The latest Gallup poll has Bush leading by a comfortable margin of 52 to 45. This confirms the results of the Newsweek and Time polls that also showed Bush polling above 50% after his convention speech. While the Gallup poll shows a closer race between Kerry and Bush than the other two, it’s also likely more accurate.
There’s no doubt that Bush got a significant bounce from the convention, and has ovewhelming leads on terrorism, strength of leadership, and significant leads in other key areas.
This race isn’t over, and Bush has to keep this momentum up through the torrent of mud that will be launched at him by the increasingly desperate Democrats, but his convention speech was a turning point in this race. Unlike Kerry, Bush showed that he has the leadership and the vision to take this country into the future, while John Kerry presented no such vision. It now appears that the Kerry campaign is split between presenting some kind of vision for the US economy (which would be the best strategy for Kerry at this point) and attacking Bush’s past. In any event, it is clear that Kerry’s strategy of using Vietnam as a substitute for a national security policy has failed. Bush has exposed his rhetoric of “strengthening our alliances” as being hollow as Kerry continues to slander our allies and promising surrender in Iraq.
Kerry’s campaign is beginning to fall apart, he’s becoming increasingly shrill and partisan, and Bush’s momentum is now undeniable. Kerry is in trouble, and despite Kerry’s reputation as an excellent closer won’t help him as much in conservative America as it does in liberal Massachusetts. The record of liberal Massachusetts politicians versus members of the Bush family is not a good one, and it doesn’t appear to be getting much better at this point.
UPDATE: The Command Post has an interesting piece on possible oversampling of Republicans in the Time and Newsweek polls. I don’t trust Rassmussen’s polling all that much as they tend to be statistical outliers, but there’s no doubt that the possibility of oversampling remains probable. However, with three separate polls putting Bush at 52%, that seems as authoritative a figure as any. Polling is an inexact science, and the numbers can and will fluctuate over time. However, in reading the trends and the internals of the various polls it is clear that Bush’s convention speech helped him in key areas and did help him win the swing vote.
Based on the current trendlines, I don’t see Kerry being able to catch up to Bush without a dramatic change in fortune – then again, such a thing would be part and parcel of a campaign with two months on the clock…
You conveniently exclude the fact that the seven-point Bush lead exists only among likely voters. Among registered voters, Bush leads by only one point. Given Gallup’s summerlong tendency towards inflating Bush’s numbers well ahead of any other major pollsters, these numbers (particularly the registered voters #’s)have to be considered a major disappointment….especially considering the fact that Kerry hasn’t been able to get a decent headline for the past three weeks.
The only thing saving Bush from greater hemorrhaging in the coming week is the fact that three major news events have pushed the campaign from the headlines, meaning the media and Kerry campaign haven’t been able to dissect the lies, distortions and inconsistencies from the GOP’s weeklong hatefest. It’s very unfortunate that the message is not getting out that the litany of defense budget cuts the GOP was trying to hang Kerry with all came from one post-Cold War vote, and that then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney supported even greater cuts. Still, the major news events are primarily delaying the inevitable brush with reality the Bush campaign will have to face for a week full of lies. Expect Zell Miller’s bloodthirsty rant to take on a post-mortem flogging and comparison to Pat Buchanan’s self-defeatng 1992 speech. It could almost be used in an ad….comparing Barack Obama’s hopeful, unifying keynote speech for the donks to Zell Miller’s hateful, embittered diatribe full of lies with a clear message that if you plan to vote for Bush, you must be as crazy as the curmudgeon who was let out of his straitjacket just long enough to be the token Democratic hit man for Bush.
I was worried about the original bounce and subsequent failure to rebuke the lies and manipulations of the GOP convention. While I’m far from enamored of Kerry’s post-convention campaign strategy of resurrecting the Vietnam debate to hang Cheney with his deferments, the fact that the bounce is already wearing off even BEFORE the convention’s fraud has been brought to the public’s attention is a good sign Bush only had many of the swing voters fooled for a few hours.
By the way, Jay, I trust that you and other labor-haters protested Labor Day again this year by volunteering 14 hours of unpaid labor at the office.
“You conveniently exclude the fact that the seven-point Bush lead exists only among likely voters”
Geesh.. what a silly thing to do. Ask people who will actually SHOW UP TO VOTE how they plan to vote. Asking people who won’t bother to vote is a MUCH better plan.
good lord.
amy, this is generally a forum for those who know a thing or two about politics. A great deal of registered voters will get into the political game late in the election cycle because of all the hype. In short, the number of likely voters will consume those currently identified as mere registered voters the closer we get to the election. That’s one of those pesky details you may wanna learn about electoral politics before your next attempt at arguing with the adults.
Really Mark? Why do you suppose they bother to do polls of ‘likely voters?’ All just a ‘vast right-wing conspiracy,’ I suppose?
I like how no one questions the polls when they show Kerry on top, or at least tied with Bush, but when Bush is in the lead, suddenly the polls are all flawed and worthless.
amy, nobody questioned the poll. I believe Bush is up by seven among likely voters….but I also doubt an historic election like this one will not sway many of those currently listed as mere registered voters into the voting booth come November. It’s funny how you ignorantly accuse me of questioning the validity of the poll when in fact I am merely citing another statistic from the very same poll that shows a much softer margin of victory for Bush. And just for the record…I question polls showing big Kerry leads as often as I question those showing big Bush leads.