Interesting results on a poll conducted a few days ago, by the polling firm Strategic Visions LLC, of Washington state voters. The highlight was its findings on Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, who became governor in the 2004 election by the narrowest of margins — but only after several months of an eventually unsuccessful Republican lawsuit charging that ballot counting fraud, particularly in Seattle’s King County, had swung the election to Gregoire over Republican challenger Dino Rossi.
In the poll, despite a string of legislative successes in the year-plus of her tenure and a recent re-imaging campaign, Gregoire’s approval ratings remain about where they’ve been her entire term thus far: 38% of respondents approved of her job performance; 54% disapproved; and 8% were undecided. In a hypothetical 2008 rematch between Gregoire and 2004 opponent Rossi, the poll found that an astonishing 55% said they would vote for Rossi; only 35% said they would vote for Gregoire; and 10% were undecided. And most tellingly, when asked if they were confident that Washington had overcome the problems that plagued the last election (i.e., referring not to the flawless election of 2005 but to the 2004 King County recounts that swung the election to Gregoire); 16% said yes; a staggering 71% said no; and 13% were undecided.
The same poll shows Bush’s statewide numbers mostly in the 20’s, well below the national average, so the problem isn’t a poll that skews conservative.
The Republicans were essentially laughed out of court in their lawsuit, even though they picked a sympathetic county and judge, because they completely failed to substantiate any of their wild accusations of vote fraud. But for months, state Republicans mounted those accusations, credulously repeated by the state’s media, and Democrats, then and now, have done very little to refute them, relying mostly on a courtroom victory.
Result: in a state that went 53%-46% for Kerry in 2004, it’s not just Republicans who still, many months after the trial’s conclusion and well over a year after the election, believe Gregoire is illegitimate despite the court ruling. So do many independents, and — one must conclude from the “election problems” question — more than a few Democrats.
This is state-level, not national, but it’s a great example of Democrats winning the battle but losing the war because they didn’t take their case effectively to the public. They didn’t do it in Gregoire’s campaign (which was supposed to coast to a comfortable victory), they didn’t do it during the November 2004 election, they didn’t do it during the months of pre-trial and trial headlines of the election lawsuit, and despite controlling both houses of the state legislature plus the governorship, and doing a pretty good job, they’re not doing it now. And eventually — in 2008, if not sooner — if nothing changes, they’ll pay for it. New state party chair Dwight Pelz, are you listening?
