Battleground States Poll: (Kerry is ahead in 12/16 Zogby sauced battleground state polls)

wsj.com ^ | 05/24/04 | wsj

[KQQL]

Zogby 16 state polls

May 18-23

Bush and Kerry may be speaking to all of America, but their campaign advisers are focusing on a narrower slice of the population and targeting the candidates' messages to voters in particularly contentious states. Zogby Interactive is conducting polls in 16 of those states chosen by WSJ.com. See the latest results.

[ambrose]

Potheads for Kerry

[ambrose]

What, you're skeptical of polls which show Bush losing everywhere except Iowa?

Perhaps Zogby will next release a poll showing Kerry losing in Washington DC, but winning in Wyoming?

[ambrose]

Source?

[ambrose]

Zogby also likes to put out completely nonsensical numbers for an entire campaign, and then say there was a "last minute surge" during the last two days of polling... and he then goes on in the media talking about this "dramatic shift"... like clockwork... and people still fall for it everytime.

There are some pollsters that I respect who seem to stay away from playing games: TIPP, SurveyUSA, Mason-Dixon, Field Poll (California pollster). SurveyUSA has probably been the most accurate pollster since 2002.

[ambrose]

The 1976 parallel was suggested in an article about today's ABC/WPost poll.

Gerald Ford also had to contend with a serious primary challenge, and I believe that Reagan was only dozens of delegates away from toppling Ford. Nevertheless, Ford nearly pulled off an electoral college victory.

[KQQL]

per reliabilty .

1) Mason Dixon
2) SurveyUSA
3) Research 2000
4) Local State pollsters
5) ARG
6) Rasmussen
7) Zogby

[AntiGuv]

I get 2000 election state-by-state poll numbers from here.

[ultima ratio]

What defeatist claptrap. Bush is pulling even in major Blue states--Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvaia. He is making inroads in California--forcing Kerry to spend big bucks there. He is ahead in Florida. Stop the hand-wringing already. The only people who think Bush will lose are those who listen to beltway pundits--who tell themselves over and over and over and over that Bush is in trouble. --Then why isn't Kerry creaming him in the polls? If he's not ahead after all the Bush-bashing and bad news--he sure as hell won't be in the summer and fall.

[Dales]

"undecideds tend to break almost entirely for the challenger"

Commonly accepted, but untrue in Presidential elections.

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

I agree that the underlying reasons for going into Iraq are beyond the facile grasp of most of the public. Most still see world politics as one country, or coalition of countries, against another. Islamoterrorism is like a virus that insinuates inself into 'friendly' programs (Chalabi, for instance). "Can't hit what you can't see" is the old baseball analogy.

However,

we need to face the fact Kerry is going to win and the WOT will likely be lost.

I disagree, even though Kerry may win, just as you have it in your scenario. However, Kerry winning won't stop terrorism, and in order to establish his credibility Kerry will be in much the same position as JFK facing off against the Soviets and Cuba: he might 'go ballistic'. (Kennedy took us to the brink of nuclear war because he slept while Russia planted nukes in Cuba.)

My read on Kerry is not simply that he is far-left, but that he is mentally and politically unstable. That macho warrior in him fights with the guilt-ridden war criminal that voted against every important arms appropriation and intelligence funding for 30 years in the US Senate. The man who today says terrorism should be handled like a 'police action' is precisely the man who would respond to a second 911 with a nuclear barrage! -- All this in contrast to the patient, methodical Bush, who neither speeds up nor slows down according to the prevailing political sentiment. IOW, by downplaying the seriousness of the WOT, President Kerry may be pushed more easily to the brink of total war. And that is just what Jihadists all over the world want. They think that total chaos offers them better chances than the current US hegemony.

[AntiGuv]

Well, I am certainly open to persuasion but I would merely note that if what you mean is that undecided voters in May do not necessarily end up breaking for the challenger in November then I certainly don't disagree. However, my original statement was an 'if the election were held today' statement. I haven't made any prediction whatsoever about what I think will happen in November if for no other reason than because I haven't decided yet.

[Dales]

I stated just a second ago that the conventional wisdom that undecideds break for the challenger does not hold true at the Presidential level.

Here is some evidence to back my assertion up. I'm using Gallup here, since they have available data going back over many elections. In each case, I am presenting the results from a month before the election, the results in the poll before the last one (their last one never has undecideds), and the election results.

