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Posted on 10/23/2004 10:22:34 PM PDT by blogblogginaway
A surge of newly registered voters has helped Democrat John Kerry regain momentum in the presidential race in Florida, where he has pulled even or just slightly ahead of President Bush, according to a statewide poll less than two weeks before the election.
Kerry has rebounded in Florida and other key electoral states since falling behind Bush in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention early last month. The momentum now is shifting almost daily, however, leaving the two candidates in a statistical dead heat on their way to a suspenseful finish.
The latest poll, conducted Oct. 18-21 by Research 2000 for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Florida Times-Union, found Kerry leading Bush by the narrowest of margins in Florida: 48 percent to 47 percent, with 2 percent for independent candidate Ralph Nader.
The results came from 600 registered Florida voters who have a history of voting in statewide elections. They reflect the state's party affiliations and demographics by age, gender, race and region. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Kerry fared best with African-Americans and the youngest and oldest voters. Bush held a clear lead among middle-aged voters and Hispanics.
Interviews with some of those surveyed indicate that new voters, who have registered in record numbers this year, are giving Kerry his best chance for ousting the incumbent president. One big question on Election Day, Nov. 2, is whether these newcomers will show up at their polling places.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Good catch.
The shirlock holmes of Polls you are
Why isn't Florida sewn up? Jeb had a big victory there a couple of years ago, is it not a case of the scumocrats fear-mongering? That is, after all, their only trump card.
I'm guessing they are not contradicting themselves. They can choose as their sample the experienced voters and leave off those who are newly registered. That is not to say they don't survey the newly registered. They just are not including them in THIS particular sample. My guess anyway.
total contradiction
but basically matches a new Miami Herald/St Petersburg Times poll out this morning... 46 K, 46 B among likely voters
http://www.stpetetimes.com/2004/10/24/Decision2004/Down_the_stretch__a_d.shtml
obviously, nobody has ever given any of these sources an award for objectivity
Its a poll of registered voters. If the GOP isn't getting its early voters out in droves to the polls, this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's hope the Florida GOTV effort is in full swing!
a good rule of thumb is that a poll with less than 800 LV is worthless. The extrapolation is bogus and skewed towards keeping it a "horsrace" for news value.
Maybe a good number of the new voters signed up just for the beer money. Seems like a good motivator.
Or they're including enough new voters to skew the results.
"who have registered in record numbers"
Several times in several states...
The economy is good, so I attribute the current tie to the hysteria some seniors have fallen victim to regarding the flu vaccines. Ever since that hit, Kerry has picked up 4-6 pts in FL to make it a race again. It's frustrating how a small segment of voters can sway back and forth over issues that have nothing to do with the candidates.
Mason-Dixon has Bush by Three. Who knows what is really going on here but I have to think this will go Bush's way. I think Bush will Florida in a hurry on election night. He hasn't been there in a while and needs to concentrate more on Florida and Ohio this last week and half in order to place them both into the win column.
It's Research 2000 (D). You might as well add five points to Bush's totals, giving him a four-point lead.
don't forget draft hysteria, as mentioned in the article
how many new voters just signed up because of peer pressure or beer are going to stand in line for hours and vote?,, LMAO,,
FloridAH! is Bush country. Any poll saying otherwise is wishfull thinking on the part of some partisan DemocRAT pollster.
I think you're right. Florida must be Bush Country.
My area is full of Kerry signs. (All the Bush ones were pulled up, we know how that crowd works.)
My area is not a wealthy area, and the working wage is extremely low. Not a lot of good jobs around - lots of low paying ones about $6 or $7 an hour. But the cost of living has really risen. A lot of folks are barely making it, and most of them have no education how the economy works. Erego, they are looking for a nanny to take care of them. Kerry's spiel of "You're getting squeezed and I will save you!" resonates.
Nanny Kerry. It's sad to see them looking for a saviour in the government, but when you come down to it, I think that's really what's behind Kerry's appeal here. People just don't seem to realize how useless and destructive that is.
Oh, by the way, I live in the Bay area. I don't have to tell you, if you live here, how the press is relentless in its hammering of Bush. The St Petersberg Times rivals the NYTimes in its bias.
I swear, when they consider stories for the front page, number one consideration is whether it makes Bush look bad. It is more than obvious. Today the full page photo of the crying British hostage, begging for her life. They say absolutely nothing good about him. I don't know how he is doing as well as he is, with the depth of the media hatred and their agenda as an arm of the DNC.
"600 registered Florida voters"
means its a junk poll, also adjusted for 'states party affiliation' which if based on exit polls is itself suspect.
they overpolled dems in 2000.
