Fewer Battlegrounds for Kerry Campaign

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Registered: 06-17-2004
Fewer Battlegrounds for Kerry Campaign
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Sun, 09-12-2004 - 11:44am

The number of swing states is shrinking, and it ain't good for John Kerry.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14607-2004Sep11?language=printer


 


Size of Battleground May Be Smaller Than Expected



By Dan Balz

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 12, 2004; Page A01




President Bush's post-convention bounce in state and national polls has left Democratic challenger John F. Kerry with a smaller battlefield upon which to contest the presidential election and a potentially more difficult route to an electoral college victory than his advisers envisioned a few months ago.


The Kerry campaign and Democratic Party officials face difficult choices in the coming days involving the allocation of millions of dollars of television ads and the concentration of campaign workers as they decide whether to concede some states to Bush that they earlier hoped to turn into battlegrounds. Bush may have to do the same but on a more limited scale.


The presidential race looks closer in many battleground states than some national polls suggest, a morale boost for Democrats after Kerry's worst month of the general election. But as the number of truly competitive states has shrunk, Kerry is faced with the reality that he must pick off one of two big battlegrounds Bush won four years ago -- Florida or Ohio -- or capture virtually every other state still available. To do that, he must hold onto several states Al Gore won in 2000 that are now highly competitive.


The Massachusetts senator spent much of the summer trying to expand the number of battleground states with television advertising and campaign trips to places such as Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana and Virginia. But in the past week, Kerry dramatically scaled back the number of states in which he is running ads. Democratic strategists privately acknowledge that only a significant change in the overall race will put some of the states Kerry sought to make competitive back into play. Democratic hopes for victory in Missouri have diminished sharply, as well.


Tad Devine, a senior Kerry-Edwards strategist, said the shift in advertising dollars marked a decision to ensure that Kerry can campaign fully in all of the truly competitive states in the final weeks. "We did not want to be in the situation that the Democratic nominee was in four years ago of having to choose between Ohio and Florida," he said. "That choice will not have to be made this time. We have the resources to compete in those states and many, many more."


Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign, called the shift by Kerry an acknowledgement that the Democratic ticket's earlier goal of expanding the electoral map had failed. "They've basically decided they're competing in 14 states and sort of ceded, for all intents and purposes, states they were in at the beginning of the year and spent a lot of money in," he said.


For much of the year, the campaigns have described the presidential race as largely confined to 20 or 21 states, which is where Bush and Kerry were running television ads and campaigning personally. But since Labor Day, the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee have scaled back to 16 states total, with several considered long shots within Democratic circles.


"There's nothing particularly surprising in the provisional choices they've made," said Jim Jordan, a former Kerry campaign manager now working for America Coming Together, an independent Democratic group. "Some of these states, whatever all of our hopes were several months ago, are just hard for the Democrats at the presidential level."


An examination of state polls and interviews with strategists in the two campaigns and the parties suggests that, with less than two months before the election, the 10 most competitive states are, in order of electoral vote strength, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia and New Hampshire.


Eleven states are the remaining battlegrounds from earlier in the year. Of those, seven lean toward Bush: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia. Four tilt toward Kerry: Maine, Michigan, Oregon and Washington.


It takes 270 electoral votes to win the election, and four years ago Bush captured 271 to Gore's 266. Because of reapportionment, Bush's states are now worth 278 electoral votes, while Gore's are worth 260.


The two campaigns already have conceded between them a total of 30 states. If Bush's base states are combined with the battlegrounds leaning toward him, he starts with 217 electoral votes. Kerry's base and leaners total 207. The challenge for both candidates is finding the best combination of the remaining states. The 10 states considered the most competitive account for 114 electoral votes. To win, Kerry would need 63 of the 114. His advisers say that despite their problems, they like their chances.


The fastest route is to win the biggest states: Florida (27 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (21) and Ohio (20). Bush won two of them in 2000 -- Florida only after a 36-day recount and a Supreme Court decision that effectively gave him the state and the presidency -- and both sides believe that whoever claims two of those three this year will win the election.


Bush may face his biggest challenge defending Ohio. A Gallup Poll for USA Today and CNN released last week offered contradictory evidence on the race there. Among likely voters, Bush led Kerry 52 percent to 43 percent, but among registered voters, the race was a statistical tie, with Bush at 47 percent to Kerry's 46 percent.


