Monday, September 20 2004
WHAT'S UP WITH THE RACE?: The simple answer is Senator Kerry is losing. After months of a presidential race that was more or less a tie, President Bush has broken out to a 5-7 point lead nationally. With so many polls being released these days the best way to filter out much of the noise is to follow our RCP Poll Average.

Kerry began to fade at the beginning of August and Bush very effectively used the convention in New York to break out of the Bush +2/Kerry +2 race that had existed for months. This can be seen very clearly in the historical graph of the RCP Poll Average.

Some of the polls at the end of last week created quite a stir as two (Pew Research and Harris) showed the race tied, while Gallup's poll had President Bush ahead by 13-14 points. Over the weekend the CBS/NY Times poll came out showing Bush ahead 9, while Zogby had Kerry only trailing by three points.

Some like to quibble with Gallup's "likely-voter" model and suggest that registered voters are a much better way to look at the race at this time, but Gallup's registered voters results still show the President ahead by eight points, the same amount Bush is ahead among registered voters in the CBS/NY Times poll. All of the chatter about registered voters vs. likely voters, and weighting for party ID vs. not weighting for party ID is missing the central point. The bottom line is that Senator Kerry is trailing by significant margins, in significant polls, in mid-September. That is not good news for Democrats.

Other evidence points to Bush indeed having moved out to a real lead. The polls in the battleground states where this election was always going to be decided have moved significantly toward the President in the last three weeks. The battleground has shifted under the Democrats' feet and the Kerry campaign's hope to be fighting on GOP ground in Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia has all but disappeared. Instead Kerry is fighting for his life in the Democratic-leaning states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and most importantly Pennsylvania.

Gore carried Pennsylvania in 2000 by 4.2%. Right now Kerry leads in only one of the last seven polls and he trails President Bush by 1.7% in our RCP Pennsylvania Average. Using the average of those seven polls taken the first couple of weeks in September, Kerry is running around six points behind where Gore was in 2000 which seems to confirm the idea that Bush is ahead 5-7 points nationally.

In the critical states of Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin Bush is running 4-5 points better than his pace in 2000. Michigan, Colorado and West Virginia are the only states where there are positive polls for Kerry. And unlike PA, WI, OH and MO where there are multiple polls confirming Bush's breakout, we only have one non-partisan poll in MI, CO, and WV helping Kerry. As more polls come out in these three states those remaining positive areas could move against Kerry as well.

Because of all the hurricanes in Florida there has been only one poll recently, but that one has Bush up 6 and provides more confirmation of where his lead sits nationally.

Finally, you have states like New Jersey that should be a solid Kerry state where the three latest polls show a tight race. Needless to say, all of this state polling news is not good news for Democrats. While the Kerry camp can cherry pick one state poll here or there, it appears pretty clear that the balance of the state polling evidence confirms a Bush lead of at least 4-7 points as opposed to a "dead-heat" race.

On top of all the polling evidence just looking at which side is changing advisors, direction, message, etc.... is all you need to know about which campaign is ahead and comfortable with the existing dynamics of the race.

One problem (among many) for the Kerry campaign is that a 5-7 point hole in a country that is as polarized as today's is more like a 10-12 point deficit 15-25 years ago. Kerry wasted his opportunities to break out to a lead of his own with his non-helpful VP selection and say-nothing convention. And with all the pounding Bush has taken for the last eight months Kerry isn't left with many attractive options on how to get the needed 270 Electoral Votes.

Senator Kerry needs to get this race back to within 3-4 points in our RCP Poll Average by the first debate in ten days, or these poll numbers will start to harden and he will need a debate meltdown by the President to have a chance. J. McIntyre 8:43 am Link | Email | Send to a Friend