LAT Poll: Trends in Largest Battleground States Diverge

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-poll28oct28,0,4802765,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Diverging trends in the three largest battleground states point toward a volatile and tense finish in the presidential race, new Times polls have found.

The surveys find President Bush holding an 8 percentage point lead among likely voters in Florida, John Kerry opening a 6 percentage point advantage in Ohio, and the two men battling to a dead heat in Pennsylvania.

These three states have drawn more time and attention from the candidates than any others, and many analysts in both parties believe that whoever wins two of them will have a clear advantage in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

The Times results portray a slightly closer race in Pennsylvania than most other recent public surveys, which have shown Kerry with leads of 2 to 5 percentage points.

[fizzana]

1. Some of these polls are making no sense at all

I figure Kerry is strongest in PA, looking good in Ohio and probably running about even in Florida.

[RamboLiberal]

2. I live in Pittsburgh and I'm seeing or hearing very few * ads

Tons of Kerry ads on both TV and even on the 50,000 watt Limbaugh carrying, blowhard radio station KDKA.

Cheney was in county south of Pittsburgh today though - Wahsington County.

[Pale_Rider]

4. Love to see the FL poll that CBS is hiding ...

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/27/113421/70

Kerry up by 4 to 9 points in Florida.

[Orangepeel]

5. Even well done polls will sometimes give you screwy results

A margin of error of +/- 3 means that 95% of the time, the sample results will be within 3% points of the population.

That means that 1 out of 20 times, even the most well done poll (which most of these are probably not) can give you off-the-wall results because of random error. Sometimes, you just happen to call a bunch of crazy people in one poll.

[w4rma]

3. Thats nice. But, please ignore the polls. Analyzing them to death doesn't

help elect Democrats or help elect Sen. John Kerry to President of the United States of America.