Tuesday, September 07, 2004
It's Not All Bad
After a week of crappy news on the poll front, the release of the latest Zogby battleground polls provides a much-needed batch of good news. These are dated August 30-September 3 and occurred largely after the GOP convention.
To sum up:
- The upper Midwest is still Kerry's. He leads by a good margin in Minnesota and Michigan, a smaller margin in Iowa and a tight 2.5 points in Wisconsin. But hey: he's up in Wisconsin. The last few polls to come out of beaver country had Dubya up.
- The West isn't bad. He's up by nearly 10 points in Oregon and New Mexico, 8.5 in Washington, and .6 in Nevada. Nevada always has tight margins; they're just like that out there.
- Pennsylvania is tight but not disastrous - Kerry is up 2.8 points
- Missouri is narrowly his, by .4 points. This is too close, but also comparable to where he stood before the GOP convention
- Florida is another spot of good news. Kerry is up there by .3 - the last Zogby had him up by .6. Statistically speaking, that's not a significant trend.
There is bad news, of course
- Bush leads by 10.9 in Ohio. That can't be allowed - Ohio at the least needs to be competitive
- Tennessee, after some promising polls earlier, is now in solid Bush territory. He has a 9.6 point lead there
- West Virginia has gone red again, with Dubya up 9 points.
Still, award all the states Kerry leads in to him, and he gets 307 electoral votes. This poll was taken at Kerry's low water mark. Dubya has some rough steering ahead, and Kerry might have better times ahead, now that Dubya can't hog a convention spotlight. As Journey would say, don't stop believin'.
After a week of crappy news on the poll front, the release of the latest Zogby battleground polls provides a much-needed batch of good news. These are dated August 30-September 3 and occurred largely after the GOP convention.
To sum up:
- The upper Midwest is still Kerry's. He leads by a good margin in Minnesota and Michigan, a smaller margin in Iowa and a tight 2.5 points in Wisconsin. But hey: he's up in Wisconsin. The last few polls to come out of beaver country had Dubya up.
- The West isn't bad. He's up by nearly 10 points in Oregon and New Mexico, 8.5 in Washington, and .6 in Nevada. Nevada always has tight margins; they're just like that out there.
- Pennsylvania is tight but not disastrous - Kerry is up 2.8 points
- Missouri is narrowly his, by .4 points. This is too close, but also comparable to where he stood before the GOP convention
- Florida is another spot of good news. Kerry is up there by .3 - the last Zogby had him up by .6. Statistically speaking, that's not a significant trend.
There is bad news, of course
- Bush leads by 10.9 in Ohio. That can't be allowed - Ohio at the least needs to be competitive
- Tennessee, after some promising polls earlier, is now in solid Bush territory. He has a 9.6 point lead there
- West Virginia has gone red again, with Dubya up 9 points.
Still, award all the states Kerry leads in to him, and he gets 307 electoral votes. This poll was taken at Kerry's low water mark. Dubya has some rough steering ahead, and Kerry might have better times ahead, now that Dubya can't hog a convention spotlight. As Journey would say, don't stop believin'.
