Posted on 10/20/2004 12:51:19 PM PDT by ambrose
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
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Poll: Bush, Kerry in tight race; Benson leading in New Hampshire
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — President Bush and Democrat John Kerry remain tied in New Hampshire and Gov. Craig Benson pulled ahead of challenger John Lynch with less than two weeks to go before the election, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
The American Research Group poll showed Bush favored by 47 percent of likely voters if the election were held today. It showed that 46 percent favored Kerry. One percent said they would vote for independent Ralph Nader and 6 percent said they were undecided. The poll had the two tied in June, but showed a tilt to Kerry in August, to Bush in September and then back to Kerry in early October.
The results were based on 600 phone interviews of likely voters in the state conducted Saturday through Monday. The poll had a sampling margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Of the 600 likely voters, 35 percent are registered as Republicans, 28 percent are registered as Democrats and 37 percent are independents.
The poll shows that Kerry has slipped slightly among undeclared voters. In the last survey, released Oct. 6, Kerry was leading Bush 53 percent to 40 percent among undeclared voters. In Wednesday’s survey, Kerry led, 49 percent to 42 percent. The sampling margin of error for that group was plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.
Independents have been shifting bank and forth in the race.
In the governor’s race, "it looks like John Lynch’s nearly exclusive focus on Craig Benson’s ethics and integrity has run its course as voters beginning to pay attention to the race are more concerned about taxes," pollster Dick Bennett said.
Fifty percent of likely voters polled supported Benson; 44 percent supported Lynch.
"While both candidates have pledged to veto any sales or income taxes, Benson is the clear choice among voters opposed to a sales or an income tax," Bennett said.
Among likely voters, 58 percent oppose a sales tax and 34 percent favor one. Of the 58 percent of likely voters opposed to a sales tax, 65 percent say they would vote for Benson and 28 percent said they would vote for Lynch. Of the 34 percent in favor of a sales tax, 23 percent said they would vote for Benson and 73 percent said they would vote for Lynch.
On the matter of an income tax, 64 percent of likely voters opposed one and 29 percent favored one. Of those groups, a majority of the first group said they would vote for Benson and the bulk of the second group said they would vote for Lynch.
In the Senate race, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg continues to hold a comfortable lead over Democratic challenger Doris "Granny D" Haddock. The poll showed that Gregg was favored by 63 percent of likely voters, compared to 23 percent for Haddock. Fourteen percent were undecided.
I sure hope we win NH to have a little cushion.
I sure hope we win NH to have a little cushion.
It's funny. At this point in a campaign cycle, it looks like NH is going to go with the Dim, but it eventually tilts to the GOP in the end. I get a feeling that NH is getting ready to break for Bush.
More like comically high! 13% range? LOL!
7% undecided. I think those are people who wish things were better but will never vote for Kerry. Bush by 4% in NH.
Of the 60 polls shown on RealClearPolitics.com taken since early September, Kerry led in 4 of them. In those four polls where Kerry led, he was up by 1 in two of the polls and up by 2 and 4 in the other two. In the remaining 56 polls, 7 were ties. That means Bush was up in 49 of the polls. Bush's biggest lead (compared to Kerry's 4) was up by 16 in the Pew Poll from early September.
Draw your own conclusions.
That's been my hope & belief too ... until I heard back from a politico I know in NH that tells me lots of Mass. folks are invading the state and there's lots of voter fraud in NH from Kerry's stooges in Mass. He (my source) thinks it will be close and currently considers it either a toss-up or leaning Kerry because of the extent of voter fraud perpetrated by the DemoncRATs but he still holds out hope as well.
I PRAY that Bush wins in NH
I did my duty got signs made some phone calls etc
i will NEVER hear the end of this if Kerry wins up here
There isn't much opportunity for fraud in NH because there really are no big cities. Also, you have to register in person at the Town Hall and show an ID plus proof of residence. The only real opporunity for fraud is at UNH but the out of state students have been told they will lose any financial aid they are getting if they change to a NH residence. The Town Clerk in my town of 15,000 knows everyone and I think that is true of most towns because they're pretty small. The last time I saw Kerry people around was 3 weeks ago.
Good news. It seems like we underpoll in NH. We were behind in the Senate race in 2002, we won. Bush was behind in 2000, he won.
Let's hope it happens again.
I agree...
I think the wording in the article is a bit confusing. The 6.5% MoE refers to the undeclared voters. By this I think they mean independents. The overall sample size was 600. 37% of 600 is 222. You get the MoE by taking 1/(Square-root(sample size)). So, using the subgroup size of 222, that is 6.7%. Close enough I guess.
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