ARIZONA. This desert state has been won by a Democratic president only once since 1948 (Bill Clinton in 1996), but the success of statewide Democratic candidates in 2002 and the strong leadership of popular Governor Janet Napolitano has made some optimistic that John Kerry may have a shot at flipping this red state to blue come November. Right now, Kerry and George W. Bush are about even here. A Behavior Research Center, Inc. "Rocky Mountain Poll" conducted between April 29 and May 4 found a higher percentage of Arizona respondents -- 36 percent -- saying Bush is doing a “poor” or “very poor” job than at any other point in his presidency.
A statewide poll by KAET-TV and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, taken from April 23 to 26, found Bush and Kerry running 41 percent to 38 percent, with Bush holding a statistically insignificant lead and a substantial portion -- 18 percent -- of voters undecided. That undecided number may be significant in this fast-growing state, which has seen traditional party identification plummet in recent years as the population soared, with the fraction of registered voters identifying as independents jumping from 14.5 percent in March 2000 to 23.3 percent today.
In one optimistic sign for Kerry, the KAET-TV survey found younger voters and independents to be trending his way. But the once-moribund state Democratic Party, though newly active, has lost a couple of thousand members over the past four years, while the Republican Party has gained a few thousand. What's more, the Bush campaign has been organizing its grass-roots get-out-the-vote troops in the state since last December. Popular Republican Senator John McCain has defended Kerry in the local press, and the state's largest newspaper, The Arizona Republic, has often come out in Kerry's favor, editorializing that “Republicans are fools to challenge Kerry's service in Vietnam” and demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the wake of the Abu Ghraib debacle.
ARKANSAS. According to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, released May 3, Bush and Kerry are in a dead heat in their bids for Arkansas' six electoral seats, with 45 percent choosing each candidate. That number mirrors approval ratings on the economy in the state. But there's hope for Kerry: 51 percent of likely Arkansan voters also said the economy is getting worse, while 36 percent said it's getting better.
Meanwhile, U.S. News and World Report's “Washington Whispers” column notes: "The gang that brought us the 'Draft Wes Clark ' campaign is out to block Ralph Nader's independent presidential bid. Organizers say they will challenge Nader's bid to get on state ballots, starting in Texas and Arkansas." (In 2000, Bush won Arkansas with 51 percent of the vote, with Al Gore taking 46 percent.) Still, the anti-Naderites may not need to work so hard in Arkansas this time: The May 3 poll found Nader's presence having no effect at all on the results.
Kerry was in Arkansas for his second campaign visit last week, traveling for a spell with native son Clark and walking in Bill Clinton's footsteps. As the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on April 13, Kerry told a crowd that he had watched a University of Arkansas' Razorbacks football game on Clinton's advice, and he went to dine at one of Clinton's favorite restaurants, Doe's Eat Place. (The next day, the paper reported that Republican Governor Mike Huckabee questioned the sincerity of Kerry's interest in the University of Arkansas: “‘I'm sure when he's in Boston that's what he mostly does is watch Razorback sports,' Huckabee said, tongue in cheek.")
While in the state, Kerry also fought for his own bragging rights on guns. "I'm a gun owner and a hunter," he said during his visit. "I've hunted since I was 12 years old. I still hunt. I've gone out on deer hunts. I used to hunt woodchuck as a kid, or squirrel or crow or whatever. I used to shoot birds. I still do."
Meanwhile, no surprises in the state's primaries, held Tuesday: Bush faced no opponents, and Kerry, well, almost none, with official "challenges" coming only from Dennis Kucinich and the ever-present Lyndon LaRouche.
FLORIDA.Early May saw the arrival of the first Kerry campaign organizers in Florida, a group expected to grow to 10 by the end of the month. Though this puts Kerry's schedule well ahead of that used by Gore during the 2000 campaign, it lags behind the pace set by Bush, who has had 12 paid staff members and a 67-county network of volunteers for months. Despite Bush's timing edge, recent polls have indicated a narrow lead for Kerry -- 50 percent to 47 percent (or 48 percent to 46 percent to 3 percent, with Ralph Nader included), according to a Hamilton Beattie poll concluded on May 9, preceded by two mid-April polls that had the race neck and neck.
With the official Kerry campaign largely dormant until now, most of the heavy lifting has been done by the nominally independent “527” operations, which have combined to place about 150 staffers in the field, registering voters and organizing volunteers. The dark cloud over Kerry's Sunshine State prospects is that his efforts to court Cuban American voters by adopting a hard-line anti-Castro stance appear to be failing. New polling from the New Democrat Network indicates that while the overwhelmingly Mexican-American Latino populations of the Southwest are supporting Kerry, the half-Cuban Latino population in Florida is backing Bush 55 percent to 35 percent.
