polls are just snap shots, and are meaningless this far in advance. still, the race seems to have stabilized w/ W holding slight leads in several new polls, despite the news from iraq and 9/11 commission hearings. WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25138-2004Apr19.html "President Bush holds significant advantages over John F. Kerry in public perceptions of who is better equipped to deal with Iraq and the war on terrorism, and he has reduced the advantages his Democratic challenger held last month on many domestic issues, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll." USAToday: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-04-19-gallup-poll_x.htm "President Bush has maintained his lead over Democrat John Kerry in the USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll despite two weeks dominated by a deteriorating security situation in Iraq and criticism of his administration's handling of the terrorism threat before the Sept. 11 attacks...The survey, taken Friday through Sunday, shows Bush ahead 50% to 44% among likely voters, a bit wider than the 4-point lead he held in early April." Rasmussen: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm "The latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 46% of the vote and Senator John F. Kerry with 44%...The race has stabilized for now. Bush has been at either 45% or 46% for ten of the last eleven days. Kerry has between 44% and 46% of the vote for twelve of the past thirteen days."
If I'd spent 50 million bucks, I'd want more of a bounce than that. It's a pity that Kerry doesn't have control over the ads that MoveOn.org and others are running. I really think they have been "off message" for Kerry more often than not, which doesn't help him. I'm encouraged that Kerry is doing this well and remain very, very optimistic about November. One of your better posts, basso, believe it or not. Nothing from an obscure source this time. Thanks.
I have a funny feeling that this election will be even closer than Bush vs. Gore, if that is even possible. One thing I do know is that the mud that will fly from both sides leading up to November will make the 2000 Presidential election look like a Girl Scout cookie sale.
I think the media has done a pretty good job burying stories of John Kerry to page 5 or worse. Usually, "Kerry criticizes Bush's such-and-so." But seldom front and center. Yes, it sounds like conspiracy-mongering. I admit I haven't seen much TV news lately so maybe it's different there. But Kerry in the newspapers? Usually tucked away. Even I don't know much about the guy. Except that every time Ted Kennedy shows up with Kerry somewhere they show the clip over and over and over and over, and the Repugs get hard-ons because they want everyone to see Kerry as "liberal" (not that many people really understand the meaning of this, but they think they have an idea, hence, the label).
Kerry is not running a good campaign. He is hoping Bush just self distructs. Of course it is sort of hard to talk about student loans and such when Iraq is exploding. Funny thing is Iraq is hurting both Bush and Kerry. I think it is hurting Bush more, but it is making it hard for either to talk about anything else.
Yeah, right now it's pretty much Bush fighting himself. A poll like that is just another approval rating.
Rim's favorite, Josh Marshall: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_04_18.php#002859 -- "Charlie Cook, in the "Off to the Races" analysis out this morning, ._._. points to the president's ad campaign. Cook gives a rather downcast view of the state of the Kerry campaign and suggests that the massive Bush ad campaign against Kerry is finally bearing fruit. Nevertheless, measures of public opinion on Iraq keep heading south, as does the all-important 'is the country headed in the right direction/wrong direction' question. He concludes by saying that "Kerry's rising negative ratings and an increase in Bush's own problems create a wash--a race that remains a dead heat in this evenly divided country." A contrary reading of these polls might suggest that the president gains as national security and war issues become more salient, even if they are becoming more salient because of what seem to be objectively bad news about his policies. But I suspect Cook's read is closer to the mark."
I agree with your first sentence but I'm not sure you can call the race as stabilized looking only at about two weeks.
