The Federal Review has a very interesting composite poll that shows the race for the White House decidedly moving in Bush’s favor. It’s a bit shocking to see their analysis of the current Electoral College results – even Iowa is leaning towards Bush by their polling data.
Now, the usual caveats apply: polling data this far out can change dramatically (see Dean, Howard), the methodology for this poll may favor Bush slightly, and this isn’t an indication of what will happen in November.
Yet at the same time, this illustrates that the Democratic strategy is failing badly. They’ve been hammering Bush for weeks now, on Iraq, on September 11, on the economy. Yet none of it has produced movement in their direction – and in fact has shown a considerable backlash.
The fact remains that the Kerry campaign isn’t about Kerry as much as it is about being against Bush. Perhaps someone from the Dole campaign would like to remind them of how well that goes.
UPDATE: Here’s the methodology for the composite poll. Note that it doesn’t use the Rassmussen Tracking poll, but does include data from the Iowa Electronic Market – this probably gives Bush an edge compared to most polls, but given the track records of both Rassmussen and the IEM, it also may be a better long-term indicator.
There is an inherent bias in the poll in that it is based on 2000 results in which Bush could win the electoral vote but not the popular vote. However, I’ve done my best to otherwise eliminate any Bush bias. If you see any methodological flaws in this respect, please let me know. My methodology appears at this page.
Thanks for the mention.