Year	Race	1 Month Out	Next To Last Poll	Result	Verdict
1936	Incumbent FDR vs. Landon	FDR 51, Landon 44	FDR 54, Landon 43	FDR 61, Landon 37	Broke towards incumbent
1940	Incumbent FDR vs. Willkie	FDR 51, Willkie 42	FDR 51, Willkie 42	FDR 55, Willkie 45	Broke evenly
1944	Incumbent FDR vs. Dewey	FDR 47, Dewey 45	FDR 47, Dewey 45	FDR 53, Dewey 46	Broke towards incumbent
1948	No incumbent pres, incumbent VP Truman vs Dewey	Dewey 46, Truman 40	Dewey 50, Truman 45	Truman 50, Dewey 45	Broke towards the incumbent VP
1952	No incumbents. Dems incumbent party. Ike vs. Stevenson	Ike 51, Stevenson 38	Ike 48, Stevenson 39	Ike 55, Stevenson 44	Broke evenly
1956	Incumbent Ike vs Stevenson	Ike 51, Stevenson 41	Ike 51, Stevenson 41	Ike 57, Stevenson 42	Broke towards incumbent
1960	No incumbent pres. Incumbent VP vs Kennedy	Kennedy 49, Nixon 45	Kennedy 49, Nixon 45	Kennedy 50, Nixon 50	Broke for incumbent VP
1964	Incumbent LBJ vs. Goldwater	LBJ 64, Goldwater 29	LBJ 64, Goldwater 29	LBJ 61, Goldwater 38	Broke towards challenger
1968	No incumbents. Dems incumbent party. Humphrey vs Nixon	Nixon 43, Humphrey 31	Nixon 44, Humphrey 36	Nixon 43, Humphrey 43	Broke towards incumbent party
1972	Incumbent Nixon vs McGovern	Nixon 60, McGovern 34	Nixon 59, McGovern 36	Nixon 61, McGovern 38	Broke evenly
1976	Incumbent Ford vs Carter	Carter 47, Ford 41	Carter 48, Ford 44	Carter 50, Ford 48	Slight break towards incumbent
1980	Incumbent Carter vs Reagan	Carter 47, Reagan 39	Carter 47, Reagan 39	Reagan 51, Carter 41	Broke strongly towards challenger. So did some of the decideds.
1984	Incumbent Reagan vs Mondale	Reagan 58, Mondale 38	Reagan 56, Mondale 39	Reagan 59, Mondale 41	Broke evenly
1988	No incumbent pres. Incumbent VP Bush vs Dukakis	Bush 49, Dukakis 43	Bush 53, Dukakis 39	Bush 53, Dukakis 46	Depends on which you use. Broke evenly from a month out. Broke slightly towards challenger from the 2nd to last.
1992	Incumbent Bush vs Clinton	Clinton 47, Bush 29	Clinton 43, Bush 36	Clinton 43, Bush 38	Broke towards incumbent
1996	Incumbent Clinton vs Dole	Clinton 48, Dole 39	Clinton 52, Dole 41	Clinton 49, Dole 41	Broke evenly
2000	No incumbent pres. Incumbent VP Gore vs Bush	Bush 48, Gore 43	Bush 47, Gore 45	Gore 48, Bush 48	Broke towards incumbent VP

[AntiGuv]

Hey, that's really interesting! I'm gonna have to revise my approach now so I'm unsure how I would speculatively distribute the EVs except to say that I would assign Kerry notably less than I had previously. Almost certainly no more than 295, off the top of my head.

Thanks for posting that!

[AntiGuv]

test

[AntiGuv]

Hmm.. Something about this post made the formatting on My Comments page go hideously awry.. Oh well!

[Dales]

I can fix that.

[Dales]

Take two.

If you take my chart and extend it to May, then the trend of undecideds breaking for the incumbent remains. Some examples:

May 1972: Nixon 53, McGovern 34. Result: Nixon 61, McGovern 37
May 1976: Carter 53, Ford 40. Result: Carter 50, Ford 48
May 1980: Carter 40, Reagan 32. Result: Reagan 51, Carter 41
May 1984: Reagan 50, Mondale 46. Result: Reagan 59, Mondale 41
May 1988: Dukakis 54, Bush 38. Result: Bush 53, Dukakis 46
May 1992: Bush 35, Challengers 60. Result: Bush 38, Challengers 62
May 1996: Clinton 47, Dole 32. Result: Clinton 49, Dole 41
May 2000: Bush 52, Gore 37. Result: Gore 48, Bush 48

[AntiGuv]

Cool deal. Thanks!

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

Interesting data, thanks for posting it.

One funny thing is that the Presidential election is rarely close this far out. But this year, I've the feeling we could skip the conventions and fast forward to November.

With the economy improving, and the Dems having overplayed every scandal in Iraq, the public's expectations toward Iraq have lowered. That means that anything reasonably resembling a working, representative government, and lack of total chaos in the streets will be seen as a victory for Bush!
Would you agree? ie., that when all the smoke clears, Bush is in the driver's seat?