Bush Ahead In Polls

illuminex

<div class="IPBDescription">By 4%, according to Reuters</div> <a href='http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YPDH4FGG5Z3NWCRBAEZSFFA?type=electionsNews&storyID=6512684' target='_blank'>The Link</a>

<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Reuters Poll: Bush Opens Four-Point Lead on Kerry
Fri Oct 15, 2004 07:09 AM ET

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush opened a four-point lead on Democratic Sen. John Kerry the day after the final debate between the White House rivals, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Friday.

Bush led Kerry 48-44 percent in the latest three-day tracking poll, which included one night of polling done after Wednesday's debate in Tempe, Arizona. Bush led Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, by only one point, 46-45 percent, the previous day.

An improvement in Bush's showing among undecideds and a strong response from his base Republican supporters helped fuel the president's rise.

"The good news for the president is that he has improved his performance among the small group of undecideds," said pollster John Zogby, who found 6 percent of likely voters are undecided. "Nearly a quarter now say that he deserves to be re-elected, up from 18 percent in our last poll."

Zogby said the difference between Kerry's 79 percent support among Democrats and Bush's 89 percent support from Republicans also should be "worrisome" for Kerry in such a tight race.

"Kerry needs to close the deal with his fellow Democrats," Zogby said.

Both candidates headed to the swing state of Nevada in upbeat mood on Thursday after their final debate and renewed their battle during separate appearances in Las Vegas over who was best suited to lead the middle class to prosperity.

The focus of the race now turns to less than a dozen crucial battleground states, with Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa -- where Bush and Kerry are running neck and neck -- all certain to see plenty of the candidates down the stretch.

The new tracking poll found Bush pulling into a tie with Kerry among Catholics and women voters, and moving slightly ahead with young voters. Kerry still holds a solid lead among seniors.

The poll of 1,220 likely voters was taken Tuesday through Thursday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The rolling poll will continue through Nov. 1 -- the day before the election.

A tracking poll combines the results of three consecutive nights of polling, then drops the first night's results each time a new night is added. It allows pollsters to record shifts in voter sentiment as they happen.

The poll showed independent candidate Ralph Nader, blamed by some Democrats for drawing enough votes from Al Gore to cost him the election in 2000, with the support of 1.1 percent of likely voters.
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Remember what I said about the dumb arguments going on in the "Final Presidential Debate" thread? This is the stuff I wanted to hear about, not pointless flaming. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->

reasa

This is interesting, my gut reaction would be that the debates would have been a bigger help to Kerry seeing as, even with just a month to go, allot of people still had no idea what he was about.

However, skipping the first, Bush seemed to come off stronger and really hammered Kerry's record, this may have hurt the Senator allot with the undecided voters.

I'm not going to call the election ether way at this point, I hope Bush wins, and I can live with Kerry, but at this point it's to close to even guess.

BathroomMonkey

I'd like to see their sampling population-- the Gallup poll from a few weeks ago had Bush dominating Kerry, but then it was revealed that they oversampled Republicans by a wide margin (40% R to 33% D, even though exit polls from the 2000 election favored Dems by a 38% to 33% margin).

Not that that's the case here, but I don't see what their sampling rates were.

illuminex

If you check out the Reuters page, they seem to have more writers and affiliated groups that lean more left than right. Zogby polls are usually pretty decent as well.

I'm sure you could probably find their sampling rates on their website.

It looks to me like the debates helped Bush out more than Kerry. I guess you could say the last debate hit pretty hard in Bush's favor, so I suppose that ends the flaming in the other thread.

Pepe_Muffassa

I'm just looking forward to the Oct. 31 Redskins v. Packers game.

The last Redskins home game before the election has accurately predicted the presidential win for 17 elections - since 1936.

This year, if the Redskins win, Bush wins. If the packers win, Kerry wins.

Now, that's what I call debating!

DrSuredeath

And no poll takes into account the cell phone users.
That counts out how much of the younger voters I wonder.

Handman

yes there is a 6% margin of error due to the lack of polling cell phone users. Its funny to hear that though, my teacher was just talking about it in my data mining class.

The_Finch

With a three percent margin of error, this poll manages to say that the race is too close to call. I wonder how much money was spent to tell us what was very obvious...

The statistics are interesting, but they'd be even more interesting if they just gave us all of it. Statistics is one of the few areas of mathematics that I enjoy, due to its practical application in daily life.

The only poll that really matters now is the one taken on election day.

reasa

<!--QuoteBegin-Dr.Suredeath+Oct 15 2004, 02:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dr.Suredeath @ Oct 15 2004, 02:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And no poll takes into account the cell phone users.
That counts out how much of the younger voters I wonder. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe if you have a cell phone with a really annoying ring tone you aren't allowed to vote.


...at least thats how it should be...

illuminex

<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->QUOTE (Dr.Suredeath @ Oct 15 2004, 02:06 PM)
And no poll takes into account the cell phone users.
That counts out how much of the younger voters I wonder. 


I believe if you have a cell phone with a really annoying ring tone you aren't allowed to vote.


...at least thats how it should be... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So, it'll be me and 14,413 other voters deciding the election. Woooo!

coil

The cell phone user lack is actually interesting. There *are* a lot of younger voters (who tend to be democrats) who only use cell phones - e.g. yours truly. I don't have a land line anymore; just my cell and a cable.