48.2 to 46.5
This is worse for Kerry than the tie yesterday, but the trend is darn good overall. Allow me to explain.
As numerous diaries noted yesterday, Rasmussen gave away over the weekend that Saturday was a very good day for Kerry in his polling, while Sunday and Friday put together gave Bush about a four-point lead. By telling us this, Rasmussen inadvertantly gave us a chance to break down his daily samples.
The 9/6 poll had Bush up by 1.1 and included Friday, Saturday and Sunday's samples. In other words:
4 + x + 4 = (1.1)3
Bush was up by about 4 points Friday and Sunday. So we can discern from this that Kerry's Saturday numbers were about 4.7 points in his favor.
Which brings us to the tied poll of 9/7:
-4.7 + 4 + x = (0.0)3
This dropped the +4 Bush Friday sample. Here, x equals 0.7 ... so Bush was up by less than a point in Monday's sample.
Today we have the Kerry-friendly sample dropped:
4 + 0.7 + x = (1.7)3
x equals just 0.4.
So, in yesterday's one day sample, Bush was ahead by about a half a percentage point.
If this continues, looks like the bounce may have indeed bounced away. Time will tell.
One final note: Rasmussen's main page has Bush 48, Kerry 46, but inside we find the numbers are 48.2 to 46.5. With rounding, that's 48-47, isn't it? Guess his personal bias is showing a bit =)