10-09-2004, 01:51 PM
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Sr. Correspondent
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 665
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POLL: Kerry Takes Slight One-Point Lead Over Bush
Quote:
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) moved into a slight one-point lead over President Bush (news - web sites) in a tight White House race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Saturday.
Kerry pulled ahead of Bush 46-45 percent in the latest three-day tracking poll, which concluded before the start of Friday night's televised debate between the two contenders in St. Louis, Missouri.
The two had been in a statistical dead heat in the previous poll, with Bush leading by less than one percentage point.
The slight advantage for the Massachusetts senator, well within the poll's margin of error, was helped by continued improvement in his standing with his core Democratic supporters.
Kerry earned support from 83 percent of Democrats, 88 percent of blacks, 79 percent of Jews and 65 percent of single voters. Kerry led by a 2-to-1 margin in union households.
"This is good evidence that Kerry is consolidating his base," pollster John Zogby said.
Bush had support of 87 percent of Republicans, 51 percent of investors and 53 percent of married voters, while the two candidates were locked in dead heat among Catholics and households with armed forces members.
In a testy debate on Friday night, Bush and Kerry clashed over the war in Iraq (news - web sites), jobs and taxes, with the president taking a sharper and more aggressive tone than he did in their first encounter.
The White House race has seesawed in the last month, with Bush opening a lead in most polls after the Republican convention in early September and Kerry climbing back after last week's debate.
About six percent of likely voters remain undecided less than four weeks before the Nov. 2 election.
The national poll of 1,216 likely voters was taken Wednesday through Friday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The rolling poll will continue each day through Nov. 1.
A tracking poll combines the results of three consecutive nights of polling, then drops the first night's results each time a new night is added. It allows pollsters to record shifts in voter sentiment as they happen.
Voters ranked jobs and the economy as the top issue in the campaign and the war in Iraq as second, although the war has dominated Bush and Kerry's campaign rhetoric for months and produced sharp clashes during the first part of Friday's debate.
The third and final debate between Bush and Kerry, next Wednesday in Arizona, will be restricted to domestic issues.
The poll found independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites), blamed by some Democrats for drawing enough votes from Al Gore (news - web sites) to cost him the election in 2000, earning only 1.4 percent of the vote.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...mpaign_poll_dc
I think this is going to come down to the 3rd debate. The odd thing is people thought Bush did better on domestic issues than foriegn policy in last night's debate.
If Kerry can find some chinks in Bush's armor, and exploit them in Tempe, he can win this thing (if there is not a october surprise).
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