MyDD :: Kerry Well Ahead In The Battleground

Kerry Well Ahead In The Battleground

by Chris Bowers, Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 05:44:40 PM EST

Via Mystery Pollster, Kerry is running stronger in the battleground than he is nationally:

Polls of "Battleground" States
	    Kerry  Bush
Rasmussen*    48     48
AP-Ipsos*     50     46
Marist	     50     43
Pew	     49     43
NBC / WSJ     49     43
CBS / NYT*    51     40
Harris**      47     47
Gallup	     46     46
WaPost	     50     45
* = likely voters
** = LV2 model

The averages look horrible for incumbent Bush:

	      Kerry  Bush
Simple Mean    48.9   44.6
Central Mean   49.0   44.6
Median	      49.0   45.0
Mode	      50.0   43.0

All of these polls were conducted entirely after the third debate, and are listed in the order in which they were conducted. In every case, Kerry runs better in the battleground states than he does nationally. This goes a long way toward explaining Kerry's performance in state polls vs. his performance in national polls.

Bush has revved up his base in Utah and Alabama to the point of setting them on fire. Good for him,, and a fat lot of good it will do him. Mystery pollster quotes from Fox / Opinion Dynamics, which uses a heavily regional based weighting system to produce their polls, and is one of only two polls to show a large Bush lead:

One odd factor is that much of the lead is concentrated in the so-called 'red states,' which were pretty much conceded to Bush at the beginning. Thus his national lead does not reflect a big lead in the battleground states that will decide the election. We may well be facing a situation, as we did in 2000, where the popular vote and the electoral vote produce different results.

Rove likes to claim that there are 3,000,000 evangelicals that did not vote last time. He is probably right, since turnout among African-Americans, many of whom are evangelical, was lower than that of the nation as a whole. Further, even if there were quite a few white evangelicals that did not vote last time (doubtful), where does he think these people live? I'll tell you right now it is not Wisconsin, which has the lowest percentage of evangelicals of any swing state.

Tags: General 2008 (all tags)

Permalink :: 37 Comments :: Post a Comment

It's the Ads (none / 0)

Kerry is winning in the battlegrounds because of the ads. Stuff isn't running elsewhere and the rest of the country had no idea until the baseball playoffs. When I saw the little ads Fox was allowing each candidtate to play during the games, I was shocked. Bush physically looked a wreck. He was promising crazy things like a "health center in every community." Kerry was hammering him, looking directly into the camera and speaking one on one with the viewer. The first night I saw the ads, they were back to back and Bush looked terrible. No surprise that last night, the ads were not back to back.

A friend of mine said it best: "Bush looked like he was trying to convince a banker not to foreclose."

by Robwaldeck on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 05:55:13 PM EST

I wrote Russert (5.00 / 1)

I sent this info to Meet the Press (and will try to believe they read their mail). Pick a Sunday journalist and try the same thing. They need to be encouraged to report on the horse race accurately. Any discussion of national polling should include a balanced discussion of Kerry's overperforming in the battleground states, where the election will be decided. The national polls mean very very little-to-nothing.

by DonBinTN on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 06:15:39 PM EST

Rasmussen? (none / 0)

There has not been a 48 to 48 Rasmussen number in a long time so far as I know. Tell me you are right!

by herodotus on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 06:25:22 PM EST

Re: Rasmussen? (none / 0)

I see, you must mean 48 to 48 in the battleground states. I take it that is avaiable to the paying members.

by herodotus on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 06:27:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Rassmussen (none / 0)

What's the deal with them anyway? They seem to me to be very cautious about showing positive Kerry numbers. Are they a right wing controlled site?

by realitythink on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 06:50:50 PM EST

Re: Rassmussen (none / 0)

yeah, Scott Rasmussen is a Bush supporter. He seems to be fair, yet at the same time his polls do have a Gop tilt to them. When every other national poll(except TIME polls which are crap) show Bush's approval rating in 40s. he has it at 53 or 54.

by jp2 on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 10:35:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Does this mean we might expect a reverse of 2000? (none / 0)

Kerry wins the electoral vote and Bush wins the popular vote?

by Davidt on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 07:06:09 PM EST

Rasmussen & Zogby (none / 0)

Looking at Rasmussen data, there appears to be a pattern which you can also see in Zogby polls. The data gathered during the week days looks better for Bush than for Kerry. Only the weekend polling data favours Kerry. So the strongest Kerry day is Monday and possibly Tuesday. The polling data for these two days includes data from Saturday and Sunday. Therefore Kerry normally catches up with Bush but then there is five days of bad data for Kerry and Bush gains.And the 'cycle' repeat itself. I don't quite understand that. Anybody knows why? Five days of bad data followed by only two days of good data, no wonder Kerry never catches up. But the margin is getting smaller. This time last week in the Zogby poll Kerry was behind by four points but today, at the same point in the 'cycle' he is only two points behind. Also in Rasmussen poll, same time last week Kerry was behind by 3.5% now he is behind by 3.2%.

by Nick on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 07:21:15 PM EST

Re: Rasmussen & Zogby (none / 0)

Gee, it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the majority of Kerry supporters work during the week or are at school. Weekends are when we actually are home to answer the phone.

by yitbos96bb on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 07:43:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &amp; Zogby (none / 0)

Gee, that can not be it Poindexter. Zogby uses party ID so why 39% Democrats and 28% independents give different result during the week?

by Nick on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 08:06:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &amp;amp; Zogby (none / 0)