Kerry strategists see Ohio as ripe for Democrats because the state lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the past four years. But Bush has drawn enthusiastic crowds in rural areas, where he performed well in 2000 and will have to again to carry the state.


"Four years ago, there was a debate in the Gore campaign about whether to even compete in Florida," Devine said. At this time in 2000, "Gore had 20 paid staffers in Florida. Today, there are 20 offices opened across the state."


But Kerry has troubles in states that Gore won. Pennsylvania appears more competitive than it was four years ago. Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes, was one of the closest states in 2000 and remains a problem for Kerry, with Democrats worried about his soft support in the Milwaukee area and among Roman Catholics.


Kerry strategists believe they can take back New Hampshire (four electoral votes), but West Virginia and Nevada (five electoral votes each) remain challenges.


There are several unpredictable factors. One is whether Bush's convention bounce proves any more durable than Kerry's. Strategists are betting Bush will lose some of what he gained -- some polls already show that happening -- but that he will have a lead at the edge of the margin of error nonetheless. Another factor is outside events, which have played a significant role in this election and up to now have generally worked against the president.


The third factor is a state that surprises everyone. Four years ago, few thought Bush could win West Virginia until the end of the election, and its five electoral votes proved decisive. (In 1996, only President Bill Clinton among his advisers thought he had a chance of winning Florida, but he did.)


Among the other considerations they will be making in the coming weeks, strategists on both sides will have to take some gambles. Kerry, for example, still has his eye on North Carolina, the home state of his running mate, John Edwards. The Bush team sees the upper Midwest as fertile territory and will run hard at traditionally Democratic Minnesota, as well as Iowa and Wisconsin.


The campaigns know that big events such as the debates and what happens in Iraq will influence the outcome on Nov. 2, but so will the choices Bush and Kerry make in coming weeks as they piece together their electoral map strategies.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

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Registered: 06-17-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 1:18am
Kerry Pulls Ads From Some States as Spending Is Limited

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: September 20, 2004


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20map.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5006&en=cebf415c2a705704&ex=1096257600&partner=ALTAVISTA1


WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - Senator John Kerry, who was advertising in 20 states earlier this summer, had hoped by now to be playing on a broader canvas that included more states that President Bush won in 2000.


But advertising data gathered for The New York Times by Nielsen Monitor-Plus shows that from Sept. 7 through last Thursday, Mr. Kerry was running advertisements in just 13 states. He had pulled back in seven that he had tried to make competitive, including the crucial battleground of Missouri.


Mr. Kerry actually projected a bigger television presence than his advertising buying suggested because the Democratic National Committee was augmenting it with significant purchasing of its own.


Still, there were fewer Kerry and Democratic Party advertisements in that period than spots bought by President Bush and the Republican National Committee, and they ran in fewer states. Mr. Bush was advertising in 18 states.


The president, who was still enjoying a bounce from his convention three weeks ago, was running commercials in all markets of all states in which he was competing.


Tad Devine, a chief strategist for Mr. Kerry, said the campaign's diminished presence on television in certain states should not be construed as a sign of faltering.


"We're not out, even if we're not on TV," he said. He described the campaign's strategy as "opportunistic," reserving its resources to take advantage of future opportunities.


"If we see an opening, we want to be able to take it," he said. "If the bounce continues to go down for Bush, which it will, and we come out of the debates with momentum, we'll be positioned to move."


Matthew Dowd, a top strategist for Mr. Bush, said the Kerry campaign's dwindling advertising in certain states showed that its options were narrowing.


"They're in a thread-the-needle strategy now," Mr. Dowd said. "They wanted to expand the map into our states."


But the battle is now largely in states that Vice President Al Gore won in 2000, with exceptions like Florida and Ohio. The spending data provides a snapshot of the campaigns' thinking as they were forced to make tough decisions because their spending was now limited.


Throughout the summer, the Bush and Kerry campaigns raised unprecedented amounts, $242 million for Mr. Bush and $234 million for Mr. Kerry. That allowed them to dream big and test the waters in markets that were not necessarily friendly.


But both candidates chose to use only public campaign money - $75 million - from the close of their conventions until Election Day. The Democratic convention ended on July 29 and the Republican convention finished on Sept. 2.


