Poll: Bush has five point lead with likely voters
Monday, October 25, 2004 Posted: 3:11 PM EDT (1911 GMT)
(CNN) -- President Bush commands a five percentage point lead over Sen. John Kerry in the race for president among likely voters in a CNN/USA Today/ Gallup opinion poll published Monday.
Fifty-one percent of likely voters said they would back Bush, and 46 percent expressed support for Kerry. The margin of error for this subset of respondents also is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
They remain tied among registered voters, according to the poll. Of the 1,461 registered voters polled, 49 percent reported support for Bush and 47 percent said they would vote for Kerry.
The two percentage point difference falls within the poll's 3 percentage point margin of error and which constitutes a statistical dead heat.
The likely voters numbered 1,195 and were a subset of the 1,538 adults pollsters surveyed via telephone between October 22 and 24.
This week's poll results show little change from responses of likely voters surveyed between October 14 and 16. In the previous survey, 52 percent of likely voters said they would vote for the president and 44 percent said they would vote for the Massachusetts senator.
The increase of two percentage points for Kerry this week among likely voters also falls within the margin of error.
In each of the weeks' polls, one percent of voters said they would cast ballots for third-party candidate Ralph Nader.
The poll also queried participants about how they perceived the president's performance, the stakes in this election and whether Bush is a "uniter" or a "divider."
Slightly more than half, 51 percent, of respondents said they approved of how President Bush is handling his role, and 46 percent reported disapproval.
Nearly 90 percent, said the stakes in this year's election are higher than in previous years. And an equal percent -- 48 -- characterized the president as a uniter and a divider.
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