On the eve of the third presidential debate, John Kerry and George Bush are tied at 48 percent of nation-wide LV’s, according to a new poll by Democracy Corps conducted 10/10-11.

John Kerry leads George Bush 46-42 percent of Pennsylvania RV’s, with 10 percent don’t know, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University conducted 10/9-11.

Kerry leads Bush 53-44 percent of Oregon LV’s, with 4 percent for others, according to a SurveyUSA Poll for KATU-TV Portland conducted 10/9-11.

Bush leads Kerry 43.4-41.4 percent of nation-wide RV’s with 15.2 percent for others/undecided, according to a new poll by International Communications Research, conducted 10/9-11.

Kerry leads Bush 47-45 percent of nation-wide RV’s, with 1 percent for Nader, according to a Economist/YouGov Poll conducted 10/11-12,

Not in the silly LV data they like to feature, but where it counts: in their RV data. Kerry now leads by 2 points among RVs in the WP/ABC tracking poll, compared to 2 points down 3 days ago and 6 points down a week ago.
Alan Abramowitz adds this note on the WP tracking poll’s idiosyncracies:

The latest ABC/Washington Post tracking poll is showing a 3 point lead for George Bush among likely voters but a 2 point lead for John Kerry among registered voters. This means that the ABC/WP poll is projecting that 85.1 percent of registered Bush supporters will vote but only 76.6 percent of registered Kerry supporters will vote–an 8.5 point Republican turnout advantage. Over the past several days, there has been a consistent LV/RV discrepancy of about this magnitude in the poll. However, data from the past three presidential elections shows that the Republican turnout advantage has never been larger than 3 points. In 1992, the highest turnout election of the three, the difference was only 1 point. In a high turnout election, and 2004 will certainly be a very high turnout election, is is simply not plausible that there will be such a large difference between the prefernces of registered and likely voters. During the final week of the 2000 campaign, George Bush held a consistent lead of 3-4 points among likely voters in the ABC/WP tracking poll. I wonder what the poll’s results were among all registered voters? I suspect that they were much closer to the actual results of the election and I suspect that that will also be the case this year.

1. Tomorrow’s debate is about domestic issues. Here is Kerry versus Bush in ten domestic issue areas polled by Gallup (issue data summary provided by Alan Abramowitz):
The environment: Kerry 60 percent, Bush 31 percent
Stem cell research: Kerry 53 percent, Bush 33 percent
Health care: Kerry 56 percent, Bush 37 percent
Medicare: Kerry 53 percent, Bush 38 percent
Federal budget deficit: Kerry 53 percent, Bush 40 percent
Social Security: Kerry 50 percent, Bush 41 percent
Education: Kerry 50 percent, Bush 43 percent
The economy: Kerry 49 percent, Bush 45 percent
Abortion: Kerry 46 percent, Bush 42 percent
Taxes: Kerry 44 percent, Bush 51 percent
Average of all ten domestic issues: Kerry 51.4 percent, Bush 40.1 percent
2. While the race is tied 48-48 in Gallup’s 2-way RV matchup, Kerry leads by 5 in the battleground states and by 8 among independents.
3. The gender gap is alive and well. Kerry leads Bush by 9 among women and trails Bush by 9 among men.
4. While the party ID distribution seems more reasonable in this poll than in many recent Gallup polls, if you re-weight their 2-way RV data by the 2000 exit poll distribution, you actually get a 4 point Kerry lead, not the dead heat they report.
That result would tend to imply that the party ID distribution is about even in this poll. However, Steve Soto got Gallup to give him the party ID distribution for the RV sample in this poll and they reported a 36R/34D/29I distribution. Interesting. That distribution, based on their reported internals for the RV sample, would actually give Bush a 1 point lead among RVs, not the dead heat they report.
I can’t explain this discrepancy, I merely report it. It’s also a bit puzzling that Gallup reports a 4 point Republican party ID advantage in their LV sample–i.e., 2 points more Republican than they say their RV sample is–but that same LV sample yields a 2 point Kerry lead. In other words, the LV sample is 2 points more Republican yet produces a result that’s 2 points more Democratic.
Go figure.

Alan Abramowitz writes:

John Kerry leads George Bush by 49 to 48 percent among likely voters in a new Gallup poll. Other key findings: Bush’s approval rating has fallen to 47 percent, another sign of danger for the incumbent, and respondents in the poll chose Kerry as the winner of the second debate by a decisive margin of 45 to 30 percent.

Now that we’re doing a lot more posting on DR, perhaps it’s time to clarify who posts what on the blog.
1. The posts I do personally all say “Posted by Ruy Teixeira” at the bottom.
2. Most other posts, especially the short notices on new polling data, are done by EDM staff and say “Posted by EDM Staff” at the bottom.
3. There are occasional guest posts by commentators like John Belisarius that are clearly indicated as such at the top of the post, though they may have “Posted by EDM Staff” at the bottom.
4. There are friends of the blog, like Alan Abramowitz, who send us material which is included in posts by myself or by EDM staff. These contributions are clearly attributed to their authors and typically set off as indented material in the post.
Hope that clears up any confusion. Now, back to the (analysis) salt mines.

Alan Abramowitz points out:

The Washington Post tracking poll seems to be suffering from the same ailment that afflicted the Gallup tracking poll four years ago, albeit on a smaller scale so far. In the past few days we have seen Bush’s lead among registered voters shrinking while his lead among likely voters has increased. This means that the likely voters and the unlikely voters are moving in the opposite direction, just as they frequently did in the Gallup tracking poll four years ago. This makes no sense, of course. With the WP tracking poll, as with the Gallup tracking poll, the registered voter results are probably a better indicator of the actual standing of the race.

Well said. It’s also worth notiing that, in 2000, the ABC/WP tracking poll missed the final vote pretty badly, having Bush up by 3 points at the very end and 3-4 points up on every night of the final week. Looks like they’re poised to repeat their fine 2000 performance.