Start with
Rasmussen, which is a tracking poll, and as such, is designed to look for trends. So, here's a trend:
Kerry 48% Bush 42%
Election 2004 Presidential Ballot
Bush 42%
Kerry 48%
Other 5%
Not Sure 5%
Wednesday April 07, 2004--Senator John F. Kerry leads President George W. Bush 48% to 42% in the latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll. This is Kerry's biggest lead of the year and the lowest level of support for Bush since Kerry became the front-runner.
Today's result marks a nine-point net gain for Kerry since last Friday morning. That change is especially dramatic because Friday's strong job creation report was expected by many to boost the President's numbers.
Any bounce the President might have enjoyed from the economic news was outweighed by developments in Iraq. In a survey conducted over the past two nights, 44% of voters say Bush is doing a poor job handling the situation in Iraq. That's down six points in a week.
And what of the important polls in the swing states? What of all the negative ads? It's not just me that thinks they've been underwhelming. From the Note:
"Some of the polling did show a shift in Kerry's negatives, but nothing too significant that almost certainly can't be undone. And it is true that Kerry's national poll numbers have declined a bit from their nomination season highs.
But at this point, there's very little evidence that Kerry has suffered in the aggregate of national polls or in swing state polls -- assuming that the nation remains stuck at equilibrium 50 to 50, which is where it seems to be. Kerry has a nice lead in some key states, trails a little in others, and ties Bush in yet others.
This is a point the Kerry campaign has begun to aggressively push, as coverage of the zeitgeist reinforces that worldview itself -- if reporters believe Kerry has been damaged, they'll report from a starting point that he's damaged.
We took the average of major polls conducted between the last week in March and today -- (Zogby, CBS, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Fox News, Quinnipiac, CNN) Kerry sits at 46.6 percent, Bush sits at 46.25 percent. And Adam and Dan said it was so.
We recall the "Inside Politics" segment from last Thursday, wherein Bill Schneider reported that he'd received a phone call from Karl Rove, who allegedly urged the Political Professor to not make too much of the Notion that the Bush campaign decided to run the ads solely to drive up Kerry's negatives. The first major ad was positive, Rove is said to have told Schneider, Bush himself went to these states and benefited from free media, and, well, it's a 50-50 race.
And as many Bush advisers point out, it is the free media message (positive and negative) that means a lot more in a presidential race than any ads.
We'd add that a chunk of the buy was aimed at conservatives -- Fox News Channel-watching, NASCAR-cheering, sports-fanning folk, to use stereotypes. (Fox, ESPN, NASCAR television, etc.).
This is a really close race and in part because so few voters are paying attention, nothing is likely to drive the polls in any significant direction until after the conventions.
Want to bet Bush will be even lower tomorrow in the Rasmussen? I think Iraq has got the country's attention. What do you think?