Newsweek poll internals: BUSH LEADS KERRY 47-44 IN BLUE DEMOCRAT STATES

Newsweek ^ | September 4, 2004

[Nataku X]

I agree, however, look at the independents in the poll. Bush leads them by 5% now. He's never done that before.

[billorites]

"More nutty midnight appearances from Kerry coming up? He looked like looney the other night."

Or as Kipling said,"But there comes a night when the best get tight,"

[stockpirate]

Republicans have been ridiculously oversampled
374 Republicans (plus or minus 6)
303 Democrats (plus or minus 6)
300 Independents (plus or minus 6)

I don't think so.

[megatherium]

Kerry has a reputation for fighting back; he's had come-from-behind victories before after being written off as defeated. Albeit, this was in Massachusetts. But I expect Kerry to unleash a withering negative campaign against Bush: highlighting claimed Bush flip-flops, Bush failure to keep promises, alleged Bush lies. You can do a lot with $100 million.

[okstate]

Agreed... and for people who are interested..

They sampled 38 percent R, 31 percent D, and 31 percent I.

[okstate]

That's a 38R-31D-31I sample.

[JOE43270]

You mean they finally ask Republicansfor a change.

[bert]

but what is you theory as to why......

The only chance left is to become the underdog and hope that this will make the base turn out.

Of course the flip side is that the base will think all is lost and voting is not worth the effort.

[stockpirate]

27 Percent of Registered Voters Think Bush/Cheney Campaign Is Behind Swift Boat Ads

This number represents the percent of those polled that are Kerry Kool-aid drinkers. i.e. Hard core Socialists.

[TruthWillWin]

Wonder if the Dems are thinking about jumping off the Swift Boat?

Torricelli all over again?

[elfman2]

"I'm not arguing here but what is you theory as to why Newsweek would do this. "

So that when other polls tomorrow say that Kerry is 5 points behind (instead of 10) behind Bush, they can run the results with the headlines like:

“Kerry Gaining on Bush”,
“Bush Bounce Fading”,
“Independents Moving Back to Kery”,
“Bush Loosing Support as Kerry Connects with America”, etc…

[AmericanMade1776]

I hope that Massachusetts goes for President Bush in November, it would be justice.

[Timeout]

You may be right. But how do you know that we may be seeing another significance in this poll: that more respondents are identifying themselves as GOP. Could that be the case?

[stockpirate]

Kerry is in BIG trouble. The internal polls must show he is worse that what we are seeing, why else did he do the Thursday night thing.

There was a poll this moring that was about who the person believed was going to win and Bush smoked Kerry.

He and the KKAD (Kerry Kool-Aid Drinkers) are flipping out.

[DaveMSmith]

IIRC, Kerry has committed $42 million in ad money in 'swing' states... hahahahhahaha ... if he has to worry about NY, NJ and CA he's toast

[elfman2]

Looks ridiculous to me.

[Fabozz]

"I'm not arguing here but what is you theory as to why Newsweek would do this."

After the Kitty Kelly book comes out, they will do another poll that now oversamples Democrats. This will show a wholly-bogus 10-point drop in Bush's numbers. The media will credit the Kelly book's "serious allegations" for this, which will give them an excuse to focus on the book for a few weeks, by which time Bush's real numbers will have dropped 10 points or more.

[The Citizen Soldier]

Republicans have been ridiculously oversampled 374 Republicans (plus or minus 6) 303 Democrats (plus or minus 6) 300 Independents (plus or minus 6)

It is my personal experience that most "independents" lean democratic. The category here that seems suspect to me is not the number of republicans but the number of independents. I would expect the number of independents in this size sampling to be about 190-230 (20-25%). All of the other "independents" in this poll I would say are really democrats (not independents) netting the democratic number at something like 370-410. IMO, that is much more accurate representation of this poll.

[DannyTN]

"Hmmm... Could be a monochrome election this year."

That could make a good election night cheer.

"Monochrome, Monochrome, Monocrhrome....

[hawaiian]

"Again, with all due respect, this poll is garbage. Republicans have been ridiculously oversampled. Let us wait for polls from organizations with more credibility than Newsweak."

No, they adjust it to a given assumption of Democrats and Republicans (i.e. that 35% of voters are R, 38% are D, and the rest are independent.) Then, they extrapolate the numbers (94% of Republicans support Bush, vs. 4% Kerry), (82% of Democrats support Kerry, vs. 14% for Bush) and apply that percentage to their "assumption" percentages. It actually would have been much better for Bush if they used the actual results without adjusting for their assumption percentage.