Rasmussen Battleground for 10/17 (Everything Closes Up)

Rasmussen National 3 day average is unchanged from yesterday with Bush leading by 2 at 48%-46%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com

These results are similar to Zogby's for today, except that Zogby's 3 day averages show a 2 point Kerry gain from yesterday and show Bush with the lead at 46%-44%.

http://www.zogby.com

Rasmussen's rolling 7 day numbers for 5 key battleground states show an amazing trend. All 5 states are within 1 or 2 points, with each narrowing,

Florida, Bush 48%-46% (This is unchanged from yesterday. However, this is 11 days in a row that Kerry has either picked up points, or stayed even from the previous day).

Michigan, Kerry 48%-46% (This is a 1 point Bush gain from yesterday, but is 10 days in a row in which Kerry has led after taking the lead over from Bush on 10/7).

Minnesota, Kerry 48%-46% (This is a 2 point Bush gain from yesterday, but it is the eighth day in a row Kerry has led since taking the lead over on 10/10).

Ohio, Bush 48%-47% (This is a 2 point Kerry gain from yesterday, and the best news by far. I firmly believe the next President will be the guy who carries Ohio. This is the closest Kerry has been since he trailed by 1 point on 10/3).

Pennsylvania, Kerry 47%-45% (This is a 1 point Bush gain from yesterday, and the tenth day in a row that Kerry has led since he took over the lead from Bush on 10/8).


Could this race be any tighter? Gallup is full of shit, everyone else has this thing razor close. That situation is great for us. Undecideds will do one of two things on election day. They will either go to the polls and vote for Kerry because they want change, or they'll stay home because they feel it won't make a difference. Very, very few will go to the polls to vote for Bush. I love the trend of the last week.

plus massive voter turnout = Kerry 2004.

this time in USA Today (one of gallup's sponsers). smack em around some more.

I agree with you that whoever takes Ohio wins the election. A must win, esp. for Bush (Kerry COULD win w/o Ohio, but he'd have to win FL, then, and that's not likely, IMO - I think that's fixed already).

Shit. This is not great news for Kerry. But terrible news for Bush. It's virtually a tie everywhere you look. Kerry SHOULD be ahead by at least several points.

BUT THEN Bush IS a war-time incumbent, which is the most difficult incumbent to beat.

I'm only reporting Rasmussen. Otherwise we'll be comparing apples to oranges. even if his data is skewed, you can recognize the trend. I believe, because he's an independent pollster, he has to get it right. By the way, I know he's a Repuke. By independent, I mean he has no cooperate clients. If he misses this one like he missed the last one, he's f**ked. Self preservation will trump ideology, especially among Repukes.

As far as the myth of war time incumbents is concerned, here's some facts. In 1916, Wilson ran as the "Peace" candidate that would keep us out of war. So, there was no incumbent in WWI.

Roosevelt ran in 1944 during WWII, and it was his closest election of the four, and he was a God.

In 1952, in the middle of the Korean War, Truman had an approval rating of 35% and didn't run for re-election. All pundits at the time said Truman would be swamped by Eisenhower, who promised to end the Korean conflict.

In 1968, Johnson was the incumbent, and was shocked in the NH primary, had such little support that he was forced to drop out. Bobby Kennedy was the anti-war candidate, and would have swamped Nixon in that election if they didn't kill him. Nixon won against Humphrey, who took on the mantle of the status quo.

Nixon won by cheating, and faking an end to the Viet-Nam war in 1972, only to have that war (Watergate was a symptom) drive him, his VP, and his entire administration out of office in disgrace.

The Iran-Hostage crisis didn't help Carter in 1980, The Gulf War didn't bail out George I in 1992.

I hear this war time myth all the time, but I lived through a lot of it, and it's just not that solid.

with Rasmussen.

Okay, let's say it's not the war time thing. Then what's your explanation for Bush's high job approval (close to 50%) despite his miserable performance, dishonesty, etc.? His engaging personality?

Not being sarcastic. I really want to know. What do you think explains his cont'd popularity, despite a miserable performance?

He should have run a different convention. he has allowed the evil men on the other side to define him, which is a cardinal sin in politics.

everyone knew he was a Viet Vet, he could have mentioned it without making it the whole story.

