http://www.federalreview.com/compositepoll.htmIS A TREND DEVELOPING?
Bush 48.39% - 281| Kerry 46.92% - 257
June 22, 2004
In explaining this analysis, I've said a number of times that the numbers aren't intended to say specifically that if the election were held today, Bush would win Ohio by 0.07% of the vote. Sure, I hope the numbers approximate the actual results when I do my last analysis on the Monday before the election. But I think the real value of this work is to show trends. That's also a benefit of the other sites analyzing the electorate and trying to gauge the direction of poll movement. At the bottom of the page is a comparison of the electoral vote margins predicted by a number of different sites. It seems apparent that during May, the trend was in Kerry's favor. And based on the news in May, that makes some sense. But in June, the focus shifted off of Iraq momentarily to Ronald Reagan and then back to Iraq which suddenly had a new President and Prime Minister, and the primary face of Iraqi opposition, Moqtada al Sadr, was shutting down much of the violence of his movement. Falujah calmed down and the enemies of America in Iraq continued to show their barbarism and that they deserved to be treated as harshly as possible. As a result, the trend seems to be turning back in Bush's favor.
During the past week, Harris released a poll showing Bush ahead by 10 among likely voters, and that poll naturally effects this week's composite average. But it looked like the rare poll that must have fallen outside the margin of error. So, we'll see in next week's poll whether this apparent pro-Bush trend holds up. Early indications are that it might, as a FoxNews poll has been released (after the June 22nd date of this analysis), showing Bush leading by 7 among likely voters.
This week's results include the results of polls in 10 states, most notably Florida (Bush +7), New Jersey (Kerry +6) and North Carolina (Bush +5).