Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 — Page 7

3 polls show a White House race in flux

Rick Klein/The Boston Globe Friday, September 17, 2004

BLAIN, Minnesota Three national polls indicate that the race for the White House is in flux after President George W. Bush's post-convention bounce.
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Two of the polls, by the Pew Research Center and by Harris Interactive, show the race as a dead heat. The third, by the Gallup Organization, gives Bush a substantial lead over his challenger, Senator John Kerry.
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The Pew poll, conducted from Sept. 11 to 14, and the Harris poll, taken from Sept. 9 to 13, show the race well within the margin of sampling error among registered voters and among likely voters. All this suggests that the presidential race is running even again, despite the double-digit lead Bush opened up after the Republican National Convention ended on Sept. 2.
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But the Gallup poll, taken from Sept. 13 to 15, indicated that Bush was solidifying his lead over Kerry, 55 percent to 42 percent, in a survey of likely voters. The Pew and Harris polls indicated significant shifts in only a few days after Kerry began a more aggressive strategy of engagement with Bush. In a poll taken from Sept. 8 to 10, Pew had Bush leading Kerry 52 percent to 40 percent among registered voters, and 54 percent to 39 percent among likely voters.
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"A lot of the positive impact Bush had in the convention remains," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "But Bush's vulnerabilities on Iraq and the economy continue, and these have anchored the race."
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A Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said, "We think anyone out in the country and in battleground states knows that this race is extremely close and will go down to the wire."
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Campaigning for the 10 electoral votes in Minnesota, Bush offered a rosy assessment on the situation in Iraq on Thursday, despite the dour outlook being presented by the Central Intelligence Agency.
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The CIA's July National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq, details of which emerged publicly on Thursday, predicted a best-case scenario of continued instability and security concerns and said civil war was a real possibility....

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florida supreme court rules 6-1. nader's on the ballot in the sunshine state.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29812-2004Sep17.html

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now, jrb, look at it outside the prism of this specific election for a sec and see if you can't see it as a victory for democracy. no, seriously, i'm not trying to rub it in or anything, but look at it that way for a sec. wouldn't it have been a horrible precedent to set that even a candidate representing a national party (albeit as batty as the reform party) can be excluded from the ballot?

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wait, i thought we needed activist judges because the people couldn't be trusted to do what's "right."

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i can sympathize. you should have seen me in '92 when ross was doing his charts and graphs. friggin' li'l ferengi. but just as you say you don't care how, bush goes, i don't care what must be done to defeat kerry.

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1. The results of the Gallup poll contradict the other three most recent polls that all show the race a dead heat.

2. The Gallup organization assumes that in the actual election, 40% of the turnout will be Republicans and only 33% will be Democrats. Their results are skewed accordingly in all of their polls. However, in 2000, the final results were 35% Republicans and 39% Democrats; and in 1996 and 1992, 34% Republicans and 39% Democrats. So Gallup's basic assumptions are simply wrong and their results badly skewed.

3. Gallup doesn't call cell phone numbers, thereby skewing their survey away from younger folks, who traditionally are more likely to vote Democratic.

4. In late October of 2000, Gallup said that 52% were planning to vote for Bush and only 39% for Gore. They got the election badly wrong in 2000 and there's no reason to think that they aren't getting it wrong again today.

5. Gallup has used the same eight questions over the past several elections to determine who the "likely" voters are. This election, however, isn't really anything like the last several elections and it's likely that their idea of who a likely voter is is badly skewed.

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uh, punk'd, as far as #3 goes, nobody calls cell phones because they can't verify anything about them. that's why zogby is pushing the internet sampling methods which i still feel can be too easily manipulated.

as far as #2, it was early to mid october when they put bush up by 13 and it tightened from there to a bush 48 gore 46 final poll. which while not exact was closer than some.

#5 is just your opinion, dude. whether in fact this election will be any different than elections past won't be known until the post mortem. just because the base is riled on the left this time doesn't mean it'll be any different than the last time the base on the left was riled...1984.

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ok, while i think that things are clearly divided and that the kind of partisanship on the left makes the clinton haters of the 90's jealous with their passion, i don't know that the divide is as deep and rancorous as it's portrayed. i know there are serious differences and that certain groups feel that they have been targeted and are under assault (and to a great extent they have been). the idea that america is ready to draw up along party lines and go to the mattresses for our candidates doesn't ring true for me. i see this as being a boon to the media as a story. i know i sound nuts, but think about it. who chooses what views get heard? who chooses what gets seen? who benefits most from making the country look as deeply divided as in the days before the 1860 election? when the benefits go to the people who make the choices, there's a conflict of interest. am i nuts? probably. do i care what people think of me? not really. do i sound like a don rumsfeld press conference? good golly yes!

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Updated On: 9/17/04 at 07:59 PM

no, bway, i agree with the decision which had nothing at all to do with signatures and everything to do with whether the reform party (which h. ross ears founded) could be defined as a national party for the purposes of the election. the justices found correctly in my opinion that the reform party did in fact qualify as a national party under the intentionally vague guidelines of florida law. they found and i agree that they would rather err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion. the decision had nothing to do with signatures nor with activism. they found properly on the law in an almost unanimous decision. 6-1. i respect the dissenter who held that the reform party could not qualify under any interpretation of the law, but i still agree that it's better to find for inclusion rather than exclusion. i know, as a republican it's a dichotomy, but hey, that's part of the fun of life.

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well, bway, until you get that magic button thaat allows you to overrule courts i think you're gonna have to eat this decision. just like those folks who didn't like the mass decision had to eat that. beautiful thing ain't it that we can have such vastly differing views all under one government? now i'm off to make my nightly report to the lord high inquisitor johnny ash.

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I'll eat this decision when Dubya and Co. eat the Mass. court decision and quit trying to play with people's minds and saying that the court is legislating.
Of course they are, it's their jobs! They interpret standing law and force sorry pieces of s**t government officials to do what they're too afraid to do in the interest of appeasing their base.
You know, rich, conservative, white folk.

Just had my wallet stolen from my locker at the gym, so I'm no mood for snide, smug conservative gloating over inconclusive polls.

The election will be decided by the Independents and the Undecideds.

Unless of course it's stolen again, like the 2000 election, like my wallet from the gym. In which case, it will be time to fight back.

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Bush Seen Vulnerable to Kerry Among Independent Voters

By David Morgan Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:51 AM ET

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (Reuters) - President Bush, who holds a sizable lead in some polls, still appears to be vulnerable to Democrat John Kerry among independent voters whose shifting loyalties could determine the winner of the November election, pollsters say.

Polling results from the Pew Research Center, the Christian Science Monitor and the Gallup Organization suggest independent voters are favoring Kerry as concerns about the economy and Iraq re-emerge as top campaign issues, despite a surge of support for Bush following the Republican convention.

"At this point, it seems that Kerry's doing slightly better than Bush among independents," said Jeff Jones, managing editor of the Gallup Poll.

(cont'd at link)
Bush Seen Vulnerable to Kerry Among Independent Voters

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Updated On: 9/18/04 at 04:25 PM

ZOGBY INTERNATIONAL Released: September 19, 2004

Bush Continues To Hold Slim Lead Over Kerry (46%-43%); President Widens the Gap In the War on Terrorism (75%-19%)- While Kerry Leads On Other Top Issues, New Zogby America Poll Reveals

With just 44 days to go before voters cast their ballots, President George W. Bush continues to hold a slim lead over Senator John Kerry (46%-43%), according to a new Zogby America poll. The telephone poll of 1066 likely voters was conducted from Friday through Sunday (September 17-19, 2004). Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.1%.
Zogby News!

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