Posted on 02/21/2004 11:27:51 AM PST by ambrose
NEWSWEEK POLL: Campaign 2004
Saturday February 21, 12:43 pm ET
Sixty-Eight Percent Say Jobs, Foreign Competition Very Important In Determining Vote for President; Bush, Kerry Nearly Even on Who Would Be Better at Protecting U.S. Jobs and Creating New Ones
Kerry Keeps Lead Over Bush; Edwards Ties Bush in Test Match-Up; 52 Percent Say No to Re-Electing Bush
NEW YORK, Feb. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Sixty-eight percent of registered voters polled say American jobs and foreign competition will be very important in determining their vote for president this year; 22 percent say it will be somewhat important, according to the latest Newsweek Poll. When asked which presidential candidate would do the best job of protecting American jobs and creating new ones, regardless of the candidate they may support, 35 percent of registered voters say President George W. Bush would do the better job, but Democratic contender John Kerry gets 31 percent of the vote; 18 percent say it would be Kerry's opponent John Edwards. And 55 percent of all those polled disapprove of the way Bush is handling American jobs and foreign competition; just 32 percent approve.
Eighty percent of those polled say a major reason for the loss of American jobs to foreign competitors, is that people in other countries are willing work for lower pay and 77 percent say a major reason is investors and CEOs want profits and don't care where they come from. Sixty-one percent say it's because other countries have lower environmental and worker health standards; 56 percent say it's because consumers in this country want everything at the lowest possible price and 42 percent say it's because of weak corporate leadership in this country.
As the Democratic presidential campaign winds down to a race between Kerry and Edwards, Kerry maintained a big lead as the preferred Democratic nominee with 54 percent of the vote among registered Democrats and Democratic leaners, the poll shows. Edwards received 19 percent of the vote. In test match-ups, Kerry maintained his lead over President Bush from one week ago in the Newsweek Poll and Edwards ties Bush, the closest showing yet for the Democratic contender. But with the margin of error of 3 percentage points, the candidates are in a statistical dead heat. Among registered voters, 48 percent say they would vote for or lean toward voting for Kerry, compared to 45 percent who say the would vote for or lean toward voting for Bush. (In the February 5-6 Newsweek Poll, Kerry lead Bush 50 to 45 percent). Edwards ties Bush at 46 percent among registered voters. (In the February 5-6 Newsweek Poll, Bush lead Edwards 49 to 44 percent). If the election were held today with a Bush/Cheney ticket v. a Kerry/Edwards ticket, Kerry/Edwards leads by 49 to 45 percent among registered voters. And when asked if they'd like to see Bush re-elected to another term as president, 52 percent of registered voters say no; 43 percent say yes. And 38 percent of registered voters say Bush is somewhat likely (31% say very likely) to be re-elected this year. Forty-eight percent of Americans polled approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, the same as one week ago in the Newsweek Poll.
In the wake of the controversy over Bush's obligations for military service in the National Guard at the time of the Vietnam War, 49 percent of those polled say they're inclined to believe that Bush fulfilled the obligations; 33 percent have serious doubts about it. And 58 percent of all those polled say they think of Bush as an honest person by nature; 34 percent do not see him this way.
In deciding which Democratic presidential candidate to support this year, 49 percent of registered Democrats and Democratic leaners say they are personally more inclined to vote for the candidate who comes closest to their way of thinking on major issues; 42 percent say they are inclined to support the candidate with the best chance of defeating Bush in November. Regardless of the Democratic presidential candidate they may support, 57 percent say Kerry would do a better job leading the war on terrorism (10% say Edwards) and 45 percent say Kerry better understands the concerns of people like them (30% say Edwards).
On the topic of free trade and jobs, 35 percent of all those polled say NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and the WTO (World Trade Organization) have been a bad thing for the United States; 28 percent say they've been a good thing. Sixty-eight percent disagree with a statement from a government official who recently said that "outsourcing" of American service jobs to other countries is not only inevitable but is good for Americans; only 23 percent agree with that statement.
On the topic of legalizing gay marriage, 45 percent of all those polled says they oppose any legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples; 23 percent support full marriage rights for the couples and 24 percent support civil unions or partnerships, but not gay marriage, the poll shows.
Thirty-nine percent of those polled say they would support a Constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in all 50 states; 33 percent say it should be left up to individual states to pass their own laws about gay marriage and 23 percent support full marriage rights for gays. While 23 percent of registered voters say the issue of gay marriage will be very important and the same number say it's somewhat important in determining their vote for president this year, 20 percent say it's not too important and 32 percent say it's not at all important, the poll shows.
