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| For crying out loud, Newsweek shows Kerry with a 2 point lead... |
| 2004-10-02 |
| The Race is On With voters widely viewing Kerry as the debate's winner, Bush's lead in the NEWSWEEK poll has evaporated Ron Edmonds / AP The face of frustration?: Bush on debate night WEB EXCLUSIVE By Brian Braiker Newsweek Updated: 6:04 p.m. ET Oct. 2, 2004Oct. 2 - With a solid majority of voters concluding that John Kerry outperformed George W. Bush in the first presidential debate on Thursday, the president's lead in the race for the White House has vanished, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. In the first national telephone poll using a fresh sample, NEWSWEEK found the race now statistically tied among all registered voters, 47 percent of whom say they would vote for Kerry and 45 percent for George W. Bush in a three-way race. advertisement Removing Independent candidate Ralph Nader, who draws 2 percent of the vote, widens the Kerry-Edwards lead to three points with 49 percent of the vote versus the incumbent's 46 percent. Four weeks ago the Republican ticket, coming out of a successful convention in New York, enjoyed an 11-point lead over Kerry-Edwards with Bush pulling 52 percent of the vote and the challenger just 41 percent. Among the three-quarters (74 percent) of registered voters who say they watched at least some of Thursday's debate, 61 percent see Kerry as the clear winner, 19 percent pick Bush as the victor and 16 percent call it a draw. After weeks of being portrayed as a verbose "flip-flopper" by Republicans, Kerry did better than a majority (56 percent) had expected. Only about 11 percent would say the same for the president's performance while more than one-third (38 percent) said the incumbent actually did worse that they had expected. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans felt their man out-debated the challenger but a full third (33 percent) say they felt Kerry won. RELATED STORY Eleanor Clift: The Heat Is on Dick Cheney Now Kerry's perceived victory may be attributed to the fact that, by a wide margin (62 percent to 26 percent), debate watchers felt the senator came across as more confident than the president. More than half (56 percent) also see Kerry has having a better command of the facts than Bush (37 percent). As a result, the challenger's favorability ratings (52 percent, versus 40 percent unfavorable) are better than Bush's, who at 49 percent (and 46 percent unfavorable), has dipped below the halfway mark for the first time since July. Kerry, typically characterized as aloof and out of touch by his opponents, came across as more personally likeable than Bush (47 percent to the president's 41 percent). NEWSWEEK INTERACTIVE POLL Who was the better debater? Tell us what you think after the first head-to-head matchup. Click here to take our poll In fact, Kerry's numbers have improved across the board, while Bush's vulnerabilities have become more pronounced. The senator is seen as more intelligent and well-informed (80 percent, up six points over last month, compared to Bush's steady 59 percent); as having strong leadership skills (56 percent, also up 6 points, but still less than Bush's 62 percent) and as someone who can be trusted to make the right calls in an international crisis (51 percent, up five points and tied with Bush). Meanwhile, Bush's approval ratings have dropped to below the halfway mark (46 percent) for the first time since the GOP convention in late August. Nearly half of all voters (48 percent) say they do not want to see Bush re-elected, while 46 percent say they do. Still, a majority of voters (55 percent versus 29 percent) believe the president will be re-hired on Nov. 2. Neither man was seen as a particularly stronger leader (44 percent Bush, 47 percent Kerry), more negative (37 percent Bush, 36 percent Kerry) or more honest (43 percent Bush, 45 percent Kerry). Perhaps because the debate topic focused on foreign policy—and largely was dominated by the war in Iraq—that issue rates higher as a voter concern than it did a month ago. Twenty percent of all voters say Iraq is the issue that will most determine their vote, up from 15 percent. Tied with Iraq is the economy (21 percent), and still leading the list is terrorism and homeland security (26 percent). And key for the president is the fact that he is the preferred man on the issues more important to voters. On homeland security, Bush is preferred 52 percent to Kerry's 40 percent (a significant spread, but a narrowing one: Last month the spread, in the president's favor, was 58 percent to 34 percent). On Iraq Bush is preferred 49 percent to 44 percent (compared to 54 percent versus 39 percent a month ago). Kerry is even with the president on the question of which man is better suited to guide foreign policy in general (48 percent Bush to the challenger's 46 percent) and clamping down on the proliferation of nuclear materiel (47 percent Bush, 43 percent Kerry). Where Kerry clearly leads is on domestic issues, which will be the focus of the third debate on Oct. 13, in Tempe, Ariz. The Democrat is preferred to Bush by double-digit spreads on who would be better at handling the economy (52 percent to 39 percent), foreign competition (54 percent to 36 percent) and health care (56 percent to 34 percent). Although the subject of the draft was only briefly addressed during the debate, four in ten voters (38 percent) believe that because of the war in Iraq—which 50 percent of all voters now view as unnecessary—a second Bush administration would reinstate the draft. Just 18 percent feel the same would happen if Kerry were elected. Nearly two thirds (62 percent) feel a draft should not be considered at this time and 28 percent said a draft should at least be considered. But only 46 percent feel going to war was the right decision in the first place with just as many (45 percent) under the impression that the administration deliberately misled the nation into war with falsified evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Finally, echoing a recurring refrain of Kerry's, more than half of all voters (51 percent) think the Bush administration has not done enough to engage other nations (43 percent feel they have done enough or even gone too far in that direction as it is). For the NEWSWEEK poll, Princeton Survey Research Associates interviewed 1,013 registered voters aged 18 and older between Sept. 30 and Oct. 2 by telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. © 2004 Newsweek |
