WP: Size of Battleground May Be Smaller Than Expected

[kskiska]

Sunday, September 12, 2004; Page A01

President Bush's post-convention bounce in state and national polls has left Democratic challenger John F. Kerry with a smaller battlefield upon which to contest the presidential election and a potentially more difficult route to an electoral college victory than his advisers envisioned a few months ago.

The Kerry campaign and Democratic Party officials face difficult choices in the coming days involving the allocation of millions of dollars of television ads and the concentration of campaign workers as they decide whether to concede some states to Bush that they earlier hoped to turn into battlegrounds. Bush may have to do the same but on a more limited scale.

The presidential race looks closer in many battleground states than some national polls suggest, a morale boost for Democrats after Kerry's worst month of the general election. But as the number of truly competitive states has shrunk, Kerry is faced with the reality that he must pick off one of two big battlegrounds Bush won four years ago -- Florida or Ohio -- or capture virtually every other state still available. To do that, he must hold onto several states Al Gore won in 2000 that are now highly competitive.

The Massachusetts senator spent much of the summer trying to expand the number of battleground states with television advertising and campaign trips to places such as Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana and Virginia. But in the past week, Kerry dramatically scaled back the number of states in which he is running ads. Democratic strategists privately acknowledge that only a significant change in the overall race will put some of the states Kerry sought to make competitive back into play. Democratic hopes for victory in Missouri have diminished sharply, as well.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14607-2004Sep11.html

[onehandle]

1. Bull on Missouri. The latest poll show a near tie.

(KSDK) - President Bush and John Kerry are statistically tied in the race for president in Missouri according to our exclusive Survey USA.

In a poll taken earlier this week of 660 likely voters, 48 percent of those polled would vote for President Bush, 46 percent for John Kerry.

Gallup is full of it

However, the results are quite different in a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll. Registered voters in Missouri favored President Bush at 55 percent and John Kerry at just 41 percent.

Why do two surveys have sharply different results?

Jay Leve, editor of Survey USA, believes it's because the Gallop poll was conducted over the Labor Day weekend, a couple of days before Survey USA's poll, "Gallup does excellent work and I don't want to say anything that disputes that. We've made the judgment not to poll anywhere over the Labor Day weekend anywhere, including Missouri. It's a holiday for a lot of working people and a lot of working families go away. It may be the case that a poll conducted entirely over the weekend picked up a few more Republicans than it should of. I'm not saying that it did or didn't happen. We just don't think the state is quite as Republican both at the top of the ticket for president of the United States or down the ticket for governor or United States senator."

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=66684

[democrat in Tallahassee]

2. Bounces bounce stupid. His numbers are already coming down

That's why they are called bounces--they bounce up and then
d
o
w
n.

[henslee]

3. Sorry but this time, Republicans are not more energized than Dems.

This divided country crap is CNN (Cabal News Network) hype. Hey, I just made that up.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. Large piles of steaming horse crap.

[ochazuke]

5. Rub-iiiiish!

The state polls show the battleground is as big as ever: Kerry is virtually tied in Colorado, Missouri, Virginia, and Arkansas. The over-estimated bush bounce would naturally put the chimpster in front for a few days in these states, but it's over.

[struggle4progress]

6. Bush Overtakes Kerry After Convention

(CPOD) Sept. 12, 2004 –George W. Bush holds the lead in the 2004 United States presidential election, according to a poll by Ipsos-Public Affairs released by the Associated Press. 51 per cent of respondents would vote for the Republican incumbent, while 43 per cent would support Democratic nominee John Kerry. <snip>

http://www.cpod.ubc.ca/polls/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=4126

<edit:>
Bush Rating Improves In U.S.
(CPOD) Sept. 12, 2004 – George W. Bush is regaining public support in the United States, according to a poll by ABC News and the Washington Post. 51 per cent of respondents approve of the president’s performance, a one per cent increase since late August. <snip>

http://www.cpod.ubc.ca/polls/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=4124

[wuushew]

7. Does the article give a complete list of these battleground states?

I would like them for the purposes of conjectural electoral chess.