Don Rose is a legendary Democratic campaign consultant and political pundit. He originally sent this out to his friends and associates, then I asked if I could post it here. I’ll have a Republican perspective soon.

The debates.  Kerry clearly won the first and appeared to have moved all the polls in his direction — some quite dramatically. The vice presidential debate was essentially even but swing voters and independents leaned to Edwards.   Most importantly, the movement to Kerry, while not as dramatic, did continue.   So too with the second presidential debate: a narrow victory for Kerry but much wider in the essential group of independent and undecided voters.  The movement would seem to be continuing.

The polls.  Almost all now show the race dead even — more have Bush up a point or two, while some have begun to show Kerry ahead after a long spell of lagging behind.  All results, with only a few exceptions, are within the margin of error.  Internally, all show Kerry doing well with the swing groups needed to win.  The momentum, again, is in his direction with a bit more than three weeks to go.  I believe the turnaround following the first debate may be attributed not only to Kerry’s performance, but possibly to the pollsters — such as Gallup — adjusting their models of likely voters, which had been imbalanced toward Republicans.  

With a dozen or more polls out there, the ones I tend to pay most attention to are Zogby, Harris and, yes, Gallup.  American Research group has tended to show the “happiest” results but they do not have the long-term track records of the others.  Rasmussen’s daily tracking is, for the most part, a good barometer but not necessarily predictive.  None have impeccable batting averages, though Zogby has looked best in recent years.  However, as the mutual funds always warn, past performance is no predictor of future results.  

(A special mention: the James Carville-Stanley Greenberg “Democracy Corps” poll is very optimistic for Kerry and found he won the second debate by a large margin; however, because the proprietors are so partisan for our side, I don’t like to hold out their results as definitive, though I believe them to be honest.)

The battleground states.  Going by the polls, a mixed bag.  The fact is, the trendlines we see in the national polls essentially are played out, for the most part, in the battlegrounds.  No big surprise, the candidate who gets two out of the main three — Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida — will likely win.   Though all appeared in jeopardy a couple of weeks ago, it would seem that Kerry is moving ahead in PA, running even in Ohio and slightly behind in FL.  The only secondary battleground state where he seems to have problems is Wisconsin, which I would trade for Ohio — though it is still salvageable.  As is FL.  Once again, several very recent polls, including Zogby, show a vast improvement for Kerry in all the battleground states.  (Further comments on these below.)

Turnout.  This is the hardest thing to predict.  The key indicators of a high turnout are new registrations and early absentee balloting.  Both of these indicate a higher than usual turnout. To this I would add the huge interest in the debates — the number of interested viewers is almost half-again the numbers from 2000.  That year turnout was around 52 percent.  Gallup’s model suggests this will increase to 55 percent.  I believe it will be even larger, perhaps as much as 58 percent.  The larger the turnout the more likely a Democrat victory — there are more Democrats than Republicans.  The problem has been some Dem constituencies, most notably minorities, do no turn out proportionately.   Based on new registrations and miscellaneous anecdotal field reports, that gap will narrow.

Registrations.  You are certainly familiar by now with the news that registrations are way up, particularly in the battleground states, but also in less contested places such as Chicago.  They are breaking records in cities such as Cleveland and other cities with big minority populations such as St. Louis.   Where they register by party, we see the Dems outpacing the Reps three, four, five to one.  Those millions of evangelicals Karl Rove has targeted do not seem to be showing up — though they may be in states already in Bush’s pocket.   Another significant sign is that younger people (18-28) are registering more heavily — and here we have a decided advantage for the first time.  Younger voters tend 2-1/2 to 1 for Kerry.  In the past this vote has been evenly or narrowly split.  Historically this is the lowest turnout age-group, but the registrations, the concern about the war, and generally higher than usual interest suggest a possible breakout.

The ground game.  Democrats have traditionally had superior ground forces and get-out-the-vote apparatus.  This helped them carry such narrowly divided states as Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2000 — and come closer than expected in Ohio.  The Reps were aware of this and have significantly improved their efforts — but so have the Dems though labor unions and the excellent new 527s that are a big part of this year’s campaign.  I believe we still have the superior game on the ground — a clue to which is the registration efforts, which far outmatched the Reps.  As we go forward, the registration game can translate into a far better GOTV.

Current events.  Hard to control current events — but the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the slow-moving economic recovery, revelations of bad management, etc. are moving against Bush — which is another factor in the poll shifts.   Moving into the finals three weeks the debate is also moving toward domestic issues — economy, health care, environment, etc., which are Kerry’s strong points.  A gaffe in the final debate by either one can be influential.  Of course, another domestic terrorist attack, the capture of Osama bin Laden and such could work for Bush.

Nader.  Ralph Nader’s poll numbers are going down.  By election day they may be half of what they are now.  Though only a few hundred Nader votes can make the difference in a given state — as the did in FL — it is my belief that the minimal votes he will get will *not* come from those who might have chosen Kerry otherwise.  There are a certain number of people who will vote for a Left third party regardless of the situation and the Dems can’t get them anyway.  I do not believe Nader will be the deciding factor in this election.

Adding it all up

I will be happy to go into election day with the polls showing a tie, especially in the big battleground states.  First, please remember that undecided voters historically tend to break for the challenger.  I believe we have several more aces in the hole, most of which have not yet been factored into the polls.  We have more registered voters than they do — and the newly registered voters tend to turn out in larger numbers proportionately.  We have the superior ground game to help assure this happens.

I am most optimistic about the “youth” situation because we’re doing so well with them.  They represent a double bonus — a potentially higher proportionate turnout and a strong break in our direction.  The black community is traditionally a late-deciding group as far as polls go — and historically they break strongly for the Dems.  The issue is getting black voters out — and things are moving into place to do so.

Based on all of this, I believe Ohio in particular is winnable and that Florida could turn out to be our November surprise this time.  I further believe we will win New Hampshire this year, which Nader denied us in 2000.  I believe Colorado is another possible turnaround to offset any potential loss in Wisconsin and/or Iowa.  In short, I’m going out on a limb and calling it for Kerry based on all the information we have today.