Incidentally, this is the 1,000th front-page entry on MyDD since its relaunch on March 31st. During that time, we have received around 1.5M million visitors, two-thirds of all total traffic to the website. We have become one of the fifteen most trafficked political blogs, and there have been 860 diaries. My deepest thanks goes out to Jerome for giving me this opportunity, and to the members of our community for helping us grow and become something special.--Chris

Kerry's now back to a tie in Zogby's latest national tracking poll, at 45-45, with Zogby saying, If I were to factor in the leaners in the 3-day track, it would be Kerry 47.2% to Bush 46.6%. Kerry has the lead because of Independents:

	  Repup     Dem      Ind
Kerry	  5	    82	     44
Bush	  93	    11	     37

Kerry, Zogby says, has taken the lead among 18-29 year olds (especially 18-24 year olds), and opened a gender gap; Kerry's expanded his lead also among seniors (65+), single women, and union members.

I have doubted those leads were not there in the first place, but regardless, this is closing to Kerry's advantage. Those 14% undecided Independents are either not going to vote, or break by a majority to Kerry.

Bush & Rove's move; cause right now, this elections is tilting to Kerry.

Even More (Chris): Kerry has also moved into a lead in the Rasmussen tracking poll, for the first time in seemingly forever:

         National   w/Leaners   Battleground
Kerry    47.3         49.5              48.6
Bush     47.5         47.7              46.1

Again, Bush is under 48, and barely hanging on. Rasmussen weights by Party ID, but is slightly more favorable to Republicans than Zogby.

According to Newsweek and Gallup from the weekend, Kerry leads among independents, 51-40 and 47-42 respectively. Kerry is also gaining because he is shoring up his base, with Democratic support for Kerry now close to Republican support for Bush in nearly every poll. When both polls are re-weighted according to the Party ID model that either Rasmussen or Zogby are using, Kerry holds a small lead.

What does this tell us? In all of these polls, Kerry currently holds a lead in a scenario where 2004 turnout by Party self-identification is roughly the same as 2000 turnout Party self-identification. In other words, we only lose if we get beat on turnout.

As Kerry has taken a small lead, voting has begun almost everywhere. In an article about early voting starting in Florida, the AP notes other states where early voting has begun:

Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia have also started voting. We are edging ahead at just the right time, with the undecided break against the incumbent and our waves of new voters still in reserve.

We only lose if we get beat on turnout, so it is imperative that you help make certain we do not get beat on turnout.

Volunteer Directly for the Kerry / Edwards Campaign
Volunteer for the Democratic National Committee
Volunteer for America Coming Together
Volunteer for Moveon.org
Volunteer to travel and work in another state

November 2nd will be one of the defining days of our lifetimes. Over the next two weeks, take history into your own hands.