Posted on 10/02/2004 3:56:52 PM PDT by jwalsh07
Poll Date...Pubbies....Dems....Indies....Men....Women
.
.
9/11/04........391........300......270......481....522
10/2/04........345........364......278......481....532
On 9/11/04 Newsweek published a poll showing Bush up 49-43. On 10/2/04 Newsweek published a poll showing Kerry up 47-45.
Here's a test, you tell me why.
----- http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews859.html
The Republican National Convention is over and score it a huge success for President George W. Bush. For one solid week he was on message and got Americans who watched to listen to the message he intends to carry in the fall campaign: leadership, decisiveness and success battling the war on terrorism. The convention actually followed another big week for Mr. Bush and equally dismal one for his opponent, Democratic Senator John Kerry.
Now the first polls are out. I have Mr. Bush leading by 2 points in the simple head-to-head match up - 46% to 44%. Add in the other minor candidates and it becomes a 3 point advantage for the President - 46% to 43%. This is no small achievement. The President was behind 50% to 43% in my mid-August poll and he essentially turned the race around by jumping 3 points as Mr. Kerry lost 7 points. Impressive by any standards.
For the first time in my polling this year, Mr. Bush lined up his Republican ducks in a row by receiving 90% support of his own party, went ahead among Independents, and now leads by double-digits among key groups like investors. Also for the first time the President now leads among Catholics. Mr. Kerry is on the ropes.
Two new polls came out immediately after mine (as of this writing) by the nation's leading weekly news magazines. Both Time's 52% to 41% lead among likely voters and Newsweek's 54% to 43% lead among registered voters give the President a healthy 11 point lead. I have not yet been able to get the details of Time's methodology but I have checked out Newsweek's poll. Their sample of registered voters includes 38% Republican, 31% Democrat and 31% Independent voters. If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000. While party identification can indeed change within the electorate, there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that Democrats will only represent 31% of the total vote this year. In fact, other competitors have gone in the opposite direction. The Los Angeles Times released a poll in June of this year with 38% Democrats and only 25% Republicans. And Gallup's party identification figures have been all over the place.
This is no small consideration. Given the fact that each candidate receives anywhere between eight in ten and nine in ten support from voters in his own party, any change in party identification trades point for point in the candidate's total support. My polls use a party weight of 39% Democrat, 35% Republican and 26% Independent. Thus in examining the Newsweek poll, add three points for Mr. Bush because of the percentage of Republicans in their poll, then add another 8% for Mr. Bush for the reduction in Democrats. It is not hard to see how we move from my two-point lead to their eleven-point lead for the President.
I will save the detailed methodological discussion for another time. But I will remind readers that my polling has come closest to the final results in both 1996 and 2000.
None of this takes away from the President's achievement. He got out of his party's convention everything he needed to launch his campaign in earnest in the closing two months. But my poll still reveals lurking shadows for him. He still has a net negative job performance rating, a negative re-elect (i.e. more voters think it is time for someone new than feel he deserves re-election) and a net negative wrong direction for the country.
The poll also suggests that Mr. Kerry is behind and has a lot of work to do to refocus the campaign on the issues that must work for him: the economy, health care, and the execution of the war in Iraq. We also see now that at least in the short run, the advertising campaign against the Senator about his military service in Vietnam has raised questions about his integrity and has caused his personal unfavorable numbers to jump.
But with all that said, it simply is not an 11 point race. It just isn't.
John Zogby is the President and CEO of Zogby International- an independent polling firm, and writes this column for the Financial Times where it first appeared..
See my post above, and see what you think. I don't trust any of them myself, I prefer to look at the averages of them all. Newsweek/Princeton on the other hand, I don't even include in my considerations. Didn't do it a few weeks ago when they had Bush up by +11%, won't do it now that they "show" him down by 2.
WHile I agree with Zogby here, I don't trust him. He push polls until the endgame and then puts out some good numbers. But here, I think he is correct. There will be no 11 point win in November.
I agree with you.
Well, they kept the number of men at 481 both times.
The number of women went up by 10 from 522 to 532 between the sept and Oct polls.
The number of republican polled dropped 46 people from 391, the number of dems polled increased by 64, and the number of indies increased by 8.
So basically, the numbers for Kerry would reflect the 72 MORE people stacked on Kerry's side while Dubya's numbers would reflect the 46 less people.
The ten women would be scattered across indies and dems and so that increase would be irrelevant.
I don't believe that is correct.
Actually it is correct. Here are the numbers;
Newsweek
September 2-3, 2004 Bush 51.88% Kerry 41.07%
September 9-10, 2004 Bush 48.55% 43.47%
Gallup Poll
September 3-5, 2004 Bush 48.38% Kerry 46.22%
September 13-15, 2004 Bush 50.00% Kerry 42.00%
CBS
September 6-8, 2004 Bush 48.71% Kerry 42.41%
September 12-16, 2004 Bush 49.90% Kerry 40.55%
ABCNews/Washington Post
September 6-8, 2004 Bush 50.21% Kerry 43.59%
Time
September 7-9, 2004 Bush 50.00% Kerry 39.00%
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1222964/posts
Ahem, using the numbers you provided, Newsweek has Bush up +11 % the first week of September, while for the same week Gallup has Bush up only by +2%. You call that agreement?