Analysis of the polling... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32840-2004Apr21.html Kerry's Missing Message . . . By Richard Cohen Thursday, April 22, 2004; Page A31 In the past month or so, everything has gone wrong for George W. Bush. He has been criticized at hearings of the Sept. 11 commission for being lackadaisical about terrorism. Richard Clarke accused him of being weirdly obsessed with Iraq. More than 100 Americans have been killed there in the past 30 days, and Bush was so inarticulate in his recent news conference that you could say he violated the standards of his own "No Child Left Behind" policy. Still, if this keeps up, he'll win reelection in a landslide. That, at least, is the forgivable conclusion you can draw from the Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week. It had Bush ahead of John Kerry, the Democrats' presumptive nominee, by 48 percent to 43 percent, with most of the rest (6 percent) going to someone named Nader. What's particularly telling is that Bush and Kerry have traded places on two key issues -- national security and the economy. Where Bush once lagged, he is now in the lead. Polls are snapshots, and we are cautioned not to make too much of them. The only poll that counts, or so the cliche goes, is the one conducted on Election Day, and the Kerry people would like to add one more banality: The campaign has just begun. Maybe, but it looks to me like it may be over. Why? Well, in the first place, it's hard to envisage things getting even worse for Bush. The past month should have been ruinous, and yet the president not only survived, he thrived. Explanations abound for this state of affairs. Some credit the Democrats on the Sept. 11 commission for being too partisan and thus eliciting support for Bush, much as Republican zealots once proved so helpful to Bill Clinton. Maybe. More likely though, and certainly more important, is the $41 million the Bush campaign spent on television ads in March alone. They defined Kerry as a man who gives wishy-washy a bad name -- or who has been an unceasing advocate of tax increases, such as the one on gasoline he once suggested, although he never introduced a bill to that effect. Never mind. It still made Kerry look like a jerk. Money will undoubtedly matter in the presidential campaign, and the president is going to have more of it than Kerry. But what will matter just as much, if not more, is Kerry's message. At the moment, it is nowhere to be found. If anyone out there can complete the following sentence, please let the Kerry campaign know: Vote for John Kerry because . . . The only thing that comes to mind is that he is not George Bush. Significantly, in one area where Kerry is demonstrably not Bush, it works against him. Bush is minimally articulate; Kerry is downright verbose. When Kerry opens his mouth, whole chunks of paragraphs fall out and hit the floor with a clunk. The Post's John F. Harris last month compared the prepared text of a speech Kerry gave with what he actually said. The man is a master of subordinate clauses, of thoughts that meander into blind alleys. Campaign aides showed the article to Kerry, but it seems brevity is simply not in him. He truly knows too much -- a charge that cannot be leveled at Bush. . . .
Fool me once.... shame on..... shame on you. Sorry I'm watching old Daily Show clips. The polls probably favor Bush because most people know nothing about current events. They won't really start following if at all until like October. Then if they're worth anything they'll realize he's a horrible president and a moron to boot. But oh the soundbites. I'll miss the soundbites.
Right now, Kerry is hitting at a message here, and a message there, but not sticking to one issue. It's almost like he's throwing out possibilities and seeing if anything resonates. He may have mentioned gas prices more than once. Meanwhile he's letting Bush's handling of Iraq speak for itself for now. I predict that they are making a list, and as the elections draw nearer, they will bring out all the ammo, and push it really hard so that it gets a lot of attention closer to the election. It may not even really start until near, or at the Democratic convention.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4799451/ The Vanishing Young Kerry Voter A new GENEXT poll shows Kerry losing support from young voters Brian Snyder / Reuters Despite artful stumping by daughter Vanessa, John Kerry is losing ground with a key portion of his base By Jonathan Darman Newsweek Updated: 4:37 p.m. ET April 22, 2004April 22 - Sen. John Kerry, who once held a commanding, double-digit advantage over President George W. Bush among young Americans, now finds himself in a statistical dead heat with the president among voters aged 18-29, according to the latest NEWSWEEK/GENEXT poll. While Kerry currently leads Bush within the margin of error, 45 percent to 42 percent, back in February 56 percent of 18-29 year-olds said they supported the senator versus 42 percent who said they would vote for Bush. The decline for Kerry among young voters comes as the candidate appears to be losing ground overall. An AP/Ipsos poll of registered voters taken at the time of the GENEXT poll showed Bush leading Kerry within the margin of error, 45 percent to 44 percent. Eight weeks ago, Kerry led Bush 48 percent to 45 percent in a NEWSWEEK poll. Analysts attribute Kerry’s overall decline to a variety of factors including Bush’s aggressive $40 million advertising campaign in swing states and the