Reagan and Trump: Favorability

David Freddoso writes of Trump at The Washington Examiner:

His hard-core supporters fail to comprehend just how deeply unpopular he is with everybody else outside their relatively small group. According to the last eight polls taken on the question, Trump has an unfavorable rating of between 60 and 70 percent among the general population that will vote in the 2016 election. He is not that much more popular than the ebola virus. (Although no virus has ever tried to run for president, so we cannot be sure.)

One can quibble with a poll here or there, but to deny that Trump would be the most unpopular person ever nominated for president requires the belief that all current polling is wrong — and not just a bit wrong (as some polls were in 2012 in 2014) but completely, uniformly and entirely wrong in a way it never has been in any modern presidential election. Yet in reality, the polls from April and even March of 2004, 2008, and 2012 were, on aggregate, reliable indicators of the eventual winner in those years.

Gregory Holyk writes at ABC:

Donald Trump ranks as the most unpopular top-tier presidential contender in more than 30 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, trailing only former Ku Klux Klan leader David Dukeamong presidential candidates in any election year since 1984. 

Some Trump supporters liken him to Reagan, claiming that the Gipper bounced back from unfavorable poll ratings to win the presidency in 1980. You might call it "blatantly false rationalization #6."  As Frank Newport and Lydia Saad explain at Gallup, the premise is dead wrong:

A multitude of polls by other firms whose surveys are archived in the Roper Center polling database confirms Reagan's generally positive 1980 image.

The Los Angeles Times national polls all show that Reagan's image was more favorable than unfavorable, including polls in the fall of 1979 and in June, September and October of 1980. There is no Los Angeles Times poll which can be located from 1980 that shows Reagan with a more unfavorable than favorable image, as is the case with Trump today.

The New York Times/CBS poll provided the best time series of image assessments of Reagan throughout 1980. These polls showed Reagan's favorable rating exceeding his unfavorable rating in each poll conducted in 1980 -- with the exception of September's poll, in which the two figures were even, at 38%. Reagan's image was the most positive in the early months of the year, including polls conducted in January, February, March and April where his favorable rating was always above 50% and his unfavorable at least 19 points lower, with a consistently high "don't know/unable to give an opinion" response percentage. His image dropped later in the year as the campaigning became more intense, but as noted, never moved into net negative territory in the New York Times/CBS polls. The Roper database shows one poll, conducted by NBC News/Associated Press, showing Reagan with a 52% favorable and 35% unfavorable image.

Early Polls in 1980

An article from 26 years ago makes two points.

First, it is a myth that nobody but conservatives thought Reagan could beat Carter.

Second, early general-election polls don't mean diddly.

On March 11, 1980, David Broder wrote at The Washington Post:

When Maine Democratic Chairman Harold Pachios went to lunch recently at the Portland restaurant owned by Tony DiMillo, the two men talked about the Feb. 10 Democratic town caucuses, where DiMillo was one of those who gave President Carter his victory over Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

"I got to tell you," DiMillo told Pachios, "that for the first time in my life, I'll probably vote Republican in November. I'm worried about this economy but Teddy was just too liberal for me."

That conversation highlights an easily overlooked political truth that is well understood by leaders of the Carter campaign and other Democrats: despite the drubbing Carter has given Kennedy and his other intra-party challenger, Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., the president may be vulnerable to upset in the general election.
...

"The paradox," said Peter D. Hart, the pollster for the Kennedy canpaign, "is that every Tuesday seems to buttress his [Carter's] position, but the voters' attitudes are not very good. The structure of his support looks sound on the outside, but inside, the termites have really been at work."

In New Hampshire, for example, where Carter dealt Kennedy a crippling blow, a CBS-New York Times poll of voters found 72 percent disapproval of Carter's handling of the economy.

...

All these concerns may come to nothing. But they explain why Caddell said, "The real dynamics of this campaign have almost no relationship to the surface events that show Carter moving from triumph to triumph."

A Multisided Mainstream Gunfight

At The Washington Post,  Karen Tumulty, Ed O'Keefe and Philip Rucker report that candidates in the mainstream GOP wing are attacking one another. The Bush Super PAC and Chris  Christie is going after Rubio's attendance record.

Meanwhile, Right to Rise USA also launched a spot in New Hampshire contending that the gubernatorial records of Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich do not stack up against that of Bush. The ad was gentler in tone than the super PAC’s assault on Rubio, but it attempted to draw a contrast on the experience that all three of the candidates consider to be their greatest asset.

New Day in America, a super PAC supporting Kasich, responded: “What Team Jeb has failed to address is the political baggage dragging behind Bush and Christie. The country doesn’t have an appetite for another Bush, or another Clinton, for that matter. As for Governor Christie, his mishandling of his state budget and the ‘Bridgegate’ scandal have earned him a 60 percent unfavorable rating from those who know him best — the people of New Jersey.”

