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People can dislike Bush but still vote for him, if they don't trust Kerry more. But it's a bad sign for Bush.
It takes a while for supporters to turn against someone. A lot of people voted for Bush, and have supported him all along, but in the last couple of months are starting to doubt him. They may still say they will vote for Bush when asked in a poll, but they are doubting.
Also, people don't move from one candidate to the other at once. Usually they move to the undecided category, then to the other candidate. Undecideds usually vote against the incumbent.
If you notice these polls, they aren't really counting undecideds. If asked if they are a likely voter, people who are in that transition will say "I'm not sure I'm going to vote." So they don't get included in the results. These polls also don't publish their non-participation rates. A Bush supporter who is turning against him will be more likely to decline to be polled than a person who is an avid supporter of Bush.
So I agree, the polls aren't capturing the true feelings against Bush, because they are only polling people who have made up their minds. Bush is slipping badly in approval polls, though, and that's really bad for an incumbent. Incumbents are a known quantity. People's opinions of them aren't likely to change quickly. People who are starting to doubt Bush are going to be hard to win back. The challenger, on the other hand, has only to prove that he can do the job to gain their support. They won't be as critical of him as they are to the candidate they know has already failed.
This same pattern happened with Carter v Reagan and Clinton v Bush. The polls showed a close race until near the end, but most people felt that the results would not be close. And they weren't. Bush is unpopular right now, and falling. He has to halt his slide, then convince people who have already left him to change their opinions. And that's hard to do, since people now feel they know him.
Bush is in a lot of trouble. Watch for a big surprise, because he has few other options.
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