October 22, 2004
54:
TIME Poll: Bush Opens 5 Point Lead Against Kerry (TIME, Oct. 22, 2004)
President Bush has opened a 5 point lead against Senator John Kerry, according the latest TIME poll. If the 2004 election for President were held today, 51% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 46% would vote for Senator John Kerry, and 2% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to the TIME poll conducted by telephone from Oct. 19 – 21. Among all registered voters surveyed, Bush leads Kerry 50% to 43%.Last week’s TIME poll found 48% of likely voters would vote for Bush, 47% would vote for Kerry, and 3% would vote for Nader. That poll was conducted Oct. 14-15 and included 865 likely voters.
Poll results will appear in the upcoming issue of TIME magazine, on newsstands Monday, Oct. 25. See methodology below for margin of error and sample size information.
Bush’s approval rating has risen to 53%, with 44% saying they disapprove of how he is handling his job.
One of the givens of polling in recent years is that the GOP does better among Likely's than Registered's, but that doesn't always hold this year for whatever reason. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 22, 2004 8:54 PM
Um, because lots of people are saying they're "likely" to vote because they're anti-Bush, but they're lying? