Ruy Teixeira, a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation and
the Center for American Progress, on his blog(Donkey Rising) gives his views on the recent polls. Bottom line......this is going to be a very close race and all of us need to do everything we can to keep Bush from being re-elected.
So, What's Really Happening in the Battleground States?
The recent Gallup and ABC News/Washington Post polls have gotten a lot of Democrats worried about how well Bush is apparently doing. I've argued in the last couple of days that these worries are considerably exaggerated and that developments in the last six weeks fundamentally weaken Bush, whether or not some polls show him ahead in the horse race.
Still, I know many are worried that Bush's ads in the battleground states have worked and that, to be doing so well in general, he must be making serious progress in those contested states.
To which I say: wrong! The Annenberg election survey results I reviewed earlier showed that Kerry's favorabilty rating remained unchanged in the battleground states and that persuadable voters were uninclined to drink the Republican Kool-Aid about Kerry flip-flopping, believing Bush, more than Kerry, exhibited that behavior.
And now check out these just-released findings from the same ABC News poll that contributed to Democrats' anguish about Bush being ahead. According to data in The Hotline (I can't find any link yet on a public website, but I'm sure one will eventually appear), Kerry is ahead of Bush by 4 points in the battleground states (50-46). He's even ahead of Bush by 2 points in these states with Nader thrown into the mix and drawing a ridiculous 7 percent.
Note also that Bush's approval rating in the battleground states is 49 percent, 2 points under his national rating and that his approval rating on the economy in these states is just 41 percent, 3 points under his national rating.
more......
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/000475.shtml