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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Time Vs. Newsweek

The duel of the newsweekly polls continues. The new Time poll implausibly, when compared to other public polls, showed a substantial, sudden move toward Bush among RVs, going from a dead heat last week (46-46) to a 7 point lead this week (50-43).
The new Newsweek poll, on the other hand was a model of stability, going from a 1 point lead for Bush among RVs last week (48-47) to a dead heat this week (47-47). (The poll showed more movement in Kerry’s direction among LVs, but that clearly reflected differences between the two polls in who was screened into the LV sample, rather than substantial change in voter sentiment.)
Newsweek, as they did last week, provided a number of interesting subgroup horse race numbers for their 3-way RV matchup that are worth taking a look at:
1. Independents favor Kerry/Edwards by 14 points, 52-38.
2. Swing voters favor Kerry/Edwards by 8, 41-33.
3. First-time voters favor Kerry/Edwards by 3, 47-44.
4. Early voters favor Kerry/Edwards by 6, 50-44.
5. Young voters (18-29) favor Kerry/Edwards by 14, 54-40, and seniors (65+) favor Kerry/Edwards by 5, 48-43.
6. Men favor Bush-Cheney by 51-43 and women favor K/E by 49-42.
Note that this last finding reverses the rather strange reverse gender gap pattern in Newsweek‘s last poll, wher men favored K/E and women favored B/C.
Two other findings from the Newsweek poll illustrate the difficult challenge Bush faces in making the case for his re-election on two central issues. First, when asked whether “Bush’s economic and tax policies” have done more to help or hurt economic conditions in the country, just 33 percent say these policies have helped the economy, compared to 62 percent who say they’ve either hurt the economy (43 percent) or made no difference (19 percent). Second, when asked whether the war with Iraq has made Americans safer from terrorism or not, 53 percent say no and only 42 percent say yes.
Iraq and the economy: for Bush, difficult issues to defend but even more difficult to avoid.

4 comments on “Time Vs. Newsweek

  1. Marcus Lindroos on

    > The Newsweek poll also says that 77% of Democrats
    > think that this is the most important election of their
    > lives. Only 22% of Republicans agree.
    I am surprised so few Republicans feel that way — but the Demo response should be self-evident. At least in the short term (=four next years), a Bush win would allow the GOP controlled White House and Congress to do enormous damage to the Democratic base. Conservative judges would be nominated, social security would be at least partly privatized, federal jobs could be outsourced to non-unionized private workers etc.. Grover Nordquist was confident enough to brag about this in WaPo half a year ago.
    > Also, 54% want a new president.
    let’s hope they all vote for Kerry then.
    MARCU$

    Reply
  2. David Jacobs on

    The Newsweek poll also says that 77% of Democrats think that this is the most important election of their lives. Only 22% of Republicans agree.
    Also, 54% want a new president.
    I think I have those figures right.

    Reply
  3. Brian on

    The details of the Time poll are very strange. They have female RVs 46K-46B, but the stranger still was the results about how people felt about the positive/negative nature of the campaign: Do you feel X has run a more positive or more negative campaign (RV)
    Kerry: 40 pos., 49 neg.
    Bush: 47 pos., 41 neg.
    Here in Florida I’ve seen only a couple of positive Bush commercials. Did these people see the RNC? I would sure like to see the correlation between these responses. Bet it is close to -1. Yet Time claims the sample breaks down as 35 Dem/33 Rep/23 Ind. This poll seems to be too much of an outlier for this to be the result of sampling error.

    Reply
  4. omar on

    wait a second??? If Kerry is winning indepandents by 14,
    How is he not far ahead of Bush????
    They must have oversampled republicans again.

    Reply

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