Gallup: Bush Gains After Debates [Bush 52% Kerry 44%; JA at 51%; with internals]

Gallup News Service ^ | October 18, 2004 | Frank Newport

[RWR8189]

Race remains close in key swing states

PRINCETON, NJ -- President George W. Bush has moved back ahead of Sen. John Kerry among likely voters in the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, essentially returning the race to where it was before the three presidential debates.

Among likely voters, Bush is ahead of Kerry by a 52% to 44% margin, exactly the same as in the last Gallup Poll conducted before the debates began in late September. Among registered voters, Bush has a 49% to 46% margin over Kerry.

Two CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls conducted during the debates indicated that Kerry had brought the race to a tie, and Americans clearly perceived that Kerry won each debate over Bush. Nevertheless, the current poll suggests that Kerry's perceived strong debate performance may have had only a temporary effect on the structure of the race. Kerry has now lost the edge he enjoyed among likely voters during the debate period, and Republicans have again become more enthusiastic than Democrats about their votes.

Despite the lead Bush has opened up nationally, the two candidates are essentially tied among likely voters in the 16 competitive showdown states in which the race for electoral votes is being fought. This suggests that some of Bush's current national gains may in essence be "lost" in states where the election outcome is fairly certain to be strongly for Bush or strongly for Kerry.

[RWR8189]

Demographics -- Bush vs. Kerry Based on Registered Voters

	Oct 14-16		Oct 9-10		Oct 1-3		Sep 24-26
	Kerry	Bush	Kerry	Bush	Kerry	Bush	Kerry	Bush
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Total	46	50	48	48	48	49	41	54
Gender
Men	40	56	44	53	45	54	40	56
Women	51	44	52	43	51	45	42	53
Race
Whites	40	56	41	55	43	54	36	60
Non-whites	69	23	74	20	68	29	62	30
Age
18-49	45	51	47	48	47	50	40	56
50-64	46	50	48	49	46	52	47	48
65+	48	45	50	48	52	43	41	55
Region
East	54	42	55	42	54	42	51	46
Midwest	44	50	43	52	58	39	39	54
South	41	56	45	51	37	61	39	57
West	47	49	50	46	47	51	38	59
Education
Post-graduate	54	42	61	36	62	37	51	45
College graduate	35	63	47	51	44	54	39	58
Some college	43	52	44	51	43	55	40	57
High school or less	49	46	46	50	48	48	39	54
Income
$75,000 or more	43	55	41	55	50	48	37	59
$50,000-$74,999	39	60	39	58	38	61	43	55
$30,000-$49,999	47	48	51	47	46	52	42	55
Less than $30,000	54	39	59	36	58	35	46	47
Ideology
Conservative	19	79	24	73	23	75	21	75
Moderate	54	39	54	43	57	40	49	47
Liberal	85	11	84	10	81	14	85	13
Partisanship
Republicans	9	89	6	92	3	94	6	93
Independents	48	45	50	42	54	40	46	48
Democrats	85	11	90	8	89	10	85	10

Demographics -- Bush vs. Kerry vs. Nader Based on Registered Voters

	October 14-16			October 9-10			October 1-3
	Kerry	Bush	Nader	Kerry	Bush	Nader	Kerry	Bush	Nader
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Total	46	49	1	48	48	1	47	49	1
Gender
Men	40	54	2	43	53	2	43	53	2
Women	50	44	1	51	43	2	50	45	2
Race
Whites	40	56	1	40	55	2	42	54	2
Non-whites	67	21	4	74	19	2	67	28	3
Age
18-49	45	50	2	46	47	2	46	50	3
50-64	45	49	2	47	49	1	45	51	3
65+	48	44	1	50	47	1	52	43	1
Region
East	54	41	1	54	40	3	51	42	4
Midwest	44	49	1	41	53	1	58	38	--
South	40	56	1	45	50	2	36	59	4
West	45	48	3	5	46	--	46	50	2
Education
Post-graduate	53	41	2	59	36	2	60	36	3
College graduate	35	62	1	47	51	1	43	54	1
Some college	43	52	1	44	49	2	42	55	1
High school or less	48	44	2	45	50	2	47	46	4
Income
$75,000 or more	42	55	1	40	55	2	49	46	4
$50,000-$74,999	38	60	1	39	57	1	38	61	1
$30,000-$49,999	47	47	2	50	46	3	44	52	3
Less than $30,000	54	37	2	59	35	*	58	34	2
Ideology
Conservative	19	79	*	24	72	1	22	74	2
Moderate	54	38	2	53	42	3	56	39	3
Liberal	85	9	3	83	10	2	81	13	3
Partisanship
Republicans	9	89	*	6	92	*	4	93	1
Independents	47	42	5	49	40	4	53	39	4
Democrats	85	11	--	89	8	1	88	10	1

Based on National Adults

	Approve	Disapprove	No opinion
	%	%	%
Overall	51	47	2
Bush (Red) States
2004 Oct 14-16	64	34	2
2004 Oct 11-14	55	42	3
2004 Oct 9-10	54	43	3
Gore (Blue) States
2004 Oct 14-16	41	58	1
2004 Oct 11-14	42	56	2
2004 Oct 9-10	42	52	4
Up For Grab States
2004 Oct 14-16	48	50	2
2004 Oct 11-14	48	48	4
2004 Oct 9-10	44	52	4

