It’s the end of the week and you know what that means — the latest state polling data in the presidential race. This week was a little tricky because there were only a handful of states with published data, but a Zogby/Wall Street Journal poll released a report on Monday covering 16 states. I’ve separated those results because I’m a little skeptical about the Zogby poll’s methodology for reasons I explain below. Nevertheless, as always, these results were released within the last seven days.
Indiana (11 electoral votes)
Indianapolis Star — Bush 54, Kerry 33, Nader 6
Comment: Considering that Indiana is the most reliably Republican state in the Midwest, this hardly comes as a surprise. The more interesting point was the same poll showed very little difference with a Kerry/Bayh ticket, which may hurt the senator’s chances of getting tapped as the running mate.
California (55 electoral votes)
Field Poll — Kerry 55, Bush 40 (or Kerry 51, Bush 39, Nader 4)
Comment: California will not be competitive, so forget about that silly Survey USA poll that came out last week showing Kerry with a one-point lead. The internals on this were even worse for Bush, with his approval rating among Californians dropping below 40%.
Arizona (10 electoral votes)
Arizona St. — Bush 43, Kerry 38, Nader 2
Comment: This is more encouraging that it might appear at first glance. Arizona has only backed the Dem candidate once in the last half-century (Clinton in ’96), but it’s obviously in play this year and Kerry is well-within striking distance. Gore lost by 6 points in 2000 — but that was without a single campaign appearance. Kerry has a real chance to make Arizona competitive.
Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes)
Quinnipiac — Kerry 44, Bush 41, Nader 6
Comment: The good news here is that Kerry’s leading; the better news is that previous Quinnipiac polls in PA showed Bush with a small lead. Bush continues to target the state with attack ads against Kerry, but Kerry continues to hold a slim lead.
Iowa (7 electoral votes)
KCCI/Research 2000 — Kerry 48, Bush 43 (or Kerry 46, Bush 42, Nader 3)
Comment: There’s reason to be optimistic about Iowa. It was one of the nation’s closest states in 2000 (Gore won by just 0.3%), but most polls have consistently shown Kerry with a lead here.
And then there’s the Zogby/Wall Street Journal poll of 16 contested “battleground” states released earlier this week. As I mentioned, I’m a little concerned about the methodology.
To take the pulse of voters in many of these key states, Zogby Interactive, a division of polling and research firm Zogby International, is conducting online polls twice a month through Election Day in 16 states selected by WSJ.com. Participation in the polls is controlled and the results are weighted, Zogby says, to make them representative of what a poll of the overall U.S. voting population would find.
Likely voters from each state followed instructions sent by e-mail that led them to the survey located on Zogby’s secure servers in Utica, N.Y. Slight weightings were applied to ensure that the selection of participants accurately reflects characteristics of the voting population, including region, party, age, race, religion and gender.
This strikes me as a strange way to contact randomly selected people. What about people who don’t have email and their socioeconomic status?
Nevertheless, I hope the Zogby/WSJ data is right because the results were extremely encouraging. In the 16 battleground states it polled, Kerry leads in 12 of them, including five states (Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio) that Bush won in 2000.
Arkansas (6 electoral votes) — Bush 49, Kerry 45, Nader 1
Florida (27 electoral votes) — Kerry 49, Bush 48, Nader 1
Iowa (7 electoral votes) — Bush 50, Kerry 45, Nader 1
Michigan (17 electoral votes) — Kerry 50, Bush 41, Nader 2
Minnesota (10 electoral votes) — Kerry 51, Bush 42, Nader 3
Missouri (11 electoral votes) — Kerry 47, Bush 44, Nader 2
Nevada (5 electoral votes) — Kerry 47, Bush 44, Nader 3
New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) — Kerry 50, Bush 40, Nader 2
New Mexico (5 electoral votes) — Kerry 48, Bush 43, Nader 3
Ohio (20 electoral votes) — Kerry 49, Bush 45, Nader 1
Oregon (7 electoral votes) — Kerry 50, Bush 44, Nader 3
Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes) — Kerry 51, Bush 43, Nader 2
Tennessee (11 electoral votes) — Bush 49, Kerry 47, Nader 1
Washington (11 electoral votes) — Kerry 53, Bush 44, Nader 1
West Virginia (5 electoral votes) — Bush 48, Kerry 46, Nader 2