MICHIGAN. A poll conducted on May 11 and 12 by The Detroit News reports Bush's approval rating dropping to 50 percent, down from 63 percent in January. And while there's no statistical evidence that Kerry's poll numbers are rising as Bush's fall (the poll placed them in a statistical dead heat, with Bush at 44 percent and Kerry at 40 percent), one thing should make Dems happy: The International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which endorsed Bush four years ago, has decided to throw its weight behind Kerry. Now if only Kerry could sway the rest of Michigan's union households, which accounted for 33 percent of the state vote in 2000. Teamsters President James P. Hoffa says adding Dick Gephardt to the ticket would do the trick, and, according to The Detroit News, he's “repeatedly urged” Kerry to do so.
A word of caution, however, to liberals in Michigan who want to sit in on any Bush-Cheney event: According to a Nation article, which was reprinted in Detroit's Metro Times ("Banned in Kalamazoo: Bush rally closed to open minds"), seven Kalamazoo College students were spotted by a member of the College Republicans as they were trying to attend a rally last week. Apparently, they were identified as liberals and denied access.
MISSOURI. Bush won this state by 80,000 votes last time. And according to a March 23 Rasmussen Reports poll, 49 percent of Missouri voters would pick him in the next election, with only 42 percent saying they'd go for Kerry. (Though a more recent A.P. report says the contest is too close to call). That's why state Democratic operatives would really, really appreciate it if Kerry would invest in a paid political team in their state, according to the May 17 Philadelphia Inquirer. In the meantime, they're working hard to circulate anti-Republican messages -- even if they have to do it on their own. As The Kansas City Star (May 18) reports, they've put up a billboard in a predominantly black Kansas City neighborhood that reads: "Missouri Republicans Have A Plan. You Are Not Part Of It." (Not surprisingly, Ann Wagner, chair of the Missouri Republican Party, and her cohorts are peeved.) And even though local Democrats don't have an official Kerry team in place, they're encouraged by the observations of pollster Celinda Lake, who told the A.P. Catholics are leaving Bush -- and that the defections could make a big difference in a state like Missouri, which is heavily Catholic.
OHIO. Encouraging news from the Buckeye State: A poll taken last week shows Kerry ahead of Bush by more than the margin of error for the first time -- and that's even with Nader in the mix. The survey of 600 likely voters, conducted by the American Research Group, shows Kerry at 49 percent, Bush at 42 percent, and Nader at a scant 2 percent (those practical Midwesterners, God bless 'em!), 5 percentage points behind “Undecided.” Without Nader in the mix, Kerry hits 50 percent and leads Bush, who's mired at 43 percent. Finally, Bush's negatives are shooting satisfactorily skyward, with 43 percent having a favorable opinion and 52 percent a negative opinion of him.
The ad blitz has started in earnest in Ohio on both sides. The Columbus Dispatch reported on May 16 that one local television station has already set its fall rates, and that campaigns -- not just the presidential ones but locals as well -- are already thinking about booking time weeks or maybe months ahead. The Kerry campaign should take heed: One of the several tactical fronts on which the GOP out-thought the Democrats in 2000 was that it booked ad slots in key states for late October and early November far in advance, so that when Democrats tried to call later, many of the prime slots were taken. Time bookers are some of the most important people in electoral politics.
OREGON. Kerry made his first presidential campaign stop in Portland earlier this week. Nearly 8,000 Oregonians packed the city's downtown Pioneer Courthouse Square to greet Kerry, who, according to a recent Portland Tribune/KOIN-TV poll, leads Bush by 4 percentage points in the Beaver State. Howard Dean was on hand to lend the rally a veneer of déjà vu all over again; the former Vermont governor marshaled strong Democratic support in Oregon during the waning days of his own campaign, and he was undoubtedly assigned to massage the anti-war crowd.
In 2000, Gore won the popular vote here by a razor-thin 6,700 votes. Nader garnered more than 5 percent of the Oregon vote in that same election. Since then, Oregon has had one of the nation's highest unemployment rates; at 6.7 percent in April, it is still more than a percentage point above the national average. Kerry has a fighting chance here, but he will have to attract support from voters beyond the organized labor base that turned out to greet him this week. After all, when the Tribune poll included Nader in its calculations, Kerry lost his edge -- making the race here a statistical dead heat.
Compiled by the Prospect staff.
