In the polls -
National tracking polls released today show yet another tied race.
TIPP -- Bush 46, Kerry 44.
Zogby -- Bush 48, Kerry 48
Washington Post -- Bush 48, Kerry 48
Fox -- Bush 45, Kerry 47
Rasmussen -- Bush 48, Kerry 47.
In state polls, the Columbus Dispatch calls the race in Ohio not just a tie, but a 50-50 deadlock. It's the "the tightest margin ever in a final Dispatch Poll," the paper writes. Zogby’s tracking poll doesn't agree, showing Bush up 49-46, a little strange considering that only two days back, Zogby had Kerry in the lead 47-44.
In Iowa, a Des Moines Register poll gives Kerry a 3-point lead, 48-45. In an interesting twist, the poll found that Bush leads Kerry among those under 44 years old by a 13-point margin, but that the president is getting slaughtered by the AARP vote: Iowans above 65 favor Kerry 54-38.
In New Hampshire, an American Research Group survey calls the race a 47-47 tie, making it the first polling firm not to give Kerry a lead in two weeks. A Research 2000 poll puts Kerry in the lead, however, 49-46.
In Nevada, Survey USA shows a 49-49 tie, a better result for Kerry than any he's had in any survey in the state in more than three weeks.
And finally, while two reputable polling firms recently declared the New Jersey race a dead heat, there's no sign of it a few days later. Today, an Eagleton-Rutgers survey put Kerry up 48-44 in the Garden state. On Friday, a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll gave Kerry a 7-point advantage, and yesterday Survey USA showed the Democrat ahead by 12. That's certainly worse than the Democrats did in 2000, but if New Jersey is Kerry's greatest foible, it's probably not going to be a very suspenseful election night.
-- Jeff Horwitz
[10:52 PST, Oct. 31, 2004]
Kerry surges in Minnesota
In a state that's been too close to call for months, Sen. John Kerry opens up an eye-popping eight point lead in Minnesota, according to today's Minneapolis Star Tribune. The poll found Kerry with the support of 49 percent of likely voters, compared to Bush's 41 percent. The finding mirrors the latest Zogby tracking poll results released on Saturday which showed Kerry with 49 percent to Bush's 43 percent in Minnesota. A Star Tribune poll conducted just two weeks ago showed the state too close to call.
What could be behind the late Kerry surge? The newspaper reports, "The repeated airing of Osama bin Laden's latest video Friday may have been one reason there was a spike in support for Kerry in the interviews conducted that night, compared with three previous nights of interviewing." The Star Tribune quotes the University of Minnesota's Larry Jacobs agreeing: "Maybe it was bin Laden, maybe it was the news about the missing explosives [in Iraq], but the news seems to have been injected with the seriousness of national security events."
The poll results were across-the-board good news for Democrats in what is considered to be a must-win state. For instance, Kerry leads Bush among likely, independent voters 46 percent to 34 percent, while Bush's support among self-descrbied conservatives has dropped ten points in the last two weeks.
Appearing on Fox News today, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich addressed the question of polls over the weekend that continue to show Bush losing ground, one percentage point at a time. Gingrich's spin was Republican candidates always poll stronger during the working week and Democrats do better on the weekends. But that rationale doesn't apply to Bush's weak showing in Minnesota; the poll was conducted Tuesday through Friday.
The one bright spot for Bush is that Minnesota election pros say come Election Day, Minnesotans traditionally vote slightly more Republican than what the final, pre-election polls indicate.
-- Eric Boehlert
[09:38 PST, Oct. 31, 2004]
Colin Powell believes U.S. is losing Iraq war
Secretary of State Colin Powell has privately confided to friends in recent weeks that the Iraqi insurgents are winning the war, according to Newsweek. The insurgents have succeeded in infiltrating Iraqi forces "from top to bottom," a senior Iraqi official tells Newsweek in tomorrow’s issue of the magazine, "from decision making to the lower levels."
This is a particularly troubling development for the U.S. military, as it prepares to launch an all-out assault on the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, since U.S. Marines were counting on the newly trained Iraqi forces to assist in the assault. Newsweek reports that "American military trainers have been frantically trying to assemble sufficient Iraqi troops" to fight alongside them and that they are "praying that the soldiers perform better than last April, when two battalions of poorly trained Iraqi Army soldiers refused to fight."
If the Fallujah offensive fails, Newsweek grimly predicts, "then the American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on Inauguration Day." |
