Polling Update: New York Democratic Primary, Biden Approval, and Early Mid-term News
June 21, 2021
Program Note: I have been dealing with my daughter’s college graduation and having her home to visit for the past ten days. As a result, I have gotten behind on my work. In fact, today’s post - which was originally planned for late last week - is missing sources in an effort to get it out before tomorrow’s New York mayoral primary. UPDATE: The sources have now been added to the post.
New York City Democratic Primary is tomorrow (Tuesday June 22nd). There have been a number of polls in the past week. New polls from Marist (A), Data for Progress (B), and Ipsos (B-) have Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams leading the 13-candidate race. Interesting developments in these polls include increased support for former Sanitation Agency head Kathryn Garcia and former mayoral counsel Maya Wiley. Both polls attempt to survey voter’s ranked choices as the primary will use ranked choice voting (RCV). Marist and Ipsos have done the most robust RCV surveys, not only gathering all choices but also going through multiple rounds of counting until one candidate (in both cases, Adams) got 50%. Data for Progress polled the first three choices and reported the results separately.
Adams is the front-runner and looks to win the most first place votes. Garcia is probably the candidate that will fight Adams until the last round of counting – and she could win (although Ipsos has her finishing third). Wiley has become a threat recently, likely consolidating progressive support in the wake of the implosion of Dianne Morales and the weak campaign of Scott Stringer. It does not look like Wiley will win, but she may place a strong third in first round votes and remain a threat to win throughout the counting.
The New York Times reported after the final debate that Andrew Yang and Garcia have made an arrangement to team up to stop Adams by asking supporters to rank the other as their second choice – similar to what Quan and Kaplan did in Oakland in 2010 – but Yang’s support has been declining for weeks. However, the Ipsos poll has Yang making it to the last round. Ipsos used an opt-in online panel for its poll, which required weighting across a number of categories. That does not mean it is wrong, however. Ipsos is a B rated pollster and typically calls about 75% of races correctly. The challenge here is the RCV nature of the vote. Ipsos, like Marist, reported the multiple rounds of run-off counting. While Marist had Yang drop off in the early rounds of counting in favor of Wiley and Garcia, Yang finishes second in the Ipsos poll ahead of Garcia and Wiley (in that order).
Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for election updates after the polls close tomorrow. Do not expect a quick result, however. The New York Times is reporting that it may take until July 12th for all the rounds of counting to be completed. It is not unusual for the RCV counting process - particularly when there are several candidates - to take a few days.
Biden Support & Trump Endorsement Factor
A new Monmouth poll (A) shows that Biden’s agenda remains very popular, but his approval rating is slipping. This suggests that voters are getting impatient with the pace of progress. This is something that the Democrats have to take seriously; the slow pace of change is playing into McConnell’s strategy, which is to drag out the legislative process and then blame the Democrats for not being able to follow through on its promises in the 2022 midterms. Democrats like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin are not working on bipartisan solutions (because there are none with today’s GOP), but instead are - hopefully just inadvertently - doing McConnell’s dirty work for him. This may be why Biden told Democrats last week to be prepared to go it alone on infrastructure. And it is likely an important reason why Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR, and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have said they will not support the Republicans’ pretend infrastructure proposals. Why are they “pretend” proposals? Well, for one, McConnell has made it clear that the Republicans “negotiating” with the Democrats on this do not speak for the GOP. And the more obvious reason is that the Republicans have shown not just said over the past twelve years that they will not agree with anything the Democrats propose to do. In fact, one Republican said just last week that they plan to make Biden a “half-term” president.
This brings us to what looks to be an upcoming head-on collision between Trump and McConnell in the 2022 midterms. Trump has been demanding fealty in exchange for endorsements as he desperately wants to show that he is still relevant – and perhaps cause more chaos in an attempt to poison juror pools for his potential upcoming criminal trials. The ones who gain Trump’s endorsements are the ones who embrace QAnon conspiracy theories and make fools of themselves by very public displays of personal loyalty to a former president who incited one coup attempt and is, at least in private, encouraging another one to place him back in power. Even as his aides have gone on record saying this will not happen, Trump is creating more cognitive dissonance among QAnon conspiracy theorists. He has scheduled a speaking tour with fellow grifter and disgraced Fox personality Bill O’Reilly in December, several months after Q followers believe Trump will be “restored” as president. More than a few proponents of QAnon have expressed confusion on social media.
