Zogby Aug 30-Sept 2: Bush 46 Kerry 44 Undecided 9

“While the President has improved his numbers, he still has a negative re-elect, job performance, and wrong direction.

“So the battle is now engaged. I have written before about the metaphor of the bouncing rubber ball. Take a rubber ball and bounce it as hard as you can. Then the laws of physics take over. The President has gotten three preceding bounces – each one shorter in height and duration. I think this week is the fourth bounce of the ball: this time only into the higher forties and perhaps only lasting a week or so.

“Remember that two weeks after the Democratic Convention of 2000, Newsweek’s cover story asked if Al Gore could be stopped. There will be leads and drops for both candidates and Kerry has to sharpen his message. At the same time, the economy is still the top issue and Friday’s unemployment figures will give us a hint as to whether the President will continue on the offensive or go back on the defensive.

Zogby International conducted telephone interviews of 1001 likely voters chosen at random nationwide. All calls were made from Zogby International headquarters in Utica, N.Y., from Monday, August 30 through Thursday, September 2, 2004. The margin of error is +/3.2 percentage points. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender and presidential voter to more accurately reflect the voting population. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=857

it is a seven point bounce (from five behind in their last poll to two ahead) so not bad. But a word of caution most interviews took place before Bush's speech last night. Still it is more positive than the TIME poll.

the ratings for Bush's acceptance speech with the ratings for Kerry's acceptance speech.

The e-mail that was sent to me was on Tue 8/31/2004 12:24 PM before Bush's speech.

Zogby International conducted telephone interviews of 1001 likely voters chosen at random nationwide. All calls were made from Zogby International headquarters in Utica, N.Y., from Monday, August 30 through Thursday, September 2, 2004. The margin of error is +/3.2 percentage points. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender and presidential voter to more accurately reflect the voting population. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.