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Posted on 10/02/2004 10:12:06 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
John F. Kerry improved his image with voters who watched his debate with President Bush last week but didn't significantly shift their choice in the presidential race, a Los Angeles Times Poll of debate viewers has found.
While the debate generally did not diminish impressions of Bush on most questions, it did restore some of the luster Kerry had lost amid relentless Republican pounding since his party's convention in July, the poll found.
[...]
The Democratic nominee also made modest but consistent gains with viewers questions relating to national security and strength of leadership. And the percentage of debate viewers with a favorable perception of Kerry increased from 52 percent before to 57 percent after.
Kerry's most dramatic advance in the survey came in convincing more voters that he has a thorough agenda for the next four years. Asked which candidate had the more detailed plan for the policies he would pursue if elected, those who watched the debate gave Bush a nine-percentage point edge before the encounter; afterward, they preferred Kerry by four percentage points.
[...]
The voters who watched the debate were slightly more favorable to Kerry than the overall electorate even before the encounter began, the poll showed. For instance, in last week's Times Poll, Kerry trailed Bush among all registered voters by 49 percent to 45 percent.
But the voters who watched the matchup preferred Kerry by 48 percent to 47 percent for Bush even before the debate. After the debate, viewers divided almost exactly the same way, with 49 percent favoring Kerry, 47 percent Bush.
[...]
Bush retained a big lead among debate watchers on handling terrorism, but even there his advantage was trimmed from 14 to 10 percentage points.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The poll, conducted Thursday night and Friday, surveyed 1,368 registered voters who participated in a Times survey last week and agreed to be contacted after the Sept. 30 debate. Among the group, 725 voters said they had, in fact, watched the debate; it is their attitudes the poll reports. The poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.
Also remember we are not looking at LIKELY voters.. hmm.. inquiring minds want to know. :)
You've got to be kidding, the best the LA Slimes could do was give Kerry a 1-2% debate lead over Bush? They are slipping....
Third posting - and the headline is a bit misleading. This is a poll of debate watchers only.
Just to point out that the LA Times conducted a poll a few weeks before the recall election. It predicted that Gray Davis would easily defeat Arnold for the recall. We all know what happened....
If these were LA viewers the Slimes polled, this does not bode well for Sen. Spitball.
This is like the 5th post on the same article. Please do a search next time.
How did they weight the poll? If they weighted this 40% Demos, 30% Republican and 30% Independents this is REALLY bad news for Kerry since that means Kerry didn't even restore his base. Remember, this is Lies All the Time poll. The Democracy Corps doesn't show this significant shift in numbers. CNN/Gallup doesn't show this shift in numbers. ALSO, the LAT is the ONLY one that showed Kerry UP prior to the Debate. If they showed that BEFORE, it suggests their internals are pretty skewed towards the Democrat side of the spectrum and that Kerry only managed to gain with those who were going to vote for him anyway.
Not exactly. The LA Times' last sample had Bush leading 51-45. It asked some of the respondents in this sample if it could call them back after the debate. About 1,000 or so did (don't hold me to the exact number). When the LA times called them back after the debate, about 725 reported that they had actually watched the debate. In this group of 725, 48% supported Kerry and 47% supported Bush. Afterwards, 49% of them supported Kerry and 47 % of them supported Bush.
Yes, the headline is misleading and confusing, but it isn't a real poll of national voters, but a "before and after" snapshot of the attitudes of a a specific group of people.
When ABC News did the same thing with a pre-selected group of respondents, the before sample was Bush 50-46; the after sample was Bush 51-47.
Their last poll 9-25 to 9-28 was Bush 51% Ferry 46%. This gave Bush a 4 point lead from LIKELY voters. Assuming not much changed until after the debate, if they were using LIKELY voters, then it should be more like Bush 51%, Skerry 47% after the debate. There are a LOT of was to parse this. LVs give bush better numbers, RVs give Kerry better numbers. It is what polling system you use when (and why) to get the munbers you want.
There has basically been no movement in these "before and after" polls... but a blogger called "Mystery Pollster" questions the methodology of many of these before and after polls... he found the ABC before/after to have the most accurate methodology because they got the "before" opinion immediately before the debate, and the "after" opinion immediately after.
the "before" opinion of the TImes sample was several days only. Even still, not much movement.
None of the before/after polls capture the effect of the spin wars that take place after the debate. That's how Bush turned debate night "losses" to Gore into "wins"
Regardless, I suspect that polls will tighten because Dem enthusiasm has gone up - meaning they will be more likely to respond to pollsters, get through likely voter screens, etc.
I'm just not buying Newsweek's wild swings.
I've always thought this would be closer (51 to 47 win for W) than the pie-in-the-sky dreams of many on here.
Did they take the poll in and around L.A.??
In the final analysis, Bush will poll very close to his job approval rating on Election Day -- the single best historical predictor of the vote of an incumbent running for re-election. Right now the average job approval rating for Bush in the various polls is around 52%, which will translate into a win of 4-6 points.
Thanks for clarifying the headline. I was totally confused. I thought the Dems were really trying to pull one over on us with a poll that showed John Kerry leading before the debate, but I get it now.
THIS IS NOT A POLL OF LIKELY VOTERS. Kerry picked up 1 point? >Yawn much ado about nothing.
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