OKAY, I’M NO MICHAEL BARONE, but a 43% re-elect number doesn’t seem especially strong. Am I wrong here?

UPDATE: Michael Barone emails: “you’re no Michael Barone.” Well, I said that. . . . He adds:

On the 43% reelect number:

As I recall, when Peter Hart (my boss 1974-81) started using the reelect question, we all assumed that an incumbent with an under 50% reelect was in some trouble. That seemed to be right then.

But in the last few cycles I’ve noticed that almost no one gets a 50% reelect–and these have been strong incumbent cycles, starting in 1996. Lots of incumbents who get 43% reelect go on to win quite nicely.

What I think is going on here is that only strong partisans say either “reelect” or “elect someone else.” Thus Bush scores pretty well on this Ipsos-Reid poll, because 43% reelect is a lot better than 29% elect someone else.

I think Bush–unless his numbers go sharply down, which of course could happen–is headed for reelection with something like 54%-56% of the vote. I think the strong cultural divisions in the country mean that over 40% are going to find themselves on one side or the other, no matter how well they think the incumbent has performed. So numbers like Johnson’s 61% in 1964, Nixon’s 61% in 1972 and Reagan’s 59% in 1984 (notice: it’s just a little bit smaller) are just not in the cards for 2004. I think the 43%-29% in Ipsos-Reid translates to something like 55% for Bush, 40% for the Democrat and 4% for Nader– a number that could go up or down depending on how lefty the Democrat is.

That would be a nice electoral college victory for Bush, but he still wouldn’t carry California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Vermont and probably Illinois–151 electoral votes. So his electoral vote count would not be much better than Clinton’s in 1996, when the popular vote was 49%-41%, and most of the Perot voters were anti-Clinton.

Thanks. I feel like Woody Allen when he pulled in Marshall McLuhan from off-camera to settle an argument!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jay Caruso, (who, I should point out, isn’t Michael Barone either) has some thoughts.