Dean trails Bush by 5% according to new poll

[Epoch]

Hey, not sure if this is LBN, but we'll see...It's from the DeanBlog so I don't have another link but here goes:

Inside Politics reports on a new CNN/Time Poll of 1,004 adult Americans conducted by telephone on December 30 and January 1. Despite constant attacks from the inside-the-beltway pundits and campaigns, who keep charging that Dean is "unelectable," he now trails George Bush by a mere 5 points -- 51% to 46%.

Just to put that into perspective: in April of 1992, Bill Clinton trailed George H.W. Bush by 20 points.

The poll also shows Dean leading the Democratic field at 22%.

From www.blogforamerica.com, second post down...

Enjoy,
Yaron

[alcuno]

1. Adults or likely voters? 5% is close and it's likely that many

Democrats STILL don't know who is running. There's also a missing 3%.

[Upfront]

3. America Wakes Up?

Could it be starting to happen? When your right enough, smart people will notice.

[llmart]

8. This is encouraging news!

I know there's a lot of good natured quibbling on DU about who would be our best candidate, but as Dems we should all be ready to support Dean to the utmost of our efforts if he receives the nomination. Once he does, it is imperative that we break out the yard signs and bumper stickers and have them everywhere. Hopefully there'll be jobs in his administration for some of his rivals in the primaries when he or whoever beats *.

[JPace]

2. And this is before he goes directly after AWOL

with all he has and before he gets
his VP (Clark).

[goforit]

4. Go DEAN!!!!

Dems Unite!!!

[Polemonium]

5. Looking Good

America hasn't been this pissed at an incumbent in quite some time. The more we spread the truth, the better these numbers will get for all Democrats.

[Guaranteed]

6. This is EXCELLENT news

We're going to kick the crap out of this clown.

[Epoch]

7. definitly but....

only if we take action and start registering new dem's!!!

[papau]

9. Interesting-nice Dean surge - but numbers below not useful for predictions

Harris for CNN/Time. MoE 4.9 %. (November results in parenthesis)
Not sure 23 (23)
Dean 22 (14)
Kerry 10 (9)
Lieberman 9 (11)
Clark 8 (12)
Gephardt 7 (6)
Sharpton 6 (5)
Edwards 5 (5)
Kucinich 5 (2)
Braun 2 (4)

Dean 46
Clark 32
Not Sure 22

MoE 4%.
Bush 51 (52)
Dean 46 (40)
Not Sure 3 (8)
Bush 53 (49)
Clark 43 (42)
Not Sure 3 (9)

Dean polls the best against Bush, with Lieberman a point back (52/46/2).

But is it mainly name recognition?

[AlGore-08.com]

10. Name recognition or not, it's way too early to be taking polls as gospel

Mark Shields has an excellent piece over at CNN.com about how many polls taken this far ahead of the election were miles off the final election result. One he doesn't include is that Gore trailed Smirk by 20 points when at the start of the 2000 campaign:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/29/column.shields.opinion.perspective/index.html

[Dems Will Win]

11. Don't forget that Dean's 18-22 year old voters aren't registered yet

If they were, Dean would be only 1 1/2% behind Bush!

We may win more than 291 Electoral votes as I thought earlier!

NEED A BUSHECTOMY? CALL DR. DEAN!

[spooky3]

13. thanks, you're right!

[meisje]

12. I thought polls were unreliable?

I guess it just those pro-bush one's!

[alcuno]

14. It's those vague "approval" polls they are always touting.

Re-elect polls are much more interesting because approval means different things to different people. The re-elect polls are rarely discussed while the approval numbers are out there all the time. I actually think that people say they approve because they don't want to seem unpatriotic. It's the only way I can reconcile a 56% approval with a a 45% re-elect.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. 45% re-elect is almost certain death.

I think 43% is the number from which no incumbent has ever survived. 45 is pretty fucking close.

[alcuno]

20. Check out these numbers that I've never heard discussed

From November. http://www.pollingreport.com/bush.htm

Only 49% said that he "cares about people like me." Yikes.

[bratcatniok]

15. But it shows only 3% undecided

And Dean wouldn't get all of those 3%. Still looks like at least a mini-landslide for Bush to me.

Plus this poll is way out of whack with any other which gives Bush victories of from 12-20 points against any Dem.

