LA TIMES - Kerry Has Solid Lead Among Voters Nationwide

[newsguyatl]

Kerry Has Solid Lead Among Voters Nationwide

By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON - Widespread unease over the country's direction and doubts about President Bush's policies on Iraq and the economy helped propel Sen. John F. Kerry to a solid lead among voters nationwide, according to a new Times Poll.

Yet in a measure of the race's tenuous balance, Times' polling in three of the most fiercely contested states found that Bush has a clear advantage over Kerry in Missouri and runs even with the presumed Democratic rival in Ohio and Wisconsin.

The surveys suggest that attitudes may be coalescing for a contest that pivots on the classic electoral question at times of discontent: Will voters see more risk in stability or change?

More than one-third of those polled in the nationwide poll said they don't know enough about Kerry to decide whether he would be a better president than Bush. And when asked which candidate was more likely to flip-flop on issues, almost twice as many named Kerry than Bush.

Yet Kerry led Bush by 51% to 44% nationally in a two-way match up, and by 48% to 42% in a three-way race, with independent Ralph Nader drawing 4%.

more here http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/timespoll/la-na-poll10jun10,1,1874410.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[leftistagitator]

1. Who the hell are the 1% of voters that would jump ship from * to Nader?

I don't get this demographic at all. I can see Nader voters potentially voting for Kerry, or not voting at all if Nader wasn't on the ballot, but why would someone who would vote Nader go Bush?

[59millionmorons]

4. Has anyone told Judy Woodruff yet

She will not take this well. First Gallup gives Kerry a 6 point lead and now the LA times gives Kerry another big lead.

[RoyGBiv]

5. Lower voter pool...

Without seeing the raw numbers, I can't say this is exactly what is happening, but it is the likely scenario. Some voters committed to Nader are likely not to vote at all if he isn't a choice. This would result in a higher percentage of the total vote for Bush, but not necessarily more votes.

Consider the following, very simple scenario:

The voter pool is 100 individuals, and all of them vote in the three-way race.

Kerry - 49
Bush - 47
Nader - 4

With 100 voters, the percentages equal the number of votes.

Without Nader on the ballot, one of those people votes for Kerry and the other three do not vote at all. The voter pool is now only 97 voters, which results in the following percentages:

Kerry - 51.5% (50/97)
Bush - 48.5% (47/97)

On the surface, it looks like taking Nader off the ballot resulted in more votes for both Bush and Kerry, but if the voter pool is lower, these percentages are just a measurement of that pool.

[lancdem]

2. Those state poll numbers aren't bad

Bush won Missouri and Ohio, and Gore only won Wisconsin by .2 percent. I'm glad to see he's running even in Ohio, because a couple of recent polls there showed Bush with a small lead.

[newsguyatl]

3. and it dropped like a rock

:kick: