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Home Front: Politix
Kerry Has One-Point Lead Over Bush - Reuters Poll
2004-10-30
Democratic Sen. John Kerry moved into a one-point lead over President Bush three days before the presidential election, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Saturday. Kerry led Bush 47-46 percent, well within the margin of error, in the latest three-day national tracking poll. Bush and Kerry were tied at 47 percent on Friday. The White House rivals face a frantic sprint to the finish, hunting for votes in fewer than 10 battleground states that hold the key to a win on Tuesday. Neither candidate has been able to establish a clear advantage or break the 50 percent barrier since the tracking poll began on Oct. 7. "Bush continues to hold on to solid support among Republicans, investors, married voters and born again Christians," pollster John Zogby said. "Kerry expands his lead among young voters, African Americans and Hispanics." But Kerry is still getting the support of only 84 percent of black voters, short of the more than 90 percent claimed by Democrat Al Gore in 2000 and enough of a shortfall to make a difference in a few critical states in such a tight election. The Massachusetts senator had a 48-41 percent edge among newly registered voters, an unpredictable group that could be a wild card on Tuesday depending on how many actually turn out to vote. Only 3 percent of likely voters remain undecided. At this stage of the disputed 2000 election, Bush led Gore by four points in the daily tracking poll.
Posted by:Fred

#2  Isn't Zogby's brother a biggy in some Arab think tank associated with the Dems. Polling ultra inconsistent, and averages D +3% - only ARG is worse...

Mason-Dixon or Gallup are much more in the real world!
Posted by: BigEd   2004-10-30 11:12:20 PM  

#1  Rooter poll is worthless. Methodology for "normalizing" results to 2000 levels make them suspect to begin with, but if you look at the sample, they oversmaple Dems and undercount Republicans and independants.

As evidence: Black vote is down, and Bush drawing MORE of it, a core Dem constituentcy, yet Kerry is ahead in their poll - meaning somehow the Republicans numbers must be going to Kerry to make up for the loss of black votes. Given the Bush margin in Republicans now is bigger than in 2000 ("will vote for" is well over 90%), and the Kerry margine is low (only half are voting FOR kerry as opposed to AGAINST Bush, and Dem "will vote for" for Kerry is only around 80%) this makes it HIGHLY improbablye that Kerry is leading, given the internals of the poll.

So bottom line: Reuters is playing the top-line numbers to try to create bandwagon voters for Kerry.

Hey Reuters, there are people out in the Blogosphere that can do the math too - so stopy lying and tryign to spin things.
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-10-30 1:31:55 PM  

00:00