So I went over to race2004.net and pulld their Zogby polls for the swing states. His polls (last couple of weeks on all of them) don’t match the rhetoric:
Strong Kerry
IL (not polled, but kerry has clear lead)
MI Kerry+6
MN Kerry+9.5
NM Kerry+13
OR Kerry+10
WA Kerry+9
Weak Bush
AZ Bush+1
CO Bush+1.5
OH Bush+3
VA Bush+2.5
Weak Kerry
IA Kerry+3
NH Kerry+3.5
PA Kerry+3
WI Kerry+2.5
Undecided
AR Even
FL Kerry+.5
ME Even
NV Kerry+.5
NJ (not polled; even in other polls; party has serious scandal problems in-state; suspect other polls are GOP trying to trick Kerry into spending money there)
If I had to pick today, I’d say “Bush will get the popular vote due to his crazy level of red state support, but Kerry will win the EC due to his better appeal to independents.”
Kerry either would need FL or 2 of the 3: AR, ME, NV.
Bush would need both FL and 2 of the 3.
For all intents and purposes, Zogby polls show a tie or a slight Kerry lead.
Bush has significantly improved his position, of course, but when you throw in undecideds always breaking against the incumbent by 2 to 1 or so he’s still in big trouble.
Kerry’s not in very good shape either, but his supporters don’t claim he’s an unstoppable juggernaut of truth and the American way in the face of 50/50 polling.
ME is a tossup.
MO isn’t.
WV has flipped entirely to the GOP - I guess the Culture War finally beat the Civil War.
NM is apparently now a safe Democratic state.
AZ, CO, OH, and VA are trending against the GOP.
WI (and possibly PA) are trending against the Democrats.
Steve, I hope the pic with Garcia was chosen on purpose, because you know… if you want to talk girlie men throwing a football… you know… HE HAS A PLAYMATE GIRLFRIEND… which we keep hearing about - all the time…
Soon, we’ll see who’s in denial for 4 more years.[/quote]
I think any incumbent hovering around 50% has a lot of problems.
I also think that the likely voter models are deeply flawed as something like 2/3rds of new registrants are Democratic.
Since the polls are hiding Kerry’s strengths I’m more concerned about Republican voter disenfrachisement like the kind of BS they were trying to pull in Ohio this week. My worry is that this gives the Repubs a lot of room to pull Florida style nonsense as it won’t be as obvious.
Sticking to a 10 year old law and then relenting and being more lienent to allow more registration forms is a Republican disenfrancisement tactic? You’re in deep man.
No person acting under color of law shall . . . deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election.