See the my post #102 above, its an article by the pollster Zogby, it explains why Newsweek as well as Gallup and some others, vary all over the place from week to week.
Two points, well, four:
1. According to the Newsweek poll, in one night, in the most dramatic, sudden change ever recorded since modern polling has existed, men have switch their support from Bush to Kerry in record numbers, and now Kerry leads men. That right there, people, tells you this poll is crap.
2. Bush's approval rating is the key indicator, and with the exception of the crap Newsweek poll, his rating is better than 50.
3. The best defense is a good offense. You may have noticed that the military and Iraqi soldiers are now taking the fight to the enemy. They know Bush is getting hammered by Kerry and they don't want Bush to lose, under any circumstances. They ain't waiting anymore to fight the insurgents.
3. The stock market and consumer confidence are up. Consumer confidence is just as important as the President's approval rating.
Some will make a big deal of party ID breakdown, but I don't worry about that factor, because there's always some fluidity with those numbers anyway, partially because of the bandwagon effect. Here, however, is a BIG problem with the Newsweek poll:
"Interviewing dates: September 30-October 2, 2004 (interviewing on 9/30 limited to the Pacific and Mountain time zones after the presidential debate concluded)" http://snipurl.com/9i1c
When I went to the Newsweek site http://snipurl.com/9i27 it showed that the story had already been UPDATED as of 6PM Eastern, so the evening of October 2nd was ignored, and possibly the afternoon too.
This means that the Newsweek survey was conducted over a period of time that was LESS THAN 48 hours in length! Not only that, it was conducted at the height of the MSM's shameless and inaccurate flogging of Kerry's "comeback".
This poll is a disgrace. It's a total rush job done so that it would appear in the next print edition of Newsweek on Monday.
Newsweek poll (done by Princeton) is not reliable. We need to wait for Gallup and other reputable pollsters.
Ahem, ahem. Go back and read my post again.
I NEVER made any claims about about the percentages these polls moved to reach their Sept numbers.
My statement was that Newsweek, Gallop, ABC, Time (and CBS it turns out) ALL showed Bush with a solid lead in Sept.
And the numbers I posted show exactly that.
Newsweek Poll: Stacked?
Look at the makeup of Republicans vs. Democrats in Newsweek’s poll from September 11, 2004: NEWSWEEK POLL: Campaign 2004.
391 Republicans (plus or minus 6)
300 Democrats (plus or minus 7)
270 Independents (plus or minus 7)
Compare against the same data from the new poll, which Newsweek is using to claim that Bush’s poll lead has “evaporated:” NEWSWEEK POLL: First Presidential Debate.
345 Republicans (plus or minus 6)
364 Democrats (plus or minus 6)
278 Independents (plus or minus 7)
Did Newsweek choose a lower percentage of Republicans for the first debate to set up Kerry’s “comeback,” or did they stack the deck with more Democrats in the second poll?
(Hat tips to all who emailed about this.)
UPDATE at 10/2/04 6:54:49 pm:
The loons at Daily “Screw Them” Kos are watching this topic: LGFers moan about Newsweek poll.
Powerline has already deconstructed it.
>
I can't, of course. But this is not the only poll that showed this. Gallup showed a shift in partisan mix when Bush took the lead from Kerry. People may not respond to the question from the perspective of how they are registered. They may respond with how they lean that day.
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Not a valid point, the shift to Bush was picked up by almost every poll. Zogby is an exception but he weights.
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I typed that badly. The point was that Gallup's partisan mix shifted when Bush took the lead. Everyone's did. They call randomly and who answers the party question gets their answer recorded.
Look, if the vast majority of variance of a poll's result can be explained by the partisan mix of a poll, then what exactly is being polled? If you call 1000 zip code weighted and randomized phone numbers and you keep getting wide variances in partisan mix -- which produce wide variances in the presidential horse race, what is it we are measuring?
The phrase . . . they weighted their sample with X Dems and Y GOP this time vs last time suggests they did it on purpose. They almost certainly didn't. It would screw up their methodology to constantly vary that mix. They would not be measuring anything at all other than their choice of mix. No one will pay for that result.
Soon to be posted...
dvwjr
I look forward to seeing it, hope you post it to front page or breaking news if you find anything significant.
1. 90% of each party will vote for their candidate
2. Independents are split 50/50
In the 9/11 poll, these assumptions translate to a Bush lead of 7.6%. In the 10/2 poll, these same assumptions translate to a Kerry lead of 1.5%.
The assumptions aren't important - what is important is that simply by changing the makeup of their sample Newsweek shows Kerry gaining 9.1% (all else equal).
Per Newsweek the actuals changed +8 in favor of Kerry (not 9.1% as we might've expected based upon the numbers). This tells me the impact of the first debate is minimal if it exists at all.
All: Feel free to point out a fallacy in my logic, if there is one...
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