Admit it; I saw you looking for a window to jump out of when Newsweek and Time showed Bush jumping to an 11-point lead over Kerry. The hand-wringing done over the weekend was enough to cause a carpel tunnel epidemic.
I even know what you were thinking — Kerry is making Gore’s mistakes, the Swiftboat Hacks have succeeded, the Dems’ convention was a disaster because it emphasized positive, empowering themes instead of the GOP’s convention of vicious smears and distortions…
Well, forget it. Things just aren’t as bad as you think.
First of all, most of the data culled over the same time period shows a far different — and much closer — race. Zogby, for example, whose national data tends to be pretty reliable, shows Bush leading by two points. Not 11, just two. Josh Marshall notes that the internal data from both campaigns has Bush up by about four. Rasmussen has Bush’s lead between four and five points.
While it’s disappointing to see Bush ahead at all, the fact remains that incumbents who wrap up their conventions with leads in the low- to mid-single digits usually lose.
Second, Gallup is showing Bush with the worst post-convention “bounce” for any incumbent since the dawn of modern polling.
Bush’s convention bounce appeared to be 2 percentage points.
Terror inducing? Maybe, but not for those of us anxious to see John Kerry win in November.
Third, and most importantly, please stop paying so much attention to national polls. This isn’t a national race; it’s a state-by-state race.
One of the reasons I rarely post the results of the national polls is that they’re not particularly helpful in seeing who’s going to win, particularly at this late stage. State polls, on the other hand, actually tell us something useful, which is why “Poll Day” is a weekly feature here at The Carpetbagger Report.
National polls are mildly interesting for trend lines, but by definition, they include data from the whole country. With all due respect to my friends in Texas and California, which when combined represent home to one in five Americans, we can already predict with some certainty how they’re voting this year.
As we know all too well, the name of this game isn’t to win a plurality of votes among Americans; it’s to win 270 electoral votes. National surveys tells us literally nothing about which candidate is closer to that goal. As a result, the national polls pale in comparison to data out of Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and other key battleground states.
So to review: 1) the national polls really aren’t terrible; and 2) all national polls should be taken with a grain of salt because it’s a state-by-state race.
And, yes, this means you can climb back in from the ledge now.