[Guaranteed]

16. The other polls were post Saddam capture.

This poll is post holiday terror scare.

Did you happen to look at the Clinton/Bush numbers from April 1992?

[lancdem]

18. Exactly

This was the first poll done in more than a week. And it's likely voters, which might make a difference.

[alcuno]

21. While I'm not proud of it, the last numbers I saw had a good 40%

of DEMOCRATS unable to identify a single Democratic candidate. Plenty of room to grow. These are terrific numbers.

[regnaD kciN]

24. "Mini-landslide"...?

Even if the numbers held up as here, and Bush got double the remaining undecideds as Dean, that would still result in a 53%-47%, which is scarcely a "landslide" ("mini" or not) by any remotely-sane standard.

:crazy:

[Rose Siding]

17. Here are the match-ups with Nov

between Dems from this poll:

After the holiday drought, expect polls to come fast and furious. This one is the latest by Harris for CNN/Time. MoE 4.9 %. (November results in parenthesis)
Not sure 23 (23)
Dean 22 (14)
Kerry 10 (9)
Lieberman 9 (11)
Clark 8 (12)
Gephardt 7 (6)
Sharpton 6 (5)
Edwards 5 (5)
Kucinich 5 (2)
Braun 2 (4)

http://www.dailykos.com/

[Democat]

22. Great news for Dean and for Democrats

The fact that any Democrat is even close with the media attack on our side and the media love fest for Bush is amazing.

[JaneQPublic]

23. Here's a graph of the poll

[regnaD kciN]

26. The three things I get from that poll...

1) It is a big surprise considering the good press Bush has been getting over the past month or two -- what with the Medicare victory, the Saddam capture, and lots of gushing about the supposedly-resurgent economy, I would have expected Bush to have had at least a double-digit lead over any Democrat, and probably double that over the supposedly-"unelectable" Dean.

2) If you look at the various match-ups, you see very little difference. In all of them, Bush is in the low 50s and the Democrat in the mid-40s. This would suggest to me (as I posted a few weeks ago) that most of the voters, at least so far, are looking at it as a referendum on Bush rather than on his opponent. If a voter likes what Bush is doing, he or she will vote for him; if not, they will vote for virtually any Democratic opponent, from Dean to Lieberman (and, most intriguingly, slightly more for either of those two as opposed to the candidates who seem to be trying to "split the difference" between them).

3) However, this is bad news for Dean's opponents in that their entire tack, over the past month, has been that Dean was "unelectable" compared to the rest of them, and that choosing Dean as the nominee would lead the Party to certain defeat. Had this poll shown Bush with a substantially-greater lead over Dean than over his rivals (say 54%-46% over Clark or Gephardt and 61%-39% over Dean), it would have given traction to that argument. But, in fact, not only is Dean not far behind his opponents, he is doing slightly better in a match-up against Bush than they are. This would suggest that the other Democratic candidates, if they are to make headway against Dean, are going to have to choose another strategy, and attack Dean on the issues, rather than just resorting to Cassandra-like predictions of electoral disaster should he be the nominee. It certainly seems somewhat incredible to base your argument solely on claims that Dean would do so badly in the general election when this poll shows you would be doing even worse!

[tedoll78]

27. What the polls results also show..

I find of particular interest the one-on-one matchups between Dean and each of the other candidates. Supporters of these candidates seem to be hoping that as others drop-out, their candidate will get stronger.. and it ain't happening, according to this poll.

It looks like Dean will be the nominee unless he screws-up monumentally somehow. I'm sure he and his campaign directors know this. I'm also wondering.. if the likelihood of a Dean nomination is so evident, why bother dividing the party further? Why attack Dean? Why attack any other Democrat, for that matter? Why not all attack Bush in unison, with one voice? This would bring the Chimp down a notch, and it would limit the damage to whomever the nominee would really be..

Frustrating.

[Manix]

25. ...movin' on up !!

nt

[Moderator]

28. Not LBN... locking.

At present, the only kind of Official Campaign-sourced news allowed in LBN are press releases. Blog news is not considered latest breaking news.

This is an article that would be of much interest to DU readers, however. Please feel free to repost this information in the General Discussion: 2004 Primary or Politics and Campaigns Forum.

Thanks!

DU Moderator