Today, we'll start with
an article from the LA Times commenting on their Kerry 49-Bush 48 RV, Bush 49-Kerry 48 LV poll. It continues the narrative we started this weekend (
Bush has lost, but can Kerry win?) you can expect from now until the election. Kerry leading is too much for their closed minds to accept.
The trackers are here. TIPPs's the outlier, Zogby's still 3 points Bush at 49-46-3 and Rasmussen and the WaPo have a Kerry lead despite those closed minds. TIPP's a head-scratcher, but in the 2-way had Bush at 48, not way out of line.
As to poll differences, Scott Rasmussen yesterday said:
October 25, 2004--Kerry in the lead?...Our daily Tracking Poll shows Kerry up by 2 points... the first time he's held the lead since August 23. At the same time Zogby shows Bush up by 3 points. Many have asked how this difference can be explained.
My first assumption is that the difference is temporary. A few weeks ago, the situation was reversed... Zogby had Kerry by 3 and we had Bush by 4. Within a few days the difference disappeared. It will probably do so again because our polls and the Zogby poll have been similar all year.
Further, it appears that the difference lies in our Saturday samples. Zogby reported a huge day for Bush on Saturday (leading by 7). We found a small lead for Kerry on that day. That suggests that our combined numbers for Friday and Sunday were very similar. The Saturday sample will drop out of both Tracking Polls when we report our data for Wednesday.
Note that I have written permission to occasionally post Premium data from Rasmussen, which I use very sparingly. Scott's statement is important, though. And I can't wait until Wednesday when the Zogby Bushfest drops off.
Update [2004-10-26 11:8:57 by DemFromCT]:
Mystery Pollster notes the difference between the tracking polls is likely due to sampling error. A good read for the reality-based.