Bush pulling ahead in several key states

[DougMD]

I realize polls don't mean much, and anything can happen between now and election day. But I think Kerry is beginning a downward spiral.


Bush Leads Kerry in 3 Key States

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By Ronald Brownstein and Kathleen Hennessey
Times Staff Writers

August 26, 2004, 4:53 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has moved past Sen. John F. Kerry in three of the most hotly contested Midwestern battleground states despite continued doubts about the country's direction and the president's policies, new Los Angeles Times polls have found.

According to the surveys, Bush has opened leads within the margin of error in Ohio, Wisconsin and Missouri "” states at the top of both campaigns' priority lists.

In Missouri, Bush leads among registered voters 46% to 44%; in Wisconsin, he leads 48% to 44%; and in Ohio, the president holds a 49% to 44% advantage, the surveys found.

Like a national Times poll released Wednesday, the surveys underscore the difficulty Kerry has had converting a general desire for change into support for his candidacy. The Massachusetts senator trails Bush even though a majority of voters in all three states said the country is not better off because of Bush's policies and "needs to move in a new direction."

But while Bush is drawing support from virtually all the voters who back his policy direction, Kerry is attracting only about four-fifths or fewer of the voters in the three states who said they want a new course.

Voters like Barb Chiamulera "” a special education teacher from Florence, Wis., who responded to the poll "” remain torn between disappointment in Bush and uncertainty about Kerry.

"It seems like we're kind of at a dead end," she said of Bush's presidency. "But I just feel I don't know Kerry's philosophy as well as I should. I still don't really feel like he's come up with any definite plan for what he would do and how he would change things."

The Times Poll, supervised by director Susan Pinkus, contacted 507 registered voters in Ohio, 580 in Missouri, and 512 in Wisconsin from Aug. 21-24. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points for each state.

In 2000, Al Gore carried Wisconsin by fewer than 6,000 votes; Bush won Missouri by almost 80,000 votes and Ohio by almost 167,000 votes.

All three states have attracted enormous spending on television ads from the two candidates and the independent groups supporting them.

Times polls in June showed Kerry and Bush tied in Wisconsin, Kerry holding a statistically insignificant one-point advantage in Ohio, and the president leading 48% to 42% in Missouri. Compared to those numbers, the race has tightened somewhat in Missouri and edged slightly toward Bush in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Wisconsin and Ohio are among three states where a group of anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans has run ads accusing him of lying to win his medals in Vietnam. The ads did not air in Missouri. Fully 56% of voters in Wisconsin and 58% in Ohio say they have seen the ads from Swift Boats Veterans for Truth, more than the 47% in Missouri or 48% nationally.

As with this week's national poll, a majority of the voters surveyed in each state rejected the allegations that Kerry had misrepresented his service record. Those charges have been forcefully challenged over the past week by a succession of eyewitness accounts and official documents mostly confirming Kerry's version of events. But many voters remain uncertain.

In Wisconsin, 55% of voters said they thought Kerry had earned his medals, while 16% believed he had misrepresented his service; the rest were either unsure or unaware of the controversy. In Missouri, 54% said they accepted Kerry's version, 17% sided with the critics. In Ohio, the balance didn't tilt quite as strongly for Kerry, but even there 51% said they accepted his version while 20% did not.

"He went and he fought for us and that's all that matters," said Doug Redd, a union carpenter from Portsmith, Ohio, who voted for Bush in 2000 but now backs Kerry. "I don't care if he got that Purple Heart when he tripped over a branch. He fought for us."

The surveys also show that voters in all three states pick Bush over Kerry when asked which man is most likely to develop a plan to succeed in Iraq and who would be more qualified to serve as commander in chief. Voters in all three states also gave Bush a big lead when asked which would best protect the nation from terrorism.

"I feel confident George Bush is an adult and he takes his job seriously," said Tom Kelly, an equipment operator in Cudahy Wis. "As far his Number One duty to protect citizens, I feel he's doing everything in his power to do that."

By narrow margins in Wisconsin and Ohio, and a wider margin in Missouri, more voters picked Bush when asked which candidate shares their moral values. And, as in the national poll, far more voters pick Kerry than Bush when asked which man is most likely to flip-flop on issues.

But warning signs for the president continue to flicker through the poll.

In Ohio, Bush's overall approval rating remained mired at 47%, unchanged from June, with 50% disapproving. And in Missouri and Wisconsin, slightly more voters disapproved than approved of his handling of the economy; the dissatisfaction peaked in Ohio, which has lost 230,000 jobs since Bush took office, with 52% disapproving. "Our jobs are going overseas faster and faster, and he doesn't even care," said Redd.

