Polls

There have been a number of articles and polls in the last week that have shown some very interesting trends in the Presidential race (the usual caveat is that there is still a very long time to the election). Last week an LA Times poll showed Kerry leading Bush by approximately 6 points. The methodology of that poll was problematic in that, like the CBS News poll of two weeks ago, it oversampled Democrats and thus produced a somewhat skewed result. Nevertheless, the most interesting part of this poll, especially taking into account the oversampling, was that it showed a Job Approval of 51% for President Bush. This is consistent with the Rasmussen Poll showing Job Approval ratings of between 51% and 53% for the past week. Looking at a number of polls together from RealClearPolitics.com, there is a definite improving trend in Bush's Job Approval ratings. In the last week, all the major polls show positive Job Approval ratings for Bush, and are a marked contrast to the polls at the end of May. (Arguably, Job Approval ratings are more accurate predictors than polls of head to head races.) Undoubtedly Reagan's death and funeral are producing a bit of a bounce in the polls for Bush and it is still too early to tell whether this bounce will last or not.

Additionally, there were two articles today (one in the Washington Post and the other in National Review Online) showing how even Democrats are not excited or energized by Kerry and that his support among his core constituency is significantly lower than Bush's. With the economy growing rapidly, oil prices dropping and the Iraq handover gaining more support, it is very possible that Bush's numbers have bottomed and will continue to rise barring any horrible news from Iraq.