Hey Einstein, just because they are registered Democrat doesn't mean they are Kerry supporters.

by yitbos96bb on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 09:09:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &amp;amp;amp; Zogby (none / 0)

Poindexter, you are not seriously arguing that registered Democrats are more committed during the weekends than during the week days. Think again.

by Nick on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 09:24:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &amp;amp;amp;amp; Zogby (none / 0)

One Stop being a jack ass. Two, I am simply saying there are more Bush supporters at home during the day than Kerry supporters. The subject has been discussed many times, not only on this site but others.

by yitbos96bb on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 10:51:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &amp;amp;amp;amp; Zogby (none / 0)

There may be differences in the type of Democrat, and for that matter the type of independent, who is at home on weeknights versus weekends. For example, singles, who favor Kerry according to most polls, are probably hard to track down during the week, while parents, who favor Bush for some unfathomable reason, are at home with their kids.

by EvanstonDem on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 12:38:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Zogby (none / 0)

Yes EvanstonDem. I understand now. I think also the age group is important and the tendency of those age groups that stay at home during the week. Thank you for the thoughtful answer. Much better than that 'Gee...' crap.

by Nick on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 05:46:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Rasmussen &; Zogby (none / 0)

The first post wasn't meant to be offensive; if you took it that way, I apologize. The remaining ones were when you started acting like a jerk. The Poindexter comments were WAY out of line and extremely offensive.

by yitbos96bb on Sun Oct 24, 2004 at 12:34:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Regarding Iowa (none / 0)

I'm an Iowa expat. I was in touch with many Iowa friends during the run-up to the caucus - and it was from them that I learned John Kerry would be the man, about a week before the Dean scream etc. I was pretty surprised to see how turned on to JK they were in the days before the voting.

I've been in touch since with a WTF? type message.

I'm told not to worry. Iowans who attended the Dem caucus are pretty confident the state will go Kerry. The turnout for that thing was through the roof.

So there you have it. It's either (a) a reason to worry - perhaps Iowa Dems are asleep at the wheel, or (b) a reason not to worry. Have it your way.

by HumptyDumpty on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 10:43:39 PM EST

Re: Regarding Iowa (none / 0)

The latest polls from Iowa (and Wisconsin) are worrisome, so I hope you are right. Is Kerry being hurt of helped in Iowa by an uncompetitive Senate race?

by maggie on Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 10:57:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Number of evangelicals much lower than they say (none / 0)

I've seen an analysis of the figures often bandied around by the evangelical movement and basically, it said that these high figures were impossible. When you go to churches and speak with the pastors, ministers, rabbis, etc. they will give you much more realistic figures because they base them on actual church attendance. But, all over the Western world, and although spirituality is strong, as ever, church attendance is falling. They admit this privately and they see the current battle as one for their tradition's very survival. Their tradition, as I see it, doesnt spring from Jesus so much as from the Council of Nicea in 323 AD.

The 'Christian' evangelical movement here may try to project an illusion of invincibility and holiness, but the reality is that they go against Jesus's actual teachings with their agenda of hate.

by ultraworld on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 01:15:20 AM EST

hard to track down numbers (none / 0)

Honestly, I've found it hard to track down accurate numbers on evangelical/born-again Christians.

This 2001 ABCNews/BeliefNet poll showed what I think are roughly accurate numbers: 79% of the respondents nationwide self-identified as Christian, and 27% self-identified as evangelical/born-again. I've seen other polls that put it at 72% and dropping, but that trend may have reversed.

But in contrast, recent Gallup polls have put the numbers at 80+% Christian and between 40 and 48 percent of the country as evangelical/born-again. (No links, but that's what various groups have reported.)

Which is more accurate? Your guess is as good as mine, but we have seen weird sampling problems in Gallup lately. This survey by the CEA says that 8 million cellphone-only households are not being surveyed as often as households with landlines, and that Dems are much less likely to have participated in phone polls in the past 60 days.

My hope is actually that Gallup will go into the election predicting a narrow Bush win, and there is a Kerry landslide instead. Then Gallup loses their credibility and they get dumped from their contracts with CNN and USAToday, and are replaced by Zogby.

Might be wishful thinking, but we'll see in two weeks.

by drewthaler on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 02:07:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: hard to track down numbers (none / 0)

"Born Again" has two meanings. Either (1) reborn or (2) fundie.

by Left for the Left on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 06:36:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

watch out (none / 0)

As Rummy might say;

Are all these polls using the same battleground states?
Maybe. Maybe not.

Is the distribution of votes equal across all the states?
Could be. Might not be.

The same effect we assume is happening for Bush across the country, could be happening for Kerry in the battleground states. If Kerry has a somewhat large lead say in Penn and Mich, he might be loosing Iowa, Wi, Mn, fl.

This thing is a tie. Noone knows who's leading.
We've simply got to join our local GOTV effort and get every vote to the polls! The poll that counts is on Nov. 2nd.

by pollwatcher on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 07:08:19 AM EST

Voting and Polls (none / 0)

Bob Novak just said on CNN that George W. Bush may lose Ohio but still win the presidency. I am here in Ohio and I know that the high unemployment rate, poor economic climate, and our worthless and corrupt Republican state officials, have really turned people away from Bush. The added touch in Columbus has been the arrival of Air America Radio. It has really encouraged Democrats and Progressives to become active this election cycle.

by Marie Smith on Sat Oct 23, 2004 at 09:46:58 AM EST