secondary states, the places Romney would need to win should he fail to carry all four of the core states, are also turning in favorable numbers for the GOP challenger. Colorado, a state trending blue in 2008 and electing a Democratic senator in the Republican landslide year of 2010, has been showing signs of returning to the GOP column. The latest ARG poll (Oct. 5-8; 600 likely Colorado voters) gives Romney his first Centennial State lead, 50-46 percent, after following closely behind Obama even in the days when the president was beginning to break away in other places.

Staying out west in Nevada, another state showing signs of returning to the Republican fold after four years of relatively consistent Democratic voting patterns, Rasmussen Reports (Oct. 8; 500 likely Nevada voters) projects the two candidates being tied at 47 percent.

The latest swing toward Romney is actually quite consistent with voter behavior throughout this election cycle. The electorate has often moved both quickly and wildly in responding to late-breaking events. Such is the case with the Romney debate performance. It remains to be seen if this direction holds or if voters will soon snap back toward the president.

The next two presidential debates have now assumed an aura of much greater importance in determining the final outcome of this hotly contested race. Will Romney again be dominant? Will the president rebound? Is the swing toward Romney the beginning of a trend, or a mere blip? Time will soon bring us the answers.