Kerry, 46% - Bush, 45% - New Reuters/Zogby Poll Reveals

[sonicx]

note: the highlighted number for Kerry's hispanic support is a typo. it's probably supposed to say 64%.

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=880

The race for the White House remains dead-locked, with Senator Kerry at 46% and President Bush at 45%, according to a new Reuters/Zogby daily tracking poll. The telephone poll of 1216 likely voters was conducted from Wednesday through Friday (October 6-8,2004). The margin of error is +/- 2.9 percentage points.

Pollster JohnZogby: "Kerry has pulled into a one point lead which obviously is wellwithin the margin of error. Bush leads in the Red States by 11 points,while Kerry leads in the Blue States by 14 points. This is good evidence thatKerry is consolidating his base with 83% of support among Democrats, 88% ofAfrican-Americans, 4% of Hispanics, 79% of Jews, and 53% of 18-29 year olds. Kerry leads 2 to 1 in union households and is attaining 65% among singlevoters."

Zogby Internationalconducted interviews of 1216 likely voters chosen at random nationwide. Allcalls were made from Zogby International headquarters in Utica, N.Y., fromOctober 6 through October 8, 2004. The margin of error is +/- 2.9 percentagepoints. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion,gender, to more accurately reflect the voting population. Margins of error arehigher in sub-groups.

In 1996, John Zogby came withinone-tenth of 1 percent of the presidential result. Since 1996, Zogby has polledfor Reuters News Agency, the largest news agency in the world. The latest results and analysis of the Zogby polls, andexclusive interviews with John Zogby are available on Reuters.com. The siteprovides comprehensive coverage of the campaigns, including a special videoservice, which compares the position of both candidates on key policy issues.

[JuniorPlankton]

1. 4% of Hispanics???

:wtf:

[sonicx]

2. typo

64% is what it probably is supposed to say

:hi:

[crossroads]

9. I don't believe that!

:bounce:

[acmavm]

3. Phooey, Kerry's lead is bigger than that. People are starting to see

and understand that bush* is an intellectual vacuum. No substance, a complete failure to understand his errors and rethink his strategy, a very sick messianic complex coupled with a total understanding of the words compassionate and Christian.

The more the news leaks out about his failures, the more he refuses to admit that he was wrong, so wrong, in his decision to divert troops from Afganistan to Iraq, the inability and refusal to understand that American people are not benefitting from his insane economic programs, the more his credibility suffers. His message of gloom and doom, stay the course even if the course is draining this country, is going to be his downfall.

Kerry keeps saying "I believe America's best days are ahead of us". That's what people want to hear now.

[crossroads]

10. 1/2 of America is rubbing the sleep from their eyes!

The MYTH of Gee W is dead... they saw the truth for themselves!
:dem:

[MidwestTransplant]

4. Now who ya gonna belive, Zogby or Rasmussen

;)

[damntexdem]

5. But how does it come down in the 'swing states'?

Remember: we don't have democratic elections for president, only for electors.

[PartyPooper]

6. The only way Bu$h can win now is by stealing the election.

Kerry's momentum is growing by the day. And, the repugs know it.

They will do anything to stop Kerry and stay in power. Anything!

[ckramer]

7. Only 83% of support among Democrats?

Where's that 17%?

[Thexder]

8. Are the nationwide poll numbers even that importnant?

Last time WB won the electoral college while losing the popular vote. This could happen again - but maybe the other way around this time;)

I made some calculations according to http://www.electoral-vote.com/ numbers on 9th and was surprised what I found out. Kerry was winning the electoral college 280-256 but * got the popular vote by 50,74%-49,26%. I didn´t include Nader in these calculations and had a premise that the turnout would be the same in every state. This rather surprising result is possible because * is leading with a very wide margin in many (most of them small, but some like Texas bigger) states but Kerry´s lead is thinner in democratic states.

The problem with my calculations is that the voter turnout in the traditionally democratic states (NY, MA, IL, MI) is slightly bigger than that in the traditionally republican states (TX, GA, NC, IN). http://www.fec.gov/pages/2000turnout/reg&to00.htm

So what to think of this? It depends on how the pollers do their polls. If they count these differences in the voter-turnout between states in their calculations, they should be quite accurate. But if everyone has the same weight in every state, it´s very good news for us. Because then we could win the electoral vote even when losing the national vote in these "polls" by 1-2%!