I breathing a sigh of relief on these details - Bush *should be up* about 5points.
I think he will win Florida easily, Jews who went for the Lieberman ticket now need to think about the GWOT ticket, but wait and see.
No contradiction. The new voters are just the alternate personalities of loyal rat voters (they all have a right to vote don't they?)
He was in FL on Saturday.
I've got the same question. Remember the Dems threw everything they have at FLA to defeat Jeb. And they got trounced by double digits.
I say watch FLA on 11/2. If W wins by 4 points or more its gonna be a landslide. If he wins by 2 - 3 points we look good. If he wins by 1 point or less....long night.
I don't think I agree with your analysis exactly. I think if Bush recognizably wins Florida by midnight or two in the morning, then Kerry's face is going to just get that much longer. But, unfortunately, I'm often wrong in these matters.
Here's hoping your NOT wrong here! ;-)
Never would a person be happier to be proved wrong.
Does anyone have any updates on how the hurricane might impact things? It worried me that the Dem areas weren't hit much but the panhandle and up the Atlantic coast were.
How was the Hurricane aid administered? All quick and professional as one would like to imagine? Actually, wouldn't the Atlantic side be the Dem Stronghold - that is, besides Miami and the Palm Beaches. I'm thinking East Coast snowboids.
Lots of muslim votes in Florida, plus voter fraud running rampant!
Newly registered, never-voted-before types have a very low turnout. Most of them only register to get the bribe the RATs offer.
Are Muslims going to vote for Kerry in stronger numbers than Blacks or Jews? Well, it may be that Jews will vote for Bush more than they traditionally have. And Blacks?
I agree with you. And I believe the phoney "horserace" results from these polls has a dual purpose. It's also going to help with Kerry's post-election law suits for recounts. My reasoning is that if Kerry gets soundly beaten by Bush after every single poll claimed it was a 'dead heat' to the wire, then Kerry will use these polls to bolster his claim of vote fraud and Republican shenanigans in the vote count. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I smell a rat with these polls.
And then we can get the post facto mythology just like the last time around. What scabs!
Right now, Fl. is the most important state in the union. If we lose 'er, we are just about cooked.
First most important state: Fla. Because that is the foundation for everything. Then Ohio because that is the closer. Then, failing Ohio, Wis. because that is the fail safe stop loss leaving us one agonizing vote short of the House of Representatives. Then, counting Wis in, Ia with 7 to win. Or, N. Mex with 5 which would also be a win. Then Maine where we could just possibly find the one electoral vote in this ticket splitting state to get us to 269 and a victory in the House.
This means that we must hold all the 2000 states if we lose Ohio. If we lose Florida we must hold Ohio and gain Wis and either Ia. and N. Mex. or Ia and one from Maine. Instead of requiring Kerry to run the table to win as he must if we win Ohio, we must run the table if we lose Fl.
I am aware that other states like Or. or Pa or even NJ can play a decisive role for us but this is my judgment of the probabilities. If we win Ohio we are almost certain to win. If we lose Fl. we are almost certain to lose. If we lose Ohio all eyes turn first to Wis and then the rest.
Since writing the above Ia. has moved distinctly toward our column but N. Hamp has weakened then steadied a bit. I think Me. and N. Hamp deserve a visit because they could just make the back door in. Failing Ohio, we need Wis. if we don't hold N. Hamp, if we do, we can win with just Ia (which looks good) and N. Mex. (about which one cannot be so sanguine.)
I was much encouraged by the photos of Bush's Saturday in Fl. posted here. I also believe the extended voting period will act in our favor, indeed, a neighbor in Fl. just e-mailed me in Germany that he has sent his vote in. But the truth remains, as goes Florida so goes the nation this year.
Godspeed, George Bush.
Good assessment.
One major worry is that the Democrats know this. They will be taking every living and dead voter to the polls, not to mention the additional fraud.
I believe they perpetrated massive fraud in 2000, and thought that will guarantee them Florida, it turned out that the fraud was counteracted by the Cuban Americans' votes, giving Bush a win. That is why the Democrats were so upset. They KNEW they had Florida in the bag, because they took measures to make it so.
This time, the fraud will be even more massive, to take into account all eventualities.
I hope Republicans are very vigilant, but I am not sure they will be able to discover and prevent the fraud.
I share your unease.
No one can say we do not have fair warning. No one can say we do not have the horses, the money, or the attorney general to counter fraud at the level grand enough to change the result. Do we have the moxie?
I think we need to do everything we can, now.
BUT right after the 2000 elections, there would have been a good chance to totally revamp the system, and unfortunately it wasn't done.
I hope Bush does get reelected and one of the first items on his list of priorities will be to revamp the entire election system, to virtually eliminate fraud.