 

Based on Registered Voters

	Kerry	Bush	Neither (vol.)	Other (vol.)	No opinion
	%	%	%	%	%
Bush (Red) States
2004 Oct 14-16	34	62	2	--	2
2004 Oct 14-16	--	--	--	--	--
2004 Oct 9-10	41	55	2	--	2
2004 Oct 1-3	38	60	*	1	1
Gore (Blue) States
2004 Oct 14-16	59	38	*	*	3
2004 Oct 11-14	--	--	--	--	--
2004 Oct 9-10	55	41	3	--	1
Up For Grab States
2004 Oct 14-16	50	45	2	1	3
2004 Oct 11-14	--	--	--	--	--
2004 Oct 9-10	47	47	1	--	5

[RWR8189]

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[RWR8189]

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[Numbers Guy]

Oversampling of Republicans in this poll.

In the RV internals, Bush is up by 80 among Republicans, Kerry up 74 among Dems, that's a 2-point edge for Bush. Kerry up 3 among independents. If the GOP and Dems were sampled equally, Bush would be up by 1 point. Instead he's up 4 points. As others have said, don't trust the Gallup poll or the Newsweek poll, both have been all over the map due to sloppiness.

[Heff]

Folks....Bush is not polling that strong in the "Up for grabs" states... he's trailing 50 - 45.

He have our work cut out for us.

[Paloma_55]

Bbbbb..ut..but..bbuut... Kerry won all three debates!

Didn't you read that or hear about it on the news?!?!?

[AlexPKeaton04]

These polls are buggin me. Can't decide who to believe. These polls are probably just as good as me walking down the street asking random people who they are voting for. But otherwise I am happy with the results. But didn't these polls have Bush up over Gore a bit and Gore still won the pop vote? That's why I can't put too much faith in these.

[dead]

Whenever I see things like “19% of people who call themselves ‘conservative’ are going to vote for Kerry”, it makes me want to hunt them down and quote Inigo Montoya, from “The Princess Bride”:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[rushmom]

When you watch how the candidates are behaving, I come to the conclusion that Bush is ahead.

[traderrob6]

Kerry has dropped to his lowest probability percentage in the winner take all presidential market at IEM in quite awhile: Bush 61.9, Kerry 36.9

[george wythe]

Even though it's good to see this poll, remember that the Democrats are already playing their dirty tricks.

For instance, here in Florida, the "non-partisan" registration drives by several "non-profit" organizations have resulted in registering almost exclusively Democrats.

Former registration driver workers have complained to the media that their Republican registrations were trashed.

Therefore, now you have many Republicans thinking they are registered to vote, when in fact, they will find out the hard way they were deceived. Instead of being honest about not accepting Republican registrations, these "non-profit" organizations were very clever to keep Republicans from appearing in the registration rosters.

And that's just one the dirty tricks covered in the local news. Don't get me started with the people who are voting for Kerry both in New York and Florida, or the ones voting several times in Florida by registering to vote with multiple addresses.

[OH Swing Voter]

Yes--but those polls were taken before the DUI scandal dropped. Internals showed that Bush sank like a stone in those few days between the DUI coming out and the election. It also depressed turn-out of his base severely.

[Warlord]

"As others have said, don't trust the Gallup poll or the Newsweek poll, both have been all over the map due to sloppiness."

Gallup explicitly rejects the use of party identification as a demographic parameter. While one may disagree with their methodology, Gallop is not sloppy.

[Heff]

In a National poll its very possible for Bush to be ahead, but no win the electoral vote. It happened in 2000, the difference was this; at that time, there was peace and the economy was good (recession hadn't started yet) Gore was a sitting VP, all the conditions were right at that moment for Gore to win.

I think that Kerry is not very likable, so Bush is having a much stronger showing, especially in the strong Bush states. Kerry isn't doing nearly as well in several DEM states that Gore won, but he's doing enough to win.

Net / net - Bush could take the popular vote and by bigger numbers than Gore did, but not the electoral.

The battleground state numbers are the most important numbers right now, not the national numbers.

[agrace]

LOL

[Numbers Guy]

While one may disagree with their methodology, Gallop is not sloppy.

When the party ID numbers tend to swing by 2 standard deviations in each polling sample, I'd argue that they're sloppy. That implies an element of inadvertent selection bias based on when and where they make their calls.

[Nosterrex]

I'm glad to see that Bush is ahead of Kerry, but I'm having less and less confidence in polls. There is a psychological factor in seeing your candidate up or down in the polls that could either encourage or discourage voter turn out. If President Bush doesn't win the battleground states, it doesn't matter if he wins the popular vote. From what I see, Bush could very easily lose in those states.

[mplsconservative]

That was a very troll-like statement.

[reformedliberal]

We had a revolution and we do not care what the Brits think, what Europe thinks, what terrorists think, what communists think or what enemies of America think.

But, turnabout is fair play: elect the Tories, Britain!

Ta.