“This is only the second election in American history where two presidents faced each other in a rematch. There have never been two candidates this old, nor since we began polling in the 1930s, so unpopular a pair.”
— Karl Rove
Electoral Analyst and Keynote Speaker 2024 FEDA Executive Leadership Conference
Congress is tracking even lower, having enacted only 65 pieces of legislation a year-and-a-half into its two-year term (as of late June). The difficulty in passing legislation
in recent years at least somewhat correlates to the narrow majorities in each chamber of Congress and the extreme divisiveness between the political parties. According to research from American National Election Studies, the percentage of people who have strong partisan feelings has grown from only 22.7 percent in the 1978 election to a record high of 44.2 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center study in 2023 found that 28 percent of U.S. adults express unfavorable views of both parties — the highest level in three decades of polling. In short, voters aren’t happy and that dissatisfaction makes this pivotal election even more difficult to predict.
“This is only the second election in American history where two presidents faced each other in a rematch,” notes Karl Rove, an electoral analyst and keynote speaker at the 2024 FEDA Executive Leadership Conference. “There have never been two candidates this old, nor since we began polling in the 1930s, so unpopular a pair. The election is taking place in a time of extreme political polarization and of rough parity between the two parties and after two elections which were both settled by a relatively small number of votes in a handful of battleground states.”
From Family Distribution
Business to Election Mastermind With a family history entwined with the foodservice equipment and supplies industry, Rove shares an appreciation for the value of distributors. In the 1930s, his grandfather founded Robert G. Wood & Company in Denver, an equipment supplier that sold quality butcher supplies to grocery stores and restaurants. Rove himself swept floors at the company when he was younger — an experience that will be familiar to many conference attendees who now lead their family businesses. From those early experiences, Rove went on to become an iconic political strategist and pundit best known as the architect of George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential victories. His work earned him a spot as a senior adviser in the Bush administration from 2000 to 2007 and he served as the White House deputy chief of staff from 2004 to 2007. During that time, he oversaw the Office of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs. He also coordinated the White House- policy making process. Today, Rove remains an election mastermind, writing a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and appearing frequently on CNN, Fox News Channel and C-SPAN. His decades of election involvement and continued observance of the political scene give him an unmatched perspective on the current electoral map that FEDA members are sure to find valuable.
The Number of Bills Enacted by Congress Has Declined
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
0
100th 116th 117th Current Congress Congress Congress Congress
Broken Polling
Even with all that experience, Rove acknowledges the difficulty in forecasting how the 2024 presidential race will shake out. One of the fundamental issues is the increasing unreliability of polling. In 2016, polls famously under-estimated Donald Trump’s support in the Upper Midwest and failed to anticipate his upset victories in the presumed Democratic strongholds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. It wasn’t just a one- time oversight. Pre-election polling has underestimated Republican votes in three of the past four elections, according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Likewise, polls inflated Joe Biden’s margin of
Summer 2024 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
