If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

Couldn't get much tighter. Source

No, I don't think there'll be much of any bounce anymore for whomever, this year ...

The NYT notes:



The article also illustrates the increasing polarisation of society with a neat historical graph:

I predict Bush will be elected by supreme court decision again. LOL

NIMH, That is an interesting Graph. I wonder why they combined the 2 term presidents into one though.

You might be right Kicky... in boxing a draw usually pays about 20 to 1. I wonder if SC-decision would be more or less?

Hmmm Bush's number is only 5 points off Reagans. And Reagan won 49 of 50 states.

Foxfyre:

That 74% is not an approval rating. It is the difference in approval between Republicans and Democrats.

It basically illustrates little, other than people in each party increasingly dislike the other party's President.

- <thinks> - OK, I think you're making a connection here thats not there. The NYT graph has nothing to do with the degree of success a President has, electorally. Polarisation doesnt need to have anything to do with success. It can help you as easily as it can hurt you (or is that vice versa?).

Eg, if polarisation is high and the opposition's registered voters are thus strongly against you, that makes achieving any cross-over attraction unlikely; but on the other hand, the same polarisation means your own constituency will come out in full force for you. If polarisation is low you might have a better shot at pulling some people over from the other camp; but you are also at a greater danger of your own people staying home or crossing over themselves.

You can see it in the list, too: both Presidents who caused polarisation and those who did not have included electorally highly successful ones (Reagan, Eisenhower) and electorally less successful ones (Bush Sr, Ford).

Sorry, kickycan, but I just can't buy that whine. The way I figure it, the Democrats engineered their own defeat. Gore's own lawyer, David Boies, set the stage for the Florida flap. With the knowledge and assent of both Gore and the DNC, Boies' initial request was for hand recounts in only 4 of Florida's 67 counties - counties by the way not likely just coincidentally Florida's traditional top Democratic stongholds. This guaranteed Supreme Court intervention, as Federal Election law prohibits subjecting ballots to different levels of scrutiny and each of the counties had their own individual protocols and standards for recounts - wholly apart from the fact that once the recount process actually had begun, established standards were changed or modified in mid-count. Then too, the "Equal Scrutiny" requirement was doubly unmet; first, the applicable law plainly is recount them all or recount none, second, all must be recounted in precisely the same manner and to the same standards according to protocols in place prior to the commencement of the recount. Finally, and perhaps terminally, the perhaps-only-coincidentally-but-none-the-less-in-fact Democratic-appointed Election Officials in the 4 selected counties assayed to "Determine the intent of the voter", an excersize embued firstly with neither precedent nor clear rationale and secondly succeptable to partisan manipulation. There is no provision under law by which to determine what might or might not have been the intent of a voter. This is not to say there was or would have been impropriety; merely that sufficient opportunity for same existed as to render the recount potentially subjective, therefore illegal.

There were two relevant Supreme Court decisions in the matter; a 7-2 ruling the recount procedure as applied violated Federal Election Law, and a second 5-4 decision that rejected an extension of the Dec. 18th National Elector Certification deadline in order to accommodate a statewide recount under a uniform standard. Under Article II, Section 1 of The US Constitution, " ... Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress ... ", and " ... Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States ... ", responsibilty devolved to the Florida State Legislature to certify the electors per the officially recorded general election results.

Had Boies and The Democrats initially sought a statewide recount, including all absentee ballots, and had that recount proceded, and been conducted under uniform standard and protocol, without possibility of or allowance for subjective judgement on the parts of those conducting the recount, the matter would not have given cause to come under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court. Of course, such an approach would have opened the Gore tally to significant, likely unacceptable, risk. Alternatively, action could have been brought to invalidate Florida's electors as a body, removing Florida from the Electoral College equation. Determining early on such action had essentially no documentable foundation or prospect of success, apart from the fact had such action succeeded it would not have rendered the victory to Gore but rather, as no majority of the mandated 538 Electoral College votes would have been cast for either candidate, let alone the majority +1 (538/2=269+1=270 votes required to elect) as required, in accordance with the US Constitution the Election Result would have been determined by roll-call vote in The US House of Representatives, Boies, Gore & Democratic Party, et al, chose instead to pursue the limited recount avenue, which was held, 7-2, to be Unconstitutional.

