History Exam: How much does the polling resemble 2004?

[Zynx]

Poll question: History Exam: How much does the polling resemble 2004?

This is a simple historical recollection. No cheating and looking at polling archives that give you a firm answer in about 2 seconds. Just what you remember.

[Zynx]

1. I'm glad to see people remember that we were the ones cherry-picking polls back then.

The best we could ever really do is show it tied.

[Drunken Irishman]

2. I remember Kerry held a lead prior to the Republican Convention in Sept. 2004.

However, after the Republican Convention, Bush held a lead for pretty much the entire election, even building a double digit lead throughout September. It wasn't until the debates that Kerry got back into it, but could never get over the hump.

[Zynx]

3. Exactly. After the first debate he caught up to within 2-3, but never got past that. He lost by that

amount.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Electoralvote.com this day in 2004 - Kerry 271, Bush 257 - BUT

Strong Kerry only 88 vs Strong Bush 147
Weak Kerry at 87
Barely Kerry at 96

so very tenuous at best - MN was a tie! VA and WI red!

[Zynx]

5. Also, a lot of that was because he included Zogby's internet polling.

Strip that out and VA wasn't even close.

[Drunken Irishman]

8. Plus...

Back then, the site creator didn't average polls, only publishing the most recent.

[quaker bill]

6. actually it is rather similar

just the margins are larger and blue line is above red line this time, (as opposed to below it last time) otherwise the pattern actually seems familiar.

You just need to mirror image it horizontally to see the similarity. It is similar enough to predict a McSame defeat.

[Zynx]

7. That's true in any election where the national margin changes.

States generally more or less stay the same if the national margin stays the same unless it is a dynamic state like VA or NC with lots of new voters thanks to fast population growth. The states in play are not similar. WI, MN, IA, MI, NM, WA, OR, and NH are all not competitive.