This poll is part of the March 1 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, February 23.) For this Newsweek Poll, Princeton Survey Research Associates International interviewed 1,019 adults aged 18 and older on February 19-20, 2004. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
I did some worst-case analysis before Nader announced:
Edwards, interestingly enough, has a cool interactive map with the electoral votes pre-calculated. The 2000 vote percentages are here. Take the states Gore won by more than 5% over Bush: DC, RI, MA, NY, HI, CT, MD, NJ, DE, IL, CA, VT, WA, MI, ME. These are Safe Dem. -- 200 electoral votes.
Take the states Bush won by more than 5% over Gore: WY, UT, ID, AK, NE, ND, MT, SD, OK, TX, KS, MS, SC, IN, KY, AL, NC, GA, CO, VA, LA, WV, AZ, AR. Add TN because that's safe as long as Gore isn't running. That's 211 electoral votes which are Safe Rep.
The rest: PA, MN, OR, IA, WI, NM, FL, NH, MO, NV, OH are tossup.
Now make the threshold 3.25%. That makes 247 EV's for Bush, 223 for Kerry with 59 tossup. The only thing that can change this is if Kerry puts a Safe Bush state person on his ticket. Even so, that makes NC, for example, a tossup.
I should note that Kerry could take Safe Rep seats and Bush could take Safe Dem seats, but if that happens, nearly all of the tossup states will go that way too.
Lieberman was a big factor in Florida being so close. The FL 2002 governor's race was a portent of things to come. I'd say FL leans Rep in the same way that TN is now Safe Rep.
Bottom line: the Dems NEED Florida. They can't win without it. Gore also won all of the very very close contests except Florida. OR, IA, WI and NM all went with less than .5% difference for Gore, the next on the list is NH, which went Bush by 1.3%.
Bush has a gigantic structural advantage. Maybe Bob Graham could help with Florida, but he's awfully weird...
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A statement by the National Council on Public Polls' January 3, 2001 PRESIDENTIAL POLL PERFORMANCE 2000 The accuracy of the election projections based on the pre-election polls of 2000 was surpassed only by the polls of 1976 and 1960, according to a study release today by the National Council on Public Polls. This year's final polls had an average error of 1.1 percentage points on the estimates for George W. Bush and Al Gore. The error on the third place finisher, Ralph Nader, was 1.3 percentage points. These results were based on the work of 10 polling organizations that used traditional methods for conducting their polls.
The 2000 election was a tie between Bush and Gore and was the closest election since the Kennedy-Nixon election in 1960. Democrat Gore had a slight edge in the CBS and Zogby polls, while seven of the other polls leaned to Republican Bush. The Harris poll had it tied. Four years ago, all 9 polls erred in favor of overstating Democratic Clinton. Challenger Nader was overstated by 7 of the 10 polls this year. Two got the Nader vote correct. All other polls overstated Nader's vote. Third party candidates typically get less support in the election than they do in the final pre-election polls. Two other organizations used methods that previously had not been used. Harris Interactive conducted its polls on the Internet among a panel of e-mail users and forecast a tie. Rasmussen's Portrait of America poll was off by 4.5 percentage points on each of the top two candidates. Rasmussen had its interviews conducted by a computer playing a recorded voice with no live interviewer intervening.
For this election, 2 of the 10 polls overstated Gore's vote while 7 overstated Bush. In the 1996 election, 8 out of 9 polls overstated Democrat Clinton. One poll each year neither under- or over- stated the winners' percentage. Presidential Poll Performance 2000 Error Calculator Final National Presidential Poll Results, 1936-2000 For more information about this and other polling issues, contact the NCPP Polling Review Board Members.
NCPP Polling Review Board Members
For more information, please contact us at: info@ncpp.org
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Heh, notice how he has Florida colored. I must admit I chuckled.
Trust me, the last thing Newsweak wanted to do was to publish a poll showing GW climbing back up. The more I look at it, the more I believe that the entire Kerry lead has been fluff. All we need to do is make sure that John John gets by Super Tuesday with enough delegates to make his nomination a foregone conclusion.
Right now, the less Bush fights back, the stronger Kerry looks. That's the reason for the silence out of the White House.
Kerry has a glass jaw. Trust me on this. William Weld didn't know how to fight Kerry's counterpunches in the ring. Bush knows, in spades.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Likely voters are more anti-Bush than registered voters.
It would have to be really unexpected. The usual things: terrorist attack, etc. would only help him. Plus, all of the usual unexpected events break Bush's way: finding Osama, WMDs, better jobs numbers. Being a sitting president, "revelations" from Bush's past won't hurt him.
I don't see excitement or a groundswell of support for this man. If it exists, it exists in Liberal La La Land and nowhere else.
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