But even Zogby is pointing out the strong possibility of a Kerry electoral coollege win:
To analyze Zogby's results, we start by assuming that the District of Columbia and the 34 states that aren't in the battlegrounds poll will vote for the same political party that they did in the 2000 election. Thus, President Bush begins our calculations with 189 electoral votes and Mr. Kerry with 172. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the White House.
Then, we add in the electoral votes from the latest poll, regardless of the margin of error or the spread between the candidates. Mr. Kerry's 12 states control a total of 135 votes, while Mr. Bush's four have 42. If you add up the numbers,
you find that Mr. Kerry would win the Electoral College 307-231....
And, of course, even with his convention-time gains, the president is still short of the strongest results he got in earlier Zogby polls. At one point in June, Mr. Kerry was ahead just nine states to seven -- and Mr. Bush led the Electoral College analysis, 285-253.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-an0907.htmlIt appears that Kerry/Edwards are taking a page from the Karl ROve playbook, and have begun attacking Bush's suppoosed strong point, atacking his strength in the area of terrorism and tearing it to pieces in the latest Kerry television advertisements.
In the last two days, Kerry has reveresed a number of leads Bush took in a number of battleground states:
Kerry is now ahead in Florida,Missouri,New Hampshire,Michigan, Pennsylvania,Nevada, Wisconsin, Minnisota, Iowa, Mew Mexico,Oregon,Maine and Washington. Last week at this time, more than half of these states had Bush leading in them. Less than a week after the convention, and the Bush bounce seems to have begun to disappear in many all of these states, while Kerry is beginning to get gain leads of the same percentage points that he had just after his own convention in July. According to Zogby's polls, anyway.
In fact, if you go back to the period between Kerry slecting Edwards and just after his own convention, Kerry's polling numbers in the battleground states as of the latest ZOgby polls are beginning to resemble the polling data from that time.
Zogby indicated last week that he didnt think the polls showing Bush with double digit leads were accurate, pointed out how they got those numbers today, and we now are seeing the results that Zogby predicted the day after the REpublican convention ended. Zogby predicted that Bush would actually get a 4 or 5 point bounce after the convention that would last for several days and then everything would go back to the way it wasbefore the convention. A number of polls, like ARG and others are beginning to show the same thing. National polls tend to follow state polls so as more state polls start reflecting Kerry leads, the national polls should show similar results.
THe anniversary of 9/11 coming up, with Osama bin Laden and those who actually planned, financed and trained people for the attacks on America still free, will be a rather stark reminder that the war in Iraq is doing nothing to keep us safe from terrorism. Passing the 1000 mark in American dead so close to this anniversary should also have a negative effect on Bush's polling numbers. Along with the media rehashing Bush's military record, with help from "Texans for Truth" should give Bush the same porblems that Swift Boat Veterans" gave Kerry.
Bush's attempts to avoid debating Kerry might not have an effect on Bush's base,but the undecided swing voters might well be effected by such blatent political cowardice.