| Posted by:RJB in JC MO |
| #11 I do not remember a debate during wartime on the war itself. Is this a first? |
| Posted by: JP 2004-10-02 11:23:03 PM |
| #10 Oh, and ratchet up the offensives in Iraq. Bring it to a conclusion. Force the MSM to either support the troops or try to pull another Cronkite, which would backfire big time. Their credibiity's shot. Sumner Redstone will not permit more tricks from Rather and Co. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-10-02 8:52:55 PM |
| #9 Bush never should have agreed to three debates. He and Rove need to go into overdrive now with negative ads slamming Kerry as an unreconstructed eighties-era peacenik/freexe advocate/idiot. Bunker-busters should be Topic A. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-10-02 8:51:12 PM |
| #8 Want to break their hearts cancel the rest of the debates. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-10-02 8:43:14 PM |
| #7 All true, but the fact remains that Kerry's supporters were losing heart, and now they've got some hope again. Bush and Rove need to slam Kerry, and hard, on his global test and EU help-on-the-way idiocies. And slam him twice as hard on his freezenik proposal to unilaterally disarm us by shutting down bunker-buster production. This is crunch time. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-10-02 8:40:38 PM |
| #6 OldSpook---That's OK. The more that these pollsters screw the statistical pooch, the less credibility they have. Just like CBS and Rather in the Bush national guard non-story. The thing that is bad in elections is like what happened in Florida. The errors detected in the balloting were within the noise band created by errors and possible fraud in the voter rolls, so how you decide to handle the errors or ballot problems will affect the outcome of the election. It is veddy veddy bad to make decisions in the noise band without appropriate noise filter algorithms. **wags finger** |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-10-02 8:32:32 PM |
| #5 Finally dug out the sample size: 36Dem 34Rep 30 Indpt/Other Far overweighting Democrats given the change in Party Identification that all other polls have had. Most other national polls have the reverse percentages in terms of PID. So, yes, if you overwieght Democrats, and call other democrats "independants", then of course you can produce a pol that shows Kerry in the lead. Happened all the time in the California poll that showed Schwarzenaegger losing, or the Colorado senate race between that had similar sampling mistakes to produce the Demcorat with a 5% lead, who then lost by 6% to the Republican. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-10-02 8:24:03 PM |
| #4 Truman shoved the pollsters numbers and the newspaper headlines up their asses in his election. It is extremely difficult to get a good poll number. You first have to define your representative sample, that is a major consideration. Then you have to frame the question correctly. Blah blah. Then you have do deal with the objectivity of the pollster. More blah blah. Bottom line: the only poll that will count is the November voting poll. BTW, do you notice that there is always a passive agressive opposition by the established parties to purging, cross checking, and updating voter rolls? |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-10-02 8:23:53 PM |
| #3 For example, look at the professionals. Rasumussen, who is percieved to have a 3% ro so bias toward Democrats in his methodology, still has Bush up by more than the margin of error. Sampled over the same time the Newsweek Poll was done. Bush has 49% rounded down from 49.4, Kerry has 46% rounded up from 45.6 with less than 3% margin of error. (from Rasumussen) emphasis mine These results are based upon a survey of 3,000 Likely Voters conducted Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night. As a result, just over one-third of the interviews were conducted following Thursday night’s Presidential Debate. Results from last night’s sample were similar to the preceding nights |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-10-02 8:18:33 PM |
| #2 Just take this one point: Kerry, typically characterized as aloof and out of touch by his opponents, came across as more personally likeable than Bush (47 percent to the president’s 41 percent). This has NEVER been above 40% for Kerry. ANd the 4 other surveys, including one by Carvile's organization (overnight after the debate) consistently show Bush above 50% on this number, and Kerry below 40%, even after the debate. Newsweek is lying or else distorting their numbers. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-10-02 8:12:37 PM |
| #1 A few problesm with this. 1) It was a "push" poll - with questions designed to lead people into a Kerry selectiona t the end of all questions. (Note the topics, expecially the draft question). 2) They sample and thne "correct" the sampel to match exit polls from 2000, which means they adjust it to have more democrats and a larger independant fraction. 3) Its registered voters, not likely voters. 4) Their results are completely different from 5 other polls done in the same time frame. Basically, this is about as real as the CBS story on the draft, and the 60 Minutes story on Bush's guard duty. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-10-02 8:09:00 PM |