Could 2004 Election Be as Close as 2000?
Friday, February 06, 2004
By Dana Blanton
When President George W. Bush is matched against the top Democratic contenders, he continues to best each of them. But Bush beats Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (search), the current Democratic frontrunner, by only four percentage points today. A month ago, the spread was 22 points (54 percent Bush and 32 percent Kerry).
In the latest Fox News poll, Bush outdoes his Democratic competitors by as little as four percentage points (Kerry) and up to as many as 19 points [both former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (search) and retired Gen. Wesley Clark (search)].
Opinion Dynamics Corporation conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters on February 4 and 5.
No matter which candidate Americans plan to support, nearly half — including 77 percent of Republicans and 26 percent of Democrats — believe President Bush will win the November election. Overall, 32 percent think he will be defeated, including 57 percent of Democrats and seven percent of Republicans.
Even more Americans prefer Bush as a dinner companion than as a candidate. A 51 percent majority would rather have dinner with Bush and 32 percent choose Kerry, four percent spontaneously offered "both" and 10 percent volunteered "neither." Separately, about half say they would choose former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (search) as their dinner companion while about a third would rather dine with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton (search).
Bush Over Democrats
54% to 35 over Dean
53% to 36 over Clinton
53% to 34 over Clark
50% to 37 over Edwards
47% to 43 over Kerry
The poll finds Kerry soundly leading his competitors in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, receiving 54 percent today (among Democrats), up from 29 percent two weeks ago and — just to show what a difference a month can make — Kerry was the preferred candidate of only seven percent in early January.
North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (search) is the only other candidate to receive double-digit support and comes in a distant second with 12 percent. Clark (eight percent) and Dean (seven percent) are essentially tied today, a dramatic shift since pre-Iowa polling when Dean was the clear frontrunner.
Support for Kerry appears to be more solid than that for other candidates with 58 percent of Democratic voters backing him saying they support him "strongly."
President Bush’s overall job rating is unchanged from the end of January. Today, 53 percent approve and 41 percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president. A slightly higher number (56 percent) have a favorable opinion of the president personally. Of the other members of the Bush administration tested, Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) is the only one who has a higher favorable rating (75 percent) than the president.
Even though over half approve of Bush’s job performance specifically, fewer Americans say that government policies overall are working well right now (36 percent) than say policies are in need of a "big change" (58 percent). Not surprisingly, there is a huge partisan gap with 65 percent of Republicans saying things are working well and 82 percent of Democrats saying there need to be big changes in policies.
"The problem Bush faces is that when the public looks at the economy, Iraq or virtually any other issue, they see a series of bad signals," comments Opinion Dynamics President John Gorman. "While the economy may be recovering, it seems a new 'plant closing/more layoffs' story leads every news cycle. While Iraq may be 90 percent or 95 percent pacified, a soldier dies there or in Afghanistan just about every day. This drip, drip, drip of bad news is eroding the support the president formerly had."
The economy is the top priority for Americans, with a third saying it is the most important issue for the government to address right now. Currently just under a quarter of the public (23 percent) cite Iraq, terrorism or a national defense-related issue as the top concern.
Iraq and Pre-war Intelligence
Despite former chief weapons inspector David Kay’s (search) statement that intelligence agencies incorrectly concluded Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, three-quarters of Americans believe the United States is safer today without Saddam in power and fully 86 percent believe the Iraqi people are better off.
The public thinks the most likely reason weapons have not been found in Iraq is that they were moved to another country before the war began (65 percent), but the second most likely reason people think inspectors have come up empty-handed is because there "were no weapons" and the U.S.-led coalition was misled (55 percent).
Even with Kay’s comments on intelligence failures, 17 percent of Americans say they are "very confident" and 54 percent "somewhat confident" that U.S. intelligence agencies will be able to uncover real threats to the country in the future. In addition, a clear majority (64 percent) says they would not be willing to pay more in taxes to improve the country’s intelligence gathering operations.
URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,110698,00.html |