The spending cap has forced the campaigns to start picking and choosing where they will advertise, where they will send the candidates and his surrogates, and where they will concentrate on the so-called ground game of getting out the vote.


Television advertising is one of the most revealing measures of a campaign's strategy.


"Where their advertising dollars are going is competitive and where they aren't going, it's not competitive," said Kenneth M. Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which analyzed the Nielsen data.


Nielsen, best known for its television ratings, is using its monitoring technologies for the first time this year to track political advertising. The data covers all of the nation's 210 broadcast markets.


From Sept. 7 to Sept. 12, Mr. Kerry was advertising in a relatively narrow band of eight states. They included three big swing states - Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio - but he was also spending heavily in Wisconsin, which the Democrats barely won four years ago and where Mr. Kerry is trailing in the polls.


The other four were Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico and West Virginia. By last Tuesday, as some polls showed Mr. Bush's bounce deflating, Mr. Kerry had expanded to four more: Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Oregon. By last Thursday, he had added Maine.


But the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee were advertising heavily in 18 states.


And Mr. Kerry was still off or nearly off the air in seven where he had advertised earlier: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia.


"Pulling out of Colorado and Arizona might have had them a little bummed, but they were essentially playing with the house's money in those states," Mr. Goldstein said. "But pulling out of Missouri is a much bigger sign that the Electoral College battlefield has shrunk, and it shrinks with a clear advantage to Bush."


While the polls fluctuate, the Democratic National Committee is keeping the lights on with minimal buying in some states - notably Colorado, where polls now show Mr. Kerry running strong, and Missouri - to make it easier for Mr. Kerry to re-enter later.


Anytime you turn off the ignition, it's hard to rev the engine back up to 60 miles per hour quickly," said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster. "And this is a race that still has many miles to go. Attitudes are anything but frozen at this stage."


Ellen Moran, director of independent expenditures for the Democratic Party, said she expected that Kerry officials would limit their buying now to save their cash for the end game. That leaves the party with an obvious mission, she said.


"Of course we're going to go in and fight where we think the battles are being pitched," Ms. Moran said. "There are states where Kerry isn't advertising, and we think advertising there would keep the state competitive for him."


The party's presence allowed Mr. Devine to insist that Mr. Kerry had not given up on certain states. But much of this stage of a campaign involves feints as well as a refusal to acknowledge certain realities because of the terrible signal that withdrawal would send - and because in a race as close as this one, those realities could change.


Still, Mr. Dowd said that the Bush campaign was in an increasingly stronger position because it no longer had to put advertising money into the states in which the Kerry presence was dwindling.


"If they're not competing in Arizona and Missouri and Colorado, we can put those dollars into Michigan and Pennsylvania," he said, referring to two states that Mr. Gore won in 2000.


In most of the states where Mr. Kerry and the Democrats are showing advertisements, the Bush campaign and the Republicans are advertising more often and in more markets.


For example, between Sept. 7 and Sept. 12, the Kerry campaign's only advertising in Pennsylvania was in Pittsburgh, with spots that ran 114 times. In the next two days, it added small buys in Wilkes-Barre (seen 31 times), Philadelphia (8) and Harrisburg (3). By last Thursday, it had added Johnstown (66).


Combined with spots by the Democratic National Committee that ran 1,519 times in six Pennsylvania markets, Kerry advertisements were seen 1,741 times between Sept. 7 and last Thursday.


In the same period, the Bush campaign and the Republican Party ran advertisements seen 2,137 times in six Pennsylvania markets.


So far, the Democrats have not coordinated any advertisements with Mr. Kerry, while the Republican Party has coordinated frequently with Mr. Bush but has not yet unleashed any money on its own spots.


Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party, said that for now the party was focusing more on organizing and getting out the vote. But no one doubts that if the president needs its money for advertising, the Republican committee is ready to pour in millions.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 11:03am
Depends on the polls.

Some are weekly, some are bi-weekly, and some update on a daily basis, like Rasmussen, as he works on trends.

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Registered: 06-17-2004
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 12:08am

Nice graphic of polls from the battleground states.Battleground State Polls Battleground State Polls


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

Avatar for momeebear
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Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 1:57pm
Well, it's hard to know WHO to believe! Which, if any, poll can be trusted? I looked at yours, but then I looked at this one:

www.electoral-vote.com

Seems to fluctuate day to day, guess tomorrow's will be different than today's!

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