All of this, of course, stands with the facts Republican candidates for statewide office did well in 2000, and 2 years later, Republican Jeb Bush handily, arguably by landslide magnitude (57-43) defeated DNC-handpick Bill McBride, becoming in the process the first Republican ever re-elected to the Florida Governorship, Republican Katherine Harris was elected to Congress by a comfortable margin, and longtime Attorney General Democrat Bob Butterworth fell to his Republican challenger in convincing manner. Of course, that other members of the same party did well in an election does not say the candidate at the topf the ticket necessarilly would have won, but it does give pause for thought.

Then there was the NORC/University of Chicago/Washington Post/CNN/New York Times 6-month-long collaborative study which concluded, somewhat to the dismay of some of its sponsors, Florida recount study: Bush still wins

The way I see it, what happened in 2000 is that The Democrats were prevented from stealing the election.

Why is anybody wasting their time talking about the stupid Rasmusssen Poll? The poll is a phony.

First, it appeared last election. The website gave links to all kinds of right wing columnists and articles. It used a methodology that was unproven-a bot to ask the questions instead of a real person.

It gave overoptimistic results for Bush throughout the election year. The Washington Times and some other right wing newspaper were it's only other customers. The only people who quoted it were-surprise-right wing talk show hosts.

It was such a farce that many websites giving surveys of polls refused to even list it's findings-much to their credit. The day before the election, I think it predicted a five or seven point win for Bush in the popular vote.

It's a Republican shill, even if shows Kerry slightly ahead right now.

Worthless. If you must talk polls, at least use real polls.

That being said, I think polls are pretty sketchy this time of year anyway. During a convention, most people will do more watching and thinking about each candidate than they probably have done cumulatively to date. So pre-convention polls don't mean that much.

During their respective conventions, each candidate will receive a 7-to-9 point bounce upward, which will dissipate entirely in two weeks. After that, there is the small matter of the debates, which probably have more to do with who wins than even the conventions.

So we have a way to go.

I like to look at polls too, but really, at this stage we all are just sitting around and waiting for the real action to start. :wink:

Whether its Rasmussen or Zogby, TradeSports or Iowa Electronic Markets, what at least some of us are looking at, as has been said many, many times on this and other threads, is not any single result, but the trending-over-time of those results, along with comparison of the various polls, both result-for-result and trend-over-time. kelticwizard. That's what those graphs nimh works so hard to produce are all about. Where we're at at any given day is of far less significance than how we got there, where we've been along the way. This far out, its unrealistic to expect any poll might predict the outcome. None the less, tracking the polls can be indicative of National Mood ... what The Electorate is thinking at some point in time, what issues are important to which set of voters, whether and how perceptions and priorities shift, what impact external events have ... that sort of thing. For a lot of folks, "the action" started a long time ago. Some folks enjoy watching the whole thing, the whole race, the entire game, from warmup through the last lap, from pregame through the final touchdown, not just the finishline sprint or the last few plays.

Going to your observation re the purported suspect objectivity of Rasmussen, thats beside the point when Rasmussen's findings, or any other pollster's, is compared to and considered in the context of a broad sampling of pollsters. Whatever the individual results may be, all the pollsters indicate a tight, see-saw contest, the sort of contest I happen to find a lot more interesting than a from-the-go one-sided blowout. One pass isn't the race or the ballgame ... and its a lot more fun when there are lots of 'em before the final one.

I highly doubt it. That there will be such a bounce this year, I mean. You wanna bet? ;-)

I need to be working instead of playing...

Florida
Gallup. 7/19-22. Likely voters. MoE 4%. (No trend lines).

Bush 50
Kerry 47

Ohio
Gallup. 7/19-22. Likely voters. MoE 4%. (No trend lines).

Kerry 49
Bush 44

ARG. 7/20-22. Likely voters. MoE 4%. (June 23 results).

Kerry 47 (49)
Bush 45 (43)

Columbus Dispatch (reg.req.) 7/14-22. Likely voters. MoE 4%. (April results).

Bush 47 (45)
Kerry 44 (43)
Nader 2 (3)

Missouri
Gallup. 7/19-22. Likely voters. MoE 4%. (No trend lines).

Bush 48
Kerry 48

Nevada
Survey USA (.pdf) 7/21-22. MoE 3.5%. (No trend lines).

Kerry 49
Bush 45

The Gallup and ARG polls are the first to show a Kerry lead in Ohio in several months.

Nothing to get too excited about just yet.

I want some of that action. As likable as these two candidates are they're liable to lose a point or two at the conventions.

"A point or two", yeah, "7-to-9 points", I dont think so.