perception that Kerry has been unable to switch his own general-election campaign into high gear. Even in the wake of damaging testimony before the 9/11 commission and an upswing in Iraqi insurgent violence that has drawn questions about Bush’s stewardship of foreign affairs, the president has continued to maintain a slight edge over Kerry in many national polls. GENEXT POLL HIGHLIGHT | APRIL 22, 2004 If the election were held today, for whom would you vote? George W. Bush 42% John Kerry 45% Ralph Nader 11% Clearly, some young voters have turned away from Kerry for the same reasons as older citizens. But the GENEXT poll indicates that the presumptive Democratic candidate’s strength among the youth vote has been disproportionately dissipated by the entrance of independent Ralph Nader into the presidential race. In the latest GENEXT poll, the consumer advocate earns 11 percent of the under-30 vote. While Nader’s showing is down 1 point from a month earlier, it still is nearly double the 6 percent of voters who said they would vote for him in the AP/Ipsos poll of all voters. Nader says his main appeal lies with voters who the major political parties have previously turned off. And 29 percent of respondents in the GENEXT poll who said they were likely to vote for Nader said they wouldn’t vote at all if he had not entered the race. Still, 49 percent of GENEXT Nader voters said they would vote for Kerry if they didn’t vote for Nader, compared to only 20 percent who said they would vote for Bush. Indeed, while some young voters may be moving away from Kerry, they’re not moving toward Bush. Even as Kerry dropped 11 points in the GENEXT poll from February to April, Bush only managed to increase 41 percent showing of two months ago by 1 percentage point. On the issues, young-voter dissatisfaction with the president is stark: Fifty-three percent of 18-29 year-olds say they disapprove of Bush’s handling of foreign-policy issues and the war on terrorism, significantly more than the 43 percent of all registered voters who disapproved in the AP/Ipsos survey. On the homefront, 54 percent of young voters said they disapproved of Bush’s handling of the economy, mirroring Bush’s 53 percent disapproval rating on the economy among voters overall. But young voters’ faltering approval of Kerry is particularly surprising if only because the senator has sometimes seemed willing to do everything short of appearing in a Jessica Simpson video in order to attract youth support. From the outset, the Kerry campaign has engaged in aggressive youth outreach. In the primaries, it flooded college campuses with an array of bright young things—Kerry’s own daughters, Vanessa and Alex; his stepson, Christopher Heinz, and celebrities like actor Scott Wolf and Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge. Kerry himself has ratcheted up the effort since capturing the nomination, sitting down for an MTV “Choose or Lose” special and strutting around campaign stages with tunes from Bon Jovi and Coldplay reverberating through the air. Just last week, the candidate went on a national college tour drawing attention to his proposals for college tuition relief and national service. While it’s possible this heavy wooing may stem Kerry’s slide among young voters, the GENEXT poll indicates that the candidate can’t even count on the support he currently holds: A substantial proportion, 30 percent, of 18-29-year-olds pledged to Kerry said they could change their mind before the November election while only 13 percent of young Bush voters said they might switch their vote. For the NEWSWEEK/GENEXT Poll, Ipsos-Public Affairs interviewed 351 registered voters age 18 to 29, from April 5 to April 18. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.2 percentage points. References to poll data on registered voters of all ages are from an AP/Ipsos poll conducted April 5-7 on 758 registered voters. That margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. © 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
Probably studying at school all day... is what makes me sleep at night. And having good intuition in general. My intuition is telling me that Bush supporters can't really see what a bad president he is because: a) they're too stuck to partisan pride and don't realize we desperately need a change b) they really don't know anything besides there's a war in Iraq and Bush is from Texas! Woo! Texas pride! Git 'em dubya! And being relatively young, I've formed my current political views based on numbers and the general rules that everyone should know about politics. I fell in love with a girl named logic, and I just can't get her out of my head. But hey, whatever. Drum on.
I'm not surprised Kerry is losing ground. He's buried in the newspapers, unless he has to go on the offensive from something new that Karl Rove throws out there. Even if he wanted the chance to actually define himself, it's a tough thing to do when you're invisible.
Polls 6 months before an election dont meant ****. Kerry was losing to Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt by more than 10 points in Iowa just a few weeks before the caucus.
never in my life im only 23 by the way. have i really cared all that much about who is president. but now at this stage at where im at. and what i know. i beg to whatever god is out there that Bush doesnt get back in. the guy just plainly seems stupid and evil. cant stand him. and i know he doesnt have the best intentions in mind for america. beside the rich. FUKC BUSH
