# NEWER poll shows Bush With a 1.1 point lead **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429 "2004-09-07T01:31:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/61 "2004-09-30T15:11:18Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > I find the NY Times’ [Election Guide](http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/2004_ELECTIONGUIDE_GRAPHIC/) to be far more helpful than these silly graphs. > > If you ask me, the prospects for Kerry looks rather dire. He certainly won’t lose by a landslide, but he’s fully on course to lose by an indisputable margin. Kerry needs to carry virtually all of the swing states to win. Bush only needs one or two perhaps, if the one or two happen to include Florida and, say, Pennsylvania. I think it’s hard for the electoral-vote calculus to look good when you’re down by 2-3% in the polls overall, which is probably where Kerry stands right now. Bush just barely managed to pull off a (disputed) EC victory in 2000 when down in the popular vote by 0.5%. It’s theoretically possible for a candidate to win in the EC while losing in a landslide in the popular vote, but I’d be astounded if Kerry was able to win the EC while being down 3% in the popular vote. It impresses me that he’s able to stay reasonably close in the EC, despite his trailing nationally. But if Kerry pulls even in the polls (and not just one poll here and there, but in the balance of the polls that have remotely reasonable party ID in their sample), I think that’ll move states from the ‘narrow Kerry lead’ to the ‘solid Kerry lead’ category, and move other states from narrow Bush leads to narrow Kerry leads. If the popular vote’s decided by less than 500K, my money’s on Kerry in the EC. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/62 "2004-09-30T15:23:09Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > If the popular vote’s decided by less than 500K, my money’s on Kerry in the EC. I disagree. A Democrat can’t win the EC without winning the popular vote, because their strongholds are the urban, populous states, which are under-represented in the EC model. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/63 "2004-09-30T15:44:19Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > If you ask me, the prospects for Kerry looks rather dire. He certainly won’t lose by a landslide, but he’s fully on course to lose by an indisputable margin. Kerry needs to carry virtually all of the swing states to win. Bush only needs one or two perhaps, if the one or two happen to include Florida and, say, Pennsylvania. You throw in the Nader spoiler factor in places like Oregon, and it’s just not looking good for the Dems. I fail to see the basis for optimism on the Kerry side. If Bush does win, I think the election aftermath would be much less if Kerry wins FL and Bush wins Penn and OH. At least there would be less hanky waving polluting the airwaves. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I won’t be forced to listen to NPR at work for 8 hours a day after the election this time around… “And now we devote 3 hours to taking calls about people pissed off about the election results. Our first call is from Jane in Boston…” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/64 "2004-09-30T16:10:38Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I would like to know precisely what France did wrong. They didn’t buy the WMD crap that Bush was peddling and it turned out they were right. If we had listened to them, we wouldn’t be heading up toward 1,000 body bags and we wouldn’t be in this quagmire that makes Vietnam look like a picnic. But it’s alright, Iraq has a soccer team! Well, it’s their reasons- or at least the reason why we suspect they did this. The French are percieved as a bunch of cowardly surrender-monkeys, who didn’t want us to go into Iraq as they were making scads of money from Saddam & their weapons sales to the anti-USA 3rd world Moslem nations. Note that the Germans didn’t want us to go into Iraq either, but that didn’t hurt them in the polls much AFAIK. The polls continue to show the elction is “too close to call”. The GOP is sweating blood, and I think Kerry is moderately happy with his numbers- but he certainly could be happier. Remember, he is a virtual unknown, going against an Incumbent. Normally, this would be a McGovern or Dukakis style election, with the Incumbent leading by huge numbers. I predict an extremely close Election, with many many challenges. Basicly, right now the only “poll” that really shows Bush in a solid lead is the fact he can likely pull 5 votes in SCOTUS, where I confidently predict this election will end up. There will be whole precincts where the voting machines show completely screwy results. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/65 "2004-09-30T23:39:55Z")
> [@](#): > > By my count FLA has flipped four times in two weeks (depending on your polls). If it keeps doing this we’ll be ripe for alcoholism by the time Nov 2 comes around. Actually, all the values are within the margin of error of the polls, so a ‘flip’ is not necessarily a flip. It’s just noise. Although the latest Florida poll I saw today had Bush up something like 6%, which is slightly above the margin of error. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/66 "2004-09-30T23:51:32Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Although the latest Florida poll I saw today had Bush up something like 6%, which is slightly above the margin of error. It _would_ be above the margin of error, except that poll (if it’s the one from 9/27 at [electoral-votes.com](http://electoral-votes.com) ) was done by [Gallup](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278186). ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429/67 "2004-09-30T23:56:43Z")
As I said…pass the wine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newer-poll-shows-bush-with-a-1-1-point-lead/263429.md?page=3)