Operating in the real world, McConnell is more pragmatic about winning elections next year. Trump’s endorsements – and the race by potential Republican candidates to out-crazy each other in pursuit of one – has the Senate Minority Leader concerned about the feasibility of these candidates in the general election. Republicans have lost winnable Senate races in the past few cycles after nominating terrible candidates that the craziest of their base loves. McConnell says he will get involved in the Senate primaries to ensure electable general election candidates, although it is as yet unclear what form that will take besides throwing money at his choices.
Is McConnell right to be concerned? Let’s look at the polling in North Carolina. Former Governor Pat McCrory has a big lead on Rep. Ted Budd. However, when voters were told that Budd was endorsed by Trump, the lead switched. Does this mean that Trump’s support will win elections or just Republican nominations? Last November, Trump and the GOP Senate candidate barely won the Tar Heel State while its Democratic governor easily won reelection. The Democratic candidate for Senate was leading until a self-inflicted sex scandal damaged his campaign (and many analysts think it probably made the difference in a close margin). Is this the kind of state whose general electorate will elect an extreme right winger over a well-known and still very conservative former governor? Incumbent GOP Sen. Richard Burr, whose retirement has created the open seat, thinks not. He says that McCrory is the only Republican who can win the Senate seat next year. It does seem like a risk to nominate an extremist in North Carolina, but more and more voters are voting strictly partisan these days so it could be closer than it should be.
Other Election News
Virginia and New Jersey are the two states that have odd year statewide elections. Recently, both states held primaries. Virginia does not allow governors to hold consecutive terms, but they can run again after being out of office. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe won the Democratic nomination last week by a large margin. He will face a Republican opponent who was chosen in a bizarre “open convention” process last month. Polling shows the race to be close, with McAuliffe having a slight advantage.
Biden won Virginia last year by ten points. In national politics, the Dominion State has become a fairly solid Democratic state. It’s trending that way at the state level too, but in the past 60 years it has been common for the state to elect governors of the party it did not support in the prior year’s presidential election.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) was unopposed and won the nomination. In the Republican primary, former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli won the nomination with just under 50% of the vote in a four-way race. Ciattarelli has run twice for governor and lost both times. He was considered a moderate until this race when he moved hard to the right in the face of attacks from one of his opponents who claimed that he was not a real “Trump Republican.” That won him the nomination, but it’s dubious to think that a Trumper is going to beat Murphy in November. In fact, Fairleigh Dickinson University (A/B) released a poll this weekend showing Murphy leading Ciattarelli by 15 points – 48% to 33%. Murphy has a +10 approval rating (50%-40%) while 70% of voters have never even heard of Ciattarelli. This means that if Democrats act quickly enough they can define their GOP opponent as an extremist Trumper – which should not be too difficult considering what Ciattarelli said to get the nomination – before he starts building name recognition as a moderate (which if he wants to win, he’ll have to do).
In Arizona, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has joined the race for governor. Incumbent Doug Ducey (R) is term limited. Ducey should be the GOP’s obvious candidate to run against Senator Mark Kelly (D) next year, but because he would not illegally steal the election for Trump last year (whatever that means) Arizona Republicans have censured him. That doesn’t prevent him from running, but as the GOP electorate in the Grand Canyon State embraces the craziest of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election Ducey would probably lose to extremist Kelli Ward – who is now the chair of the state party.
In Florida, Rep. Val Demings (D) has formally announced she is running for Senate against incumbent Marco Rubio (R). Demings, a former police chief in Orlando, was on Biden’s short list for vice president last year. State Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried has joined the race for the Democratic nomination for governor. Her biggest competition at the moment is Rep. and former Governor Charlie Crist (D).
In Alaska, a recent poll showed what looks like terrible news for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R). She’s in third place behind a conspiracy theorist Republican that is supported by Trump and an Independent supported by Democrats with 19% (nineteen percent – that’s not a typo). However, the North Star State’s new top-four jungle primary along with RCV in the general election makes this result much less worrisome for the incumbent than it appears.
Note: There has been no Generic Ballot polling since May 25th when a Quinnipiac (A-) poll found the Democrats up by nine points in the generic ballot – 50 to 41.