Lots of bad news in the latest ABC/WaPo poll. Not in the election match-up itself, which still has a tie, but in all the other results. Here's some parts of the write-up:



The write-up also notes that even seemingly critical news about terrorism, like that coming forth from the 9/11 Commission report, actually works in Bush's favour just because it refocuses attention back on a topic Bush fares well on:



And then there's the economy:



Yet perhaps, historically speaking, there is still hope:



Finally, again: forget about the bounce this year.

Here's the numbers:

Bush job rating, compared to two and five weeks ago:
Approve 50% (48% / 47%)
Disapprove 47% (50% / 51%)

Bush favourability rating, compared to last March:
Favourable: 54% (48%)
Unfavourable: 43% (47%)

Kerry favourability rating, compared to last March:
Favourable: 48% (54%)
Unfavourable: 39% (28%)
(mind you, Kerry's favourability numbers have varied enormously from poll to poll.)

Bush vs Kerry on the issues, compared to last month, two months and three months ago:

"The U.S. campaign against terrorism"
Bush 55% (47% - 52% - 58%)
Kerry 37% (48% - 39% - 37%)

"The situation in Iraq"
Bush 52% (50% - 48% - 52%)
Kerry 40% (45% - 42% - 41%)

"Taxes"
Bush 49% (40% - n/a - 49%)
Kerry 43% (53% - n/a - 43%)

"The economy"
Bush 47% (45% - 43% - 47%)
Kerry 46% (50% - 48% - 47%)

"Education"
Bush 44% (42% - n/a - 47%)
Kerry 45% (52% - n/a - 44%)

"Health care"
Bush 44% (37% - n/a)
Kerry 47% (58% - n/a)

What strikes me about these numbers is that Kerry is basically exactly back where he was three months ago.

For more bad news along the same lines look at the table called "Candidate Attributes" in the ABC article.

Here's the comparative favourability chart:

If someone has said this, excuse the repeat--

I think this (Bush's gains) is owing to the recent findings of the Commssion and the underreported, but factual reporting of Wilson's lies, and Bush's veracity re the Sixteen Words... I also think headlines of "Clinton aide under investigation", juxtaposed with that aide's link to Kerry may have reminded some people of a dismal, unethical not too distant past in the Dem sphere... The news has been satuarated with "Bush's lies", and it has gone uncontested. Better than contesting it himself--a bipartisan Commission has done it for him. While anti-political-geeks may have been fed the steady diet of "Bush's lies" soundbites, and seen Micheal Moore's free publicity in the Entertainment sections, they haven't had anything to refute it until the highly publicised Commission findings. Now, they have The Story.

I expect Bush's upward trend to continue as this news comes out--and I think when the GOP Convention hits this about 200 times-- Bush will get a significant bounce, possibly temporarily interrupted by a mild, post-Convention Kerry blip. Bush: At least 8% in the week after the Convention.
Kerry: Possibly 4-5% post-Convention.

I see nimh bringing articles to downplay a bounce for Kerry.

I can't believe this is nothing more than trying to work damage control. I could be wrong, but hasn't there always been a blip after Conventions? I mean, no blip? That's like a loooong kiss with no butterflies... A week of showing yourself in the best possible light--and the crowd says, "Eh?"

The "Bounce" Game
Both presidential campaigns can expect bounce in polls as a result of their conventions


by Frank Newport

An analysis of Gallup Polls from the last 10 elections suggests that presidential candidates enjoy an increase in support, or a "bounce," of between five and seven points after their party's convention. Everything else being equal, John Kerry can be expected to gain in the horse-race polls after this month's Democratic convention, and George W. Bush can be expected to regain positioning after the Republican convention in late August and early September. The interpretation of the success of each party's convention will thus be largely based on the size of the bounce -- not in absolute terms, but compared to expectations.

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I will agree that the GOP's 15% was to make any such good news for Kerry, not to seem to be unexpectedly bad news for Bush--but to try to say Kerry won't get *any* bounce, is the Left's attempt to do the same thing the GOP did--

No bounce is a crashing, negative omen--for either of them. It won't be the end all, possibly; but certainly a drastic indicator of public sentiment for the one not gaining anything after their week-long commercial.

I know i'm hammerin' a point, but it remans THE POINT that over more than four years of non-stop, all-out campaigning, abbetted by Mainstream Media sycophancy, The Opposition has been able to do no better than remain an even-odds player. If I were a Dem, I'd be real uncomfortable along about now. I'm not, and I'm not.