Picture to prove the point.....
THIS is the reason that Karen Hughes said that she doesn't need a poll to show that BUSH is ahead in OHIO!
Posted on 09/29/2004 3:57:40 AM PDT by pjsbro
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 -Days before the presidential debates begin, President Bush appears to be gaining in several swing states he lost in 2000.
Experts caution that the race is highly fluid, but Mr. Bush, for now at least, is surging ahead in several crucial states. Polls show Mr. Bush making headway in Iowa and Wisconsin, both of which he lost last time. He was also building leads in Ohio and West Virginia, states he won in 2000.
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All four states have been hotly contested this year. And Senator John Kerry seems to have ceded Missouri to Mr. Bush.
The shocker in the last week was New Jersey, where three polls showed Mr. Bush pulling even with Mr. Kerry. The state, never on the battleground list, has voted Democratic since 1988 and comes with a sizable chunk of electoral votes, 15. Mr. Bush's strength there was a source of concern to Democrats.
Experts said New Jersey would in the end almost certainly go Democratic, but a snapshot of polls last week put it as a tossup.
Mr. Kerry led in Maine and was solidifying leads in Michigan and Washington, states that Al Gore won in 2000 but that Mr. Bush is contesting this year. Polls also showed the candidates nearly even in Colorado.
An analysis of state polls by The New York Times showed that the race in the last six days has been most competitive in nine states, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania. They have a total of 105 electoral votes.
These polls show that if the election had been held in the last week, Mr. Kerry would have been able to count on 10 states plus the District of Columbia, for a total of 153 electoral votes, and that Mr. Bush would have been able to count on 18 states with 144 electoral votes. Three other states - Maine, Michigan and Washington - were leaning toward Mr. Kerry, and if they vote that way will provide Mr. Kerry an additional 32 electoral votes, for a total of 177.
Ten others - Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and West Virginia - were leaning toward Mr. Bush and would provide him with an additional 104 electoral votes, for a total of 248.
A total of 270 electoral votes is needed to win.
The first of the three debates is scheduled for Thursday. Then, the campaigns will start examining the responses of swing voters and independents and redirect money, commercials and candidates' time to where they think they can be most effective.
Last week, Mr. Kerry pulled back advertising time he had bought in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri. He has made little effort in North Carolina, even though it is the home of his running mate, Senator John Edwards.
The hope in the Bush camp, aides said, is that his debate performance will help nail down the swing states where he is leading and let him move more vigorously to contest other states that Mr. Gore won in 2000.
A senior strategist for Mr. Kerry, Tad Devine, conceded Mr. Bush had made gains in Iowa and Wisconsin.
"They will be competitive all the way to the end, without a doubt,'' Mr. Devine said.
He predicted that those states would repeat their 2000 dynamic, when late polls showed Mr. Bush ahead but Mr. Gore narrowly won both. Mr. Devine also pointed to recent national polls to say Mr. Bush was on shaky ground.
National polls show Mr. Bush opening up a lead of several percentage points over Mr. Kerry. A Pew poll released on Tuesday gave him an eight-point lead, and a Washington Post/ABC News poll on Tuesday showed a six-point edge. The polls did offer some comfort to Mr. Kerry, with voters in the Pew poll, expressing less confidence in the president on Iraq and saying Mr. Kerry would be better for the economy.
"It's on its way back toward a dead heat,'' Mr. Devine said. "Bush got a big bounce out of his convention. But the bounce is coming down, and the situation is not favorable to him. He's an incumbent president who can't gain a decisive advantage.''
A strategist for Mr. Bush, Matthew Dowd, said that the electoral map had "tilted'' to Mr. Bush's favor and that the Kerry camp had to spend money trying to cement leads in states that voted Democratic in 2000.
"They're spending a lot of their resources just keeping the Gore states,'' Mr. Dowd said. "They are increasing their buys in Maine and Michigan and they're trying to get Wisconsin back.''
Paint Ohio RED.
That is the biggest political crowd in Cincy history.
If Kerry can't win Cincy.. he has lost Ohio. Sixty thousand is a huge crowd for any site in Ohio. Kerry can't draw 60 thousand in Cleveland. If greater Cleveland and greater Cincy is a wash... Bush has an easy Ohio win.
I'm glad that the slimes thinks Colorado is still up for grabs because frenchie himself has pulled out of the state. Maybe the slimes will pay for spots in Colorado. They're rats and rats never have to follow the law, so why not?
Picture to prove the point.....
THIS is the reason that Karen Hughes said that she doesn't need a poll to show that BUSH is ahead in OHIO!
Yikes! What happened to W's lead in FL? The link indicates latest poll has kerry up by 1 pt. Is this the start of 'rat fraud?
Yeah, but notice how they side-step mentioning the Gallup poll, while still giving the results of the Pew and ABC polls.
It's the journalistic equivalent of passing a kidney stone.
That one point lead is Rasmussen's premium member tracking poll of Florida. So take that with a grain of salt. One day Bush is ahead one in Florida then the next day Kerry and so on. All this during and after the hurricanes. I put more stock in the Gallup and Quinnipiac late last week which had a slightly bigger spread for Bush in Florida.
C-SPAN said Wednesday that OR has moved from "undecided" to Kerry!
If the Democrats get the electoral-vote "reform" passed on Nov. 2 in CO, the change will be retroactive and would likely yield a 5-4 Bush-Kerry split, rendering CO meaningless in the election outcome, a net loss for Bush presumably.
I tried to listen to my Reds last night and ended up having, what I think, was Air America (blech)...just to get a laugh, I stayed on it for a bit. The guy, sitting in for Jeanine (I assume Garafolo?) was whining that NY Times has become conservative and was asking his listeners to bombard them with complaints... LOL
What a crock. So the NY Times puts out factually correct info for once and the liberals get into a tizzy.
On the day of the rally, a caller to Sean Hannity's rdio program estimated 40,000 in attendance and we were flabbergasted. We now learn this was the largest campaign rally of the year with 50,000 crammed in to hear our President. Color Ohio deep RED.
Final result prediction as of today: 361/177 Bush.
I too saw Bush ahead of Kerry by a larger margin in Florida. Some of the State polls don't reflect what I've seen or heard on foxnews and other outlets so I'm assuming (and hoping) they're behind in gathering info.
The President will be visiting our small city on Saturday, and the enthusiasm here is AMAZING.
Ohio will be DEEP RED in November. The Dims can try, but they won't succeed.
IF IT'S NOT CLOSE, THEY CAN'T CHEAT! (Hugh Hewitt........read it!)
Never been anything like it in these here parts. ;o)
Can you imagine his reaction when he walked into the park and saw the magnitude of that crowd? It's giving me goosebumps.
I would take all these polls in FL with a grain of salt with so many people affected by the hurricanes.
You're right, Mr. President...........and that something is YOU!
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