2004: It Is Not An 11 Point Race - by John Zogby
The Republican National Convention is over and score it a huge success
for
President George W. Bush. For one solid week he was on message and got
Americans who watched to listen to the message he intends to carry in
the
fall campaign: leadership, decisiveness and success battling the war on
terrorism. The convention actually followed another big week for Mr.
Bush
and equally dismal one for his opponent, Democratic Senator John Kerry.
Now the first polls are out. I have Mr. Bush leading by 2 points in the
simple head-to-head match up - 46% to 44%. Add in the other minor
candidates and it becomes a 3 point advantage for the President - 46%
to
43%. This is no small achievement. The President was behind 50% to 43%
in
my mid-August poll and he essentially turned the race around by jumping
3
points as Mr. Kerry lost 7 points. Impressive by any standards.
For the first time in my polling this year, Mr. Bush lined up his
Republican ducks in a row by receiving 90% support of his own party,
went
ahead among Independents, and now leads by double-digits among key
groups
like investors. Also for the first time the President now leads among
Catholics. Mr. Kerry is on the ropes.
Two new polls came out immediately after mine (as of this writing) by
the
nation's leading weekly news magazines. Both Time's 52% to 41% lead
among
likely voters and Newsweek's 54% to 43% lead among registered voters
give
the President a healthy 11 point lead. I have not yet been able to get
the
details of Time's methodology but I have checked out Newsweek's poll.
Their
sample of registered voters includes 38% Republican, 31% Democrat and
31%
Independent voters. If we look at the three last Presidential
elections,
the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in
1992
with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27%
Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26%
Independents in 2000. While party identification can indeed change
within
the electorate, there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that Democrats
will only represent 31% of the total vote this year. In fact, other
competitors have gone in the opposite direction. The Los Angeles Times
released a poll in June of this year with 38% Democrats and only 25%
Republicans. And Gallup's party identification figures have been all
over
the place.
This is no small consideration. Given the fact that each candidate
receives
anywhere between eight in ten and nine in ten support from voters in
his
own party, any change in party identification trades point for point in
the
candidate's total support. My polls use a party weight of 39% Democrat,
35%
Republican and 26% Independent. Thus in examining the Newsweek poll,
add
three points for Mr. Bush because of the percentage of Republicans in
their
poll, then add another 8% for Mr. Bush for the reduction in Democrats.
It
is not hard to see how we move from my two-point lead to their
eleven-point
lead for the President.
I will save the detailed methodological discussion for another time.
But I
will remind readers that my polling has come closest to the final
results
in both 1996 and 2000.
None of this takes away from the President's achievement. He got out of
his
party's convention everything he needed to launch his campaign in
earnest
in the closing two months. But my poll still reveals lurking shadows
for
him. He still has a net negative job performance rating, a negative
re-elect (i.e. more voters think it is time for someone new than feel
he
deserves re-election) and a net negative wrong direction for the
country.
The poll also suggests that Mr. Kerry is behind and has a lot of work
to do
to refocus the campaign on the issues that must work for him: the
economy,
health care, and the execution of the war in Iraq. We also see now that
at
least in the short run, the advertising campaign against the Senator
about
his military service in Vietnam has raised questions about his
integrity
and has caused his personal unfavorable numbers to jump.
But with all that said, it simply is not an 11 point race. It just
isn't.
John Zogby is the President and CEO of Zogby International- an
independent
polling firm, and writes this column for the Financial Times where it
first
appeared.. |