Someone like Joe Biden should have talked about Kerry's record in the Senate, in which he was the guy who busted the BCCI scandal as chairman of the senate Banking Committee. He uncovered money laundering to terrorists, including bin Laden's brother-in-law. He showed connections to the Saudis and some of Bush's pals.

Kerry should have had a labor leader explain that his "liberal" votes were really pro-labor. He was the co-sponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that was vetoed 3 times by Bush's father, but finally passed by the senate and signed into law by Clinton.

When the SwiftLiers for Bush ran their ads, he should have confronted it in a 15 minute interview, like Clinton did with Jennifer Flowers, and talked about his Silver Star, and the Heroism of that day, that was easy to prove.

After the Repuke convention he put people on board that react immediately to this bullshit, and hit hard. Politics ain't beanbag, and Karl Rove plays to keep.

How many voters tell you that they agree Bush sucks, but are not sold on Kerry. That's not because Kerry's not a good candidate, because he's a great one, it's because his campaign blew a number of opportunities to put Bush away early on, but tried to play the game by the "Marques of Queensbury Rules". That doesn't work with Rove.

Now, we see how it should have been done from the beginning. He has Carville and Bagalia advising him, and you can tell the difference.

Anyway, that's what I think.

Hey, you're in the wrong line of work!

When wars aren't going well, we ALWAYS switch to the other party. Korea? Vietnam? Even GW1, that went well, we switched to the other party. Something about iffy wars makes this country automatically want to take a new direction.

Even Truman had a tough time with his elections because of Korea. I don't buy this don't change horses, war time President stuff at all.

My general theory.. if the polls show a state tied, put it in Kerry's column. The same thing happened in 2000.. most polls were tied state-by-state, and almost all of them tipped to Gore.

but Bush's share of the vote, which is no higher than 48 percent in these states, which means Ohio and Florida (assuming Jeb doesn't steal it) are very winnable for Kerry.

Remember all those poor Jewish folks from Dade county who voted for Buchanan by accident? I don't remember the estimate, but I think it was like 40,000 or 50,000 people who accidently voted wrong. I bet they'll be a LOT more careful this time. PLUS, Nader had 92,000. Can Nader possibly draw that many this time? At least half of those Nader folks are going to say "no way" this time. That's not an insubstantial number of votes right there.

Florida can be stolen, but I do believe we can make it very tough to steal!

affected people more in the Reddest states, but had very little effect in battleground states? This could explain why Bush has gained in the general popular polling, but is losing ground in battleground states.

It may have helped Bush on Thursday and Friday, but not now.

thought Kerry was telling some kind of vicious lie about Cheney's daughter. I think many were clueless. I also believe that the comment was an effort to impact those clueless people on the Repug side. I don't think it was effective. I do, in fact, believe it was a major tactical error to say it.

Seems like a waste of time.. Every week yes......But every damn day ...hehehehhe

I happen to be pro-choice.

If you choose not to read them, don't.

Why the discrepancy between state and national polls? It's pretty much a consensus that the race is very tight in swing states with the slight edge to Kerry. Perhaps in states like ND, SD, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alabama etc, Bush is ahead 65-35? 70-30?

I'm looking at some inside numbers for Rasmussen.

He sub-polls 16 battleground states, something I posted this morning under the title of Rasmussen and Zogby Move Toward Kerry. (I will kick it up on GD2004 at 5:37 PM EDT). It has Kerry up by 2 points in these 16 states, which means he must be down by about 3 1/2 points in the other 35 (Don't forget D.C).

Interesting and encouraging.

Rasmussen and Zogby show trend toward Kerry.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1095223#1095223

I couldn't agree more that the trend sure looks Kerryific. As best I can tell, Kerry took a 1 or 2 day hit after the last debate but as is usually the case the temporary Bush bump is eroding fast. I loved Zogby's comment that Kerry was +2 in yesterdays polling.

As for Gallup, they're just worthless and have been for years now. You can make some sense with their Registered voter model but their likely voter filter always manages to measure too hot toward Republicans.

Thanks again for the daily updates.