Florida. Florida is dead even at 48 percent to 48 percent, according to Monday's Zogby poll, an improvement from John Kerry's showing last week, and there are signs that the Democrats' strategy of trying to appeal to younger Cuban Americans is paying dividends. According to a summer poll released by the New Democrat Network, which has launched a massive Latino outreach program, George W. Bush leads among Cuban Americans by a margin of 70 percent to 19 percent, with 11 percent undecided. That sounds pretty good for the incumbent, but it's significantly less than the 82 percent of the vote he captured in 2000. Contrary to popular myth, the Cuban American bloc in Florida isn't the only voting body in the state -- casting just 450,000 votes out of nearly 6 million in 2000 -- but in the ultra-competitive Sunshine State, small gains matter.
This week will see the first series of visits by Kerry and John Edwards to Florida in more than a month, as a repeated wave of hurricanes has thrown travel plans out of whack. Kerry visited Jacksonville on Tuesday while Edwards was in Tampa; the pair then joined up for a nighttime rally in Orlando. Wednesday, the Florida fest continued as Kerry hit West Palm Beach and Edwards went to Miami. Bush was in Florida on Sunday, surveying hurricane damage (as he has after each of this summer's storms) in the GOP-friendly panhandle.
Nevada. How insistent are Bush and Karl Rove on holding on to Nevada, a state they won by less than 22,000 votes in 2000? Enough to personally request a Department of Justice investigation into potential voter-registration fraud in Clark County, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
As we reported last month, new registrations have been coming in at an average of 5,000 per week in Clark County, mostly thanks to the efforts of indefatigable organizations such as Voices for Working Families and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. So after the Democratic Party surpassed the Republican Party in August for total state registrations, Bush and Rove each told Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller that they were concerned about the situation. Clark County registrar Larry Lomax, who first announced the problem in July, refused to say which of the dozens of outfits registering voters seemed responsible; he mainly identified the problem as one of registration gatherers, improperly paid by the hour, registering fake voters. The probable response, though, is worrisome: an increased voter-disqualification effort on election day, which could improperly ward off legitimately registered voters -- and will take place only in heavily Democratic Clark County.
The candidates are hard after the state's five electoral votes in less intimidating ways as well. Bush and Kerry both visited Las Vegas last week to speak at the National Guard Association convention; Dick Cheney was in Reno at the same time Kerry spoke in Vegas, muting the impact of the senator's speech in this less Democratic part of the state. The two top-ticket candidates' appearances have illustrated a striking difference between the two campaigns' media strategies; as The Associated Press noted, Kerry has participated in local media interviews during all four of his visits to Nevada, while Bush has yet to answer a single question here. Typical.
And in case you've been following the polls, here's a piece of advice: Don't. Just this week, we have the American Research Group reporting a 2-point Bush lead among likely voters, Mason-Dixon reporting a 5-point Bush lead, and Gallup reporting a 9-point Bush lead. But with Democratic voter registration surging in the state, the polls' models -- most of which are based on higher Republican Party registration -- make them a crapshoot at best. If you really need a prediction, you're better off checking the boards at the Tropicana (latest odds are reportedly 5-to-4, Bush).
New Hampshire. Bush's speech Monday in Derry marked his fifth visit to New Hampshire, just as differing poll showed him anywhere from 9 points up to 5 points down. As the Bush campaign is wont to do, the stop excluded voters who had not already committed to Bush's re-election; Kerry's most recent stop in Derry, on August 18, invited independents and Republicans as well as Democrats. Considering that the only consistency across state polls seems to be an “unsure/undecided” response rate of 7 percent to 8 percent (one of the highest in the country), Bush's exclusivity could be a factor here more than elsewhere.
Ohio. Things are not looking good for Kerry in the Buckeye State. On Tuesday, the University of Cincinnati's Institute for Policy Research released poll results showing Bush leading Kerry in this crucial state by 54 percent to 43 percent, with another 2 percent going to Ralph Nader. Though Ohio Democrats were, at the start of the week, successfully challenging Nader's ballot-access petitions before the Ohio secretary of state's office, Nader is unlikely to be the definitive factor in this contest. Rasmussen Reports also had Bush leading Kerry 48 percent to 45 percent -- "similar to the President's four-point margin of victory in the state four years ago," according to the pollsters. And a couple of Mason-Dixon polls had Bush up by 7 to 9 points. Crucially, Bush's unfavorable rating was, in one Mason-Dixon poll, lower than Kerry's -- 38 percent versus 42 percent.
The most important issues to voters in Ohio were homeland security and terrorism (issues on which Bush outpolled Kerry here by overwhelming margins, according to a Gallup survey), the economy, and moral issues or family values. Those moral issues may matter even more if the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage gets its way this week. Its members have been trying to get enough signatures to place an amendment to the Ohio Constitution banning gay marriage on the November 2 ballot. About 56 percent of Ohio voters favor such a ban; more importantly, about 74 percent of Bush supporters do, and they'd be more likely to turn out and vote if the ban is on the ballot.
Pennsylvania. It's close to a dead heat now in the state, with last week's Mason-Dixon poll giving Bush 44 percent to Kerry's 45 percent (with 1 percent for Nader and 10 percent undecided) and the Republican firm Strategic Vision giving Bush a small lead (49 percent to 45 percent) over the same period. The last Quinnipiac University survey, taken September 11-14, gives Bush a 1-point lead, 49 percent to 48 percent. In a pattern repeating itself across the swing states, county clerks here report being utterly overwhelmed by the flood of new voter-registration applications and are scrambling to process them all before the state's October 4 deadline. America Coming Together's Pennsylvania spokeswoman says that her organization alone has helped register more than100,000 people here.
The president made his 37th visit to the Keystone State on Wednesday. His King of Prussia appearance was ostensibly meant to focus on education, but, in a sign that Kerry's hard-hitting Monday speech put the president on the defensive, Bush ended up devoting most of his talk to Iraq and terrorism. Kerry is giving the state a breather for now, but surrogates have been scurrying all over the place: Elizabeth Edwards hit Bucks County on Tuesday, Kerry's brother, Cam (a converted Jew), worked Jewish outreach on Sunday and Monday, and Ted Kennedy gave a rip-roaring speech on his junior colleague's behalf at an Service Employees International Union conference in Philly on Friday. Kennedy's set to do it all again today in Pittsburgh, joined by the candidate himself.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling from August that had removed Nader's name from the ballot (that court had ruled that he couldn't file as an independent in Pennsylvania after registering as a Reform Party candidate in Michigan). So Nader's back on the Pennsylvania ballot for the moment -- but a pending review of the 37,000 to 47,000 petition signatures that Democrats have said should be thrown out as fraudulent could change that once again. Meanwhile, Nader-haters can take heart in this line from a September 12 Philadelphia Inquirer article: “A rummage sale across the street attracted more patrons -- but not more passion -- than a Ralph Nader gathering in Philadelphia yesterday.” <>Compiled by the Prospect staff.
