Ruy Teixeira wrote
here and Chris Bowers writes
here about Republican/Democrat percentage being skewed in several recent polls. Below, I take a look at 5 polls, unskew them two different ways and find out that average of the polls shows the race tied.
Ruy in his post quotes Professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University as to the mix of the electorate, "[I]n 2000, according to the VNS national exit poll (which hits the overall percentages for Bush and Gore right on the nose), Democrats made up 40.3 percent of the electorate while Republicans made up only 36.5 percent of the electorate." Chris Bowers in his post references three recent large polls that determine the mix to be "33% Democrat, 29% Republican, and 38% independent / not aligned". Let's take the most recent polls and unskew them.
ARG
Poll ended 9/1. The reported results for registered voters was 48 for Kerry and 46 for Bush. The Kerry/Bush preferences are 84/9 for Dems, 8/86 for Repubs and 49/44 for Independents. Using the 40.3/36.5/23.2 split, Kerry has a 48 to 45 lead. Using the 33/29/39 split, Kerry holds a 49 to 45 lead.
Newsweek
Poll ended 9/3. The reported results for registered voters was 43 for Kerry and 54 for Bush. The Kerry/Bush preferences are 82/14 for Dems, 4/94 for Repubs and 40/45 for Independents. Using the 40.3/36.5/23.2 split, Bush leads 50 to 44. Using the 33/29/39 split, Bush leads 49 to 43 lead. There were lots of complaints that the methodology for this poll was bad.
Gallup/CNN/USA Today
Poll ended 9/5. The reported results for registered voters was 48 for Kerry and 49 for Bush. The Kerry/Bush preferences are 90/7 for Dems, 7/90 for Repubs and 49/46 for Independents. Using the 40.3/36.5/23.2 split, Kerry leads 50 to 44. Using the 33/29/39 split, Kerry has a 50 to 46 lead.
Fox/OD
Poll ended 9/8. The reported results for registered voters was 45 for Kerry and 47 for Bush. The Kerry/Bush preferences are 82/9 for Dems, 5/92 for Repubs and 44/40 for Independents. Using the 40.3/36.5/23.2 split, Bush leads 46 to 45. Using the 33/29/39 split, its a 45-45 tie.
CBS
Poll ended 9/8. The reported results for registered voters was 42 for Kerry and 50 for Bush. The accompanying article only has a high level discussion of the Democratic and Republican preferences and reported a 39/48 Kerry/Bush split for Independents. The discussion of the Democratic and Republican preferences seemed similar to the Fox/OD poll, so I am going to use those numbers. Using the 40.3/36.5/23.2 split, Bush leads 48 to 44. Using the 33/29/39 split, Bush leads 48 to 43 lead.
ABC/WP
Poll ended 9/8. The reported results for registered voters was 44 for Kerry and 50 for Bush. No split by party id was provided, so I can't use this poll in my analysis.
Qualitatively, of the five polls adjusted two different ways, Kerry is leading four times, Bush five times with one tie. Averaging the five 40.3/36.5/23.2 splits, Bush leads 47 to 46 and averaging the five 33/29/39 splits, the race is tied 46 to 46. Only Newsweek has an adjusted split with Bush over 48% and there were complaints about how that poll was conducted. 48% is not good enough for Bush because undecideds break to the challenger. Again, this is right after the Republican convention and right after when Kerry went dark for a month.
[Update]
sarcaustic uses information from The Note to guesstimate the split for the WP/ABC poll.  His guess for the Kerry/Bush preferences are 88/12 for Dems, 6/94 for Repubs and 50/50 for Independents. Using the 40.3/36.5/23.2 split, Bush leads 51 to 49. Using the 33/29/39 split, it's tied 50-50.