Rasmussen Battleground Update for Monday

[louis c]

Bush holds one point lead in National 3 day tracking poll.
Free data on home page.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com

Premium Site Daily 7 day rolling average tracking key states

Florida, Bush 48%-47%; Michigan, Kerry 50%-45%; North Carolina, Bush 53%-44%; Ohio, 47% tie; Pennsylvania, Bush 49%-48%;

Weekly updates-- New Jersey, Kerry 49%-47%; Missouri Bush 50%-46%.


Remember, these are tracking polls, so watch the trend.

[WI_DEM]

1. Florida is expected to fluctuate

Michigan is still ok. Ohio is a bit of a slip. Pennsylvania mirrors the # they just announced. NJ is pretty sad. Watch Rove start to put
Bush in there. Missouri isn't as bad as Gallup had it--14 points down.

[lancdem]

4. Relax about NJ

The only way Bush wins there is if he beats Kerry by comfortable double digits.

Also keep in mind the state polls probably include a good day Bush has Saturday because it was the 9/11 anniversary.

[DarthDem]

6. Totally Agree n/t

[MazeRat7]

2. Still really close

Looking at the EC tallies they show 150 EC votes still up for grabs.
If you place those in the same column as 2000, it give Kerry 270 and Bush 268.

MZr7

[lancdem]

3. North Carolina is really narrowing

BTW, there's no way Kerry will lose NJ after Gore won by 16 points in 2000. He has more than a 2-point lead. It may not be double digits because of Bush's RNC bounce, but it ain't 2.

[DarthDem]

5. This Is All Fine

The MO number makes sense, as do FL and MI. It looks to me like the Raz sate polls are really subject to the undersampling of Democrats on weekends, so I bet Ohio will rebound. Look, there just isn't any way that either PA or NJ is that close - - Kerry will win both, NJ handily.

I'm heartened by *'s plummeting NC numbers. It was 17, now down to 9.

Incidentally, these numbers are a bit difficult to reconcile with Raz's 16-state 7-day rolling average, which includes all the states above except New Jersey, as well as WI, AZ, MN, OR, IA, AR, NV, NM, WV, ME AND NH. In that figure, Kerry is cleaning up - - 48.2 to 46.4. Also, the trend is all Kerry.

Folks, it's very close. Turnout will be the key, and the national polls showing more than a 2-point margin are garbage. Kerry is in a wonderful position electorally, particularly since MO is far, far closer than that Gallup outlier made it appear to be.

[louis c]

7. All the Polling Data

that does not give at least one week span to the RNC is inaccurate, IMHO.

I only trust tracking polls, as do the campaigns of both camps