45% Say Bush Will Win 25% Pick Kerry, 27% Too Close To Call

Rasmussen Reports ^ | 9 March 2004

[demlosers]

March 8, 2004--Forty-five percent of American voters believe that George W. Bush will be re-elected this November. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 25% think Kerry will win, while 27% expect "another election that is too close to call."

Bush voters are far more confident than Kerry voters. Eighty-three percent (83%) of Bush supporters expect their man to win. Another 14% think it will be too close to call.

Among Kerry voters, 50% expect the Democrat to win and 34% expect another toss-up. Eleven percent (11%) of Kerry voters think Bush will win.

These results mirror the fact that Bush supporters are far more sure of their choice than Kerry voters at this time.

From an ideological perspective, 62% of conservatives expect a Bush victory (including 14% who envision a landslide). Twenty-two percent (22%) say it will be too close to call and 12% think Kerry will win.

Liberals, by a 43% to 29% margin, believe Kerry will win. Another 26% expect another election that goes down to the wire.

A related survey found that just 52% of Americans believe elections are fair to voters. This is a slight improvement from the late 1990s. However, in the '90s, Democrats were more likely to believe that elections were fair. That has been reversed.

Rasmussen Reports provides daily updates on the Presidential race and the economic confidence of Investors and Consumers.

We regularly track whether voters trust President Bush or Senator Kerry more on managing the economy and national defense.

The national telephone survey of 2,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports March 4-7, 2004. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. See Methodology

Survey of 2,000 Adults
March 4-7, 2004

Most Likely Outcome
for Election 2004

• Bush Landslide 10%
• Modest Bush Victory 35%
• Too Close to Call 27%
• Modest Kerry Victory 18%
• Kerry Landslide 7%

[demlosers]

And in the daily rolling poll:

Survey of 1,500 Likely Voters
March 6-8, 2004

Kerry 46% Bush 46% Election 2004 Presidential Ballot

• Bush 46%
• Kerry 46%
• Other 3%
• Not Sure 6%

  March 9, 2004--For the third straight day, the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry at 46%, George W. Bush at 46%and "some other candidate" at 3%. The candidates have been within one or two points of each other since Super Tuesday.

  A related survey found that voters are already attaching more significance to this Presidential Election than recent elections.

  End snip....

[raloxk]

"These results mirror the fact that Bush supporters are far more sure of their choice than Kerry voters at this time."

This is Bush's big opening

[My2Cents]

Bush has been pounded by all the Democrat candidates, and by the media for a couple of months now, he's just now getting ads out, and he is hanging in there at around 47%. I think this is solid Bush support. It's reasonable to conclude that Bush can swing a good number of the soft Kerry support to his side. Conclusion: the race isn't as close as the raw head-to-head numbers indicate.

[Owen]

One wonders about all this stuff. Stuff being polls. The way polls are now, they self select. The pollsters target zipcodes and from there a selection of people who have voted regularly (to call them likely voters).

Then the phone machines start and everyone who does not answer or hangs up is not selected. Only those who want to be heard are selected. So regardless of the GOP vs Dem mixture, only those who feel really strongly are polled. Everyone else hangs up the phone, even if they are going to vote.

So this measures only those with intense feelings. That means the undecided are intensely undecided. They have to be a really volatile sort. Imagine enduring an entire survey just for the opportunity to say I Don't Know.

Some may be Caspar Milquetoast types who are intimidated by chipmunks and will answer the survey regardless of inconvenience, and go with undecided because that word sums up their life in general. Those folks are also volatile.

Weird.

[Coop]

Another 14% [of Bush supporters] think it will be too close to call.

Curiously, 95% of said supporters can be found right here on FR. :-)

[EllaMinnow]

Along with 99% of the 12% of conservatives who think Kerry will win.

From an ideological perspective, 62% of conservatives expect a Bush victory (including 14% who envision a landslide). Twenty-two percent (22%) say it will be too close to call and 12% think Kerry will win.

[MJY1288]

We can't allow ourselves to not take John F'n Kerry seriously, we must do everything we can to make sure this dangerous United Nations candidate never becomes President

[Boundless]

> ... he's [Bush] just now getting ads out ...

The electorate has a short memory. Howard who?

There's not a whole lot of point in clobbering Kerry too
soon. In particular, there's NO point in making it so
obvious that JFK will lose, that the Dems find some way to
replace him with someone more electable.

But it is important to make sure the Dems think that a Dem
can't beat Bush (keep it close). For if they think Bush is
really beatable, then Hillary will replace Kerry at the
convention (or even later, NJ-style).

Bush also needs to not debate Kerry ...
... until after Kerry has debated himself.

[joesnuffy]

Given the only viable choices....Kerry is lower than primoridal amphibian crap and about as wanted...
The two party cabal wins again...as always

[My2Cents]

if they think Bush is really beatable, then Hillary will replace Kerry at the convention (or even later, NJ-style).

Or Ron Brown-style.

[My2Cents]

Frankly, Owen, having seen the lies pumped out by the LA Times in its polls prior to the recall election in California, I think a strong case can be made that media polls (at the very least) are frauds, right up to the final weekend of the campaign.

[TomEwall]

It depends on the who's conducting the poll. Rasmussen is one of the better ones, IMO.

[My2Cents]

I would agree. My emphasis is on the media polls (sponsored by Wash. Post, CNN, Time, Newsweek, LA Times) as being more suspect.