I have a very simple idea, but, as you say, do they have the moxie to do it.
What I would like to see is:
-- Cancel everyone's registration right now.
-- Have everyone reregister.
-- Requirements for registration: do it in person, at an official location ( not by people running around registering people), and show picture ID and proof of citizenship, and give a thumbprint.
-- When voting in person, picture ID & thumbprint is required, which will be meticulously checked against original registration.
-- Absentee ballots are only mailed to address of record on registration. (Postal service can forward it, if there is a forwarding address in place). Absentee ballots need to be signed and thumbprint included. Again, to be meticulously checked against original registration.
-- Nobody can return more than 2 absentee ballots ( so political parties can't have people to sign it, then leave it to the party to fill it out and returen batches of them).
-- Have serious penalties for fraud, and prosecute fraud actively, to include jail term.
THIS would put a stop to fraud. Now you have people registered, who are willing to go to the trouble and they have to be the ones to actually vote.
Bush needs to show up one more time in Florida -- this time in the Cuban community.
Bush in good shape in Florida
Florida GOP and rat voter turnout in 2000 and 2002:
2002
2,828,288 56% GOP
2,172,702 43% RAT
2000
2,909,176 49 % GOP
2,907,451 49 % RAT
Approx. 750,000 less rats and 80,000 less GOP turned out (10-1) in 2002 than in 2000.
This in spite of the fact that 2002 was supposed to be "revenge" against Jeb for 2000
For Kerry to win, about 800,000 more democrats would have to show up and the GOP numbers remain constant. Thats not going to happen.
Kerry is not going to do any better than Gore, a lot of people that voted Gore last time are for Bush, the same can't be said for the rats.
Consider that Kerry gets 10% less women than Gore did. Thats 150,000 more votes right there.
I guess its just a coincidence, but 2002 was the first year they used those computer voting machines, doing away with those pesky chads.
Could it be that the stupid rats haven't figured out a way to cheat these machines yet, could that be a factor in the mystery of the disapearing dems?
After all, its a lot harder for a bunch of foaming at the mouth socialist morons to "lose" ballot boxes, or punch thousands of ballots after the polls have closed, to fool a computer.
Democrats engaged in massive vote fraud in Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade in 2000.
They would have kept punching and counting until Gore was President.
They have been trumped by the computer.
No wonder they are pissed
W should break 3,000,000.
The Miami squirrel said today that skerry was leading among Hispanics 51-36%.
These leftist crooks can't get their stories straight.
This time the fraud won't be 20% of what it was in 2000.
Why do you think Jeb won by 13% in 2002?
Computer voting machines were used in 2002.
GOP numbers stayed constant and 750,000 rats suddenly disappeared.
Wonder why?
Recall, though, that Jeb didn't lead by that much in the polls. His margin of victory was totally unexpected, due to a superior ground game.
He hasn't been there in a while
If you are talking about Florida, Bush was there Saturday and very large crowds came to see him.
W's margin of victory will be 300K plus votes.
You need to show ID to vote in FL. or you will be challenged. The GOP knows what precincts are corrupt and will be out in force at those locations.:
101.043 Identification required at polls.—
(1) The precinct register, as prescribed in s.
98.461, shall be used at the polls in lieu of the registration books for the purpose of identifying the elector at the polls prior to allowing him or her to vote.
The clerk or inspector shall require each elector, upon entering the polling place, to present a current and valid picture identification as provided in s. 97.0535(3)(a).
If the picture identification does not contain the signature of the voter, an additional identification that provides the
voter’s signature shall be required.
The elector shall sign his or her name in the space provided, and the clerk or inspector shall compare the signature with that on the identification provided by the elector and enter his or her initials in the space provided and allow the elector to vote if the clerk or inspector is satisfied as to the identity of the elector.
(2) Except as provided in subsection (3), if the elector
fails to furnish the required identification, or if the
clerk or inspector is in doubt as to the identity of the
elector, such clerk or inspector shall follow the procedure
prescribed in s. 101.49.
(3) If the elector who fails to furnish the required
identification is a first-time voter who registered by mail
and has not provided the required identification to the
supervisor of elections prior to election day, the elector
shall be allowed to vote a provisional ballot. The canvassing board shall determine the validity of the ballot
pursuant to s. 101.048(2).
That is heartening.
Makes sense. I support your new law.
freely translated this column reads: "hopefully, voter fraud will pull our guy through."
"You need to show ID to vote in FL."
I didn't know that. You don't need to in CA.
But maybe if they asked for ID in CA, Bush could win CA too.
Early voting started in FL last week would make your great idea impossible.
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