The crossfire, said GOP political consultant Alex Castellanos, is beginning to look like “a ‘Fistful of Dollars’ gunfight,” referring to the 1964 spaghetti western that launched Clint Eastwood to stardom.

A more apposite scene is from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, which featured a three-way gunfight:




Also at The Post, James Hohmann writes:

Then Mike Murphy, the strategist behind the Bush super PAC, began tweeting out pictures of embarrassing documents that his opposition researchers had collected from an archive of Kasich’s congressional papers. Among them: a 1980 thank you note from Phil Crane, the Illinois congressman whom Kasich backed over Ronald Reagan in the primaries, and a personalized letter of gratitude from Bill Clinton after Kasich supported the 1994 ban on assault weapons.

Reagan Painted a Pretty Gloomy Picture in 1980

In a New York Times article titled "Gloomy Republican Campaigns Leave Behind Reagan Cheer," Jeremy Peters claims that GOP candidates are painting a gloomy picture of the country, in contrast to the Gipper's optimism.

This article distorts history very badly.  In the 1980 campaign, Reagan did what out-party candidates always do:  talk at length about the country's problems and blame the in-party for them.  Here are just a few examples:

• "Double-digit inflation has robbed you and your family of the ability to plan.  It has destroyed the confidence to buy and it threatens the very structure of family life itself as more and more wives are forced to work in order to help meet the ever-increasing cost of living.  At the same time, the lack of year growth in the economy has introduced the justifiable fear in the minds of working men and women who are already over extended that soon there will be fewer jobs and no money to pay for even the necessities of life.  And tragically as the cost of living keeps going up, the standard of living which has been our great pride keeps going down." (Announcement of candidacy, November 13, 1979)
• "Never before in our history have Americans been called upon to face three grave threats to our very existence, any one of which could destroy us. We face a disintegrating economy, a weakened defense and an energy policy based on the sharing of scarcity.: (Acceptance speech, July 17, 1980)
• "Soviet leaders talk arrogantly of a so-called “correlation of forces” that has moved in their favor, opening up opportunities for them to extend their influence.  The response from the administration in Washington has been one of weakness, inconsistency, vacillation and bluff.  A Soviet combat brigade is discovered in Cuba; the Carter Administration declares its presence 90 miles off our shore as “unacceptable.”  The brigade is still there.  Soviet troops mass on the border of Afghanistan.  The President issues a stern warning against any move by those troops to cross the border.  They cross the border, execute the puppet President they themselves installed in 1978, and carry out a savage attack on the people of Afghanistan.  Our credibility in the world slumps further.  The President proclaims we’ll protect the Middle East by force of arms and 2 weeks later admits we don’t have the force." (VFW speech, August 18, 1980)
• "Eight million out of work.  Inflation running at 18 percent in the first quarter of 1980.  Black unemployment at about 14 percent, higher than any single year since the government began keeping separate statistics.  Four straight major deficits run up by Carter and his friends in Congress.  The highest interest rates since the Civil War--reaching at times close to 20 percent--lately down to more than 11 percent but now going up again--productivity falling for six straight quarters among the most productive people in history." (Speech at Liberty State Park, NJ, September 1, 1980)
• "They're leading us into an economic dark ages," (Speech in Houston, October 29, 1980)

Beating Senate Incumbents

At the Daily Beast, Lloyd Green writes:

Will the Republican finally wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats? The New York Times fixes the odds of that happening at 2-to-1. But, for the Republicans to make that a reality, they must defeat at least three incumbent senators and take three open seats, while holding on in a hotly contested race in Georgia, and successfully defending Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from a stiff Democratic challenge.

But if history is a guide, Republican triumph won’t come easy. The last time the GOP unseated more than two incumbents in a single cycle was in 1980. Thirty-four years ago, America elected Ronald Reagan as president, and sent a dozen Democratic senators to an early retirement. Since then, Republicans have demonstrated proficiency at winning open seats, but are remedial when it comes to knocking off incumbents.

"A Lifetime of Experience"

In Epic Journey and After Hope and Change, we write about the role of experience in presidential elections. Stuart Stevens writes at The Daily Beast:

Prompted by a New York Times article Monday,“Republicans Paint Clinton as Old News for 2016 Presidential Election” (which opens with a quote from me), there seems to be a great rush among the large professional class dedicated to defending all things Democratic to deny that age and experience will be an issue for Hillary. Which seems a bit silly since in her last run, she did everything she could to use both to her advantage.

“I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House,” she declared on March 3, 2008. “Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he'd bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."

She told Newsweek, “I wouldn't be in this race and working as hard as I am unless I thought I am uniquely qualified at this moment in our history to be the president we need starting in 2009 … I think it is informed by my deep experience over the last 35 years, my firsthand knowledge of what goes on inside a White House.”

This prompted Timothy Noah in Slate to respond, “Oh, please. Thirty-five years takes you back to 1973, half of which Hillary spent in law school, for crying out loud.”

And there’s the rub. When you ran in 2008 as the candidate of experience based on 35 years of experience and lost to a candidate of the “new,” don’t be surprised if it happens again eight years later.

In recent decades, the candidate who put the most emphasis on experience was Bob Dole.  He lost the vice presidency in 1976, GOP nomination in 1980 and 1988, and general election in 1996.

On November 7, 1987, he used the very phrase that Clinton used:  "I want to lead America into an even greater era of opportunity for our people and security for our nation. And so I offer a lifetime of experience and a record that shows not merely where I stand, but the hopes of a lifetime rooted here in Russell."

Why the GOP Contest Matters

William Galston writes at The New Republic:

In a general election contest against an unpopular incumbent (one with an approval level significantly below 50 percent), the main hurdle that the opposition candidate needs to clear is that of competence. In 1980, for example, voters made their decision in two distinct stages. Between late January and mid-April, Jimmy Carter’s approval rating sank from 58 to 39 percent and never exceeded 43 percent for the remainder of the campaign. This represented stage one, in which the voters concluded that they didn’t want to return Jimmy Carter to the Oval Office for a second term—if they had a reasonable and non-threatening alternative. In the second stage, which occurred immediately after the sole presidential debate, they decided that despite their earlier doubts, Ronald Reagan represented such an alternative. Reagan’s humorous and avuncular affect in the debate dispelled fears that he might be the second coming of Barry Goldwater. To filch a phrase from Mike Huckabee, Reagan was clearly a conservative, but he wasn’t angry about it.

That’s why the Republican contest matters. A bad candidate could still lose in November.

Granted, Mitt Romney is a flawed candidate whose vulnerabilities can be exploited, especially in intra-party combat. But in a general election, he has a better chance than any other Republican of reassuring persuadable voters that he represents a safe and competent alternative to the incumbent. Unless the economic environment changes a lot during the next twelve months, skepticism about Obama’s performance as president should be enough to propel Romney to victory, if not one of landslide proportions.

Republican primary voters, of course, are free to choose whomever they want to serve as their nominee. Early in 1980, let us recall, many Democrats believed that Reagan would be easier to beat than his principal rival—George H. W. Bush—because his brand of conservatism would alienate swing voters. One might argue that history is repeating itself, with Romney filling the role of Bush 41 and Rick Perry starring as Reagan.

Maybe. But having spent more than two years as Walter Mondale’s issues director during his presidential campaign, I got to size up Reagan’s record and political skills. Rick Perry isn’t his equal as governor, and he certainly isn’t his equal as a candidate. If circumstances are dire enough next November, he might win anyway. But I very much doubt it.

Outsiderism 2010

In The New York Times, Marc Ambinder writes of political outsiders and their backers:

In earlier times, such voices, on the right and the left, would have been relegated to the heckler’s gallery. But Twitter, Facebook and Google empower them to raise money, attract followers, grab attention and influence the course of political events. Unlike parties, which often recruit candidates who would appeal to the average voter in a general election, these activists care only about nominating the person who accurately represents their own views and frustrations.

That’s not all: true outsider candidates can use those same technologies and strategies to keep their coffers full, become known to voters and generate their own opportunities (and good luck). Not getting the nod from party power brokers can become the foundation on which to build an entire campaign. In turn, political parties, with their promises of millions of dollars and high-priced consulting support from Alexandria, Va., come off as imperious, cautious and out of touch.

Democrats, too, have had their share of bickering. Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter — galvanized by the state’s labor unions — challenged Senator Blanche Lincoln; she barely won the June runoff. In Colorado, when Senator Michael Bennet was not responsive enough to party liberals, the state’s former House speaker Andrew Romanoff decided to challenge him. Mr. Romanoff sold his house to pay for his campaign and might have won the Aug. 10 vote were it not for strategic mistakes he made late in the campaign.

In May in Pennsylvania, Representative Joe Sestak would not let the Democratic establishment coronate Senator Arlen Specter — who had just been persuaded to switch parties by the White House after conservatives made it impossible for him to win the Republican primary. These anti-party forces are not likely to wane.

In the same paper, Carl Hulse likens today's outsiders to the Senate GOP class of 1980:

Swept into office by the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan were a number of conservatives, including Jeremiah A. Denton Jr. of Alabama, Mack Mattingly of Georgia, Paula Hawkins of Florida, Steve Symms of Idaho and several others whose notion of the role of government and Congress was markedly different from those they succeeded.

They were labeled the “accidental senators,” candidates who won only by virtue of an extraordinary political environment. The culture of the Senate — and party control — changed overnight.

“It was a very weird time,” recalled Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who narrowly won a second term that year. “A lot of those people had no idea what they were doing.”

While party strategists and analysts say Republicans still face a steep climb to gain the 10 seats needed to flip control of the Senate, polls and circumstances in contests around the country suggest it is not inconceivable that Republicans could seize the majority if crucial races uniformly break their way on Nov. 2.

If they do, it is a certainty that the new membership of the Senate would include sharply conservative Republicans with a deep skepticism of government and a determination to change Washington.