[kevin1]

Now Doug ,
you know that votes from Wisconsin are thrown away when they get them to keep Priz from screwing things up ...

[DougMD]

It's funny how many on the left criticize Bush on jobs, when we have lower unemployment than during the 70's, 80's and 90's. Then they try to say that's because many of the jobs that are taken now are lower paying jobs relative to those that were lost. But how can they reconcile that with all the lower paying manufacturing jobs that have "gone overseas?" They can't have it both ways. And Kerry supported NAFTA, by the way. His solution is tax breaks for businesses? Isn't that what they criticize Bush for? Talk about hypocritical! Once again, they take both sides of the issue.

[Aught Six]

I try not to use profanity when speaking about candidates, but Kerry is just an a$$hole--nothing more, nothing less. Even with people from just about every faction (except his high-and-mighty Democrats, of course) actively questioning his flip-flopping and hypocritical two-faced BS, he continues to do just what he has been doing--being an a$$hole. What else can I say about a man who rips into Bush, and then adopts the same stance on multiple issues that Bush has maintained since his election?

[DaveH]

Even those rabid "anybody but Bush" lunatics are so disgusted by the pile of manure that John Kerry is. Kerry gets airtime every night on all of the networks making wild claims about President Bush while doing the same things--and WORSE--that he claims the President is doing.

I keep waiting for someone to ask him about nearly all of his wife's companies being overseas when he makes his contention that the jobs are being sent overseas, but that will never get asked . . . or if it does, it won't make the news.

[Aught Six]

I keep waiting for someone to ask him about nearly all of his wife's companies being overseas when he makes his contention that the jobs are being sent overseas, but that will never get asked . . . or if it does, it won't make the news.

Well now, that would just be politically incorrect, wouldn't it?

[Strut&Rut]

It's funny how many on the left criticize Bush on jobs, when we have lower unemployment than during the 70's, 80's and 90's.

Doug,

I really had to grimace when I read this...as there is an underlying message in that statement that applied to MOST of America.

Unemployment statistics are very dicey, and at best inaccurate. Jobs are not growing in this country...on the contrary, people have lost jobs and can no longer apply for unemployment benefits.

When you can no longer collect benefits, you are REMOVED from the unemployment statistics. Even though you may have lost your job, your house and everything you own...because you can no longer collect, you are no longer a statistic.

I have seen more homeless people, in the states of CT & NY, in the last 6 months than I have seen in the last 6 years. AND never look at unemployment statistics in the summer, as temporary labor is at its highest between April-October.

The best parameter of the nation's unemployment rate is taken February 1st, after the holiday layoffs and before the summer season.

Take a look back at individual state unemployment rates during February, and you will notice a very alarmingly high number, pretty much across the union.

[Strut&Rut]

Before you "cream" me...

This is a fluctuation of economic cycles, with some major takeovers and consolidations within multiple ecomonic climates (pharmaceutical, software, banking, communications, manufacturing). The after-effects are a loss of ALL job types. Hence, the loss of jobs is not a Presidential action/policy, but rather due to the consumers and businesses.

The main problem, that I see, is that Kerry is going to magically create jobs in America by stopping outsourcing and creating business breaks.

The primary drain on American jobs, which has been occurring over the past 2-3 decades, is the loss of agricultural and manufacturing jobs, which were the mainstay of this country since Colonial times. Removing outsourcing and creating tax breaks will not bring new manufacturing jobs to America, as we have lost too much ground competing with the Europeans, Indians, Chinese, and our North American neighbors.

[archer 2]

No president has any control over companies sending jobs overseas. Yet Kerry says he is going to fix this, how , wouldnt any way you force a company to stay here be called isolationism and socialism. Wait come to think of it socialism seems to be the democrats moniker anymore.

[Whitehorse]

Great news that, even with the post democrat convention bounce, the 15 points in the polls (per some in the mainstream media) that the majority of the mainstream media's partisanship against President Bush gives Kerry, & the $63+ million the 527 hate groups have poured against President Bush he's still up in the polls.

That said, it's not time to coast, not time to relax, not time to begin celebrating the victory... It isn't over. Like in football, when a team gets ahead & then works to put the game away, it's time to work toward putting this election away. What we need here is a victory for President Bush by margins last seen in 1984 & 1972! We need to show the 1960's hippie scum US hating moron radicals, those who actively supported the enemies of our troops while our troops were @ war, those who spit on our returning troops, told lies about them, called them baby killers... we need to show them that they are history, in fact they're in the dustbin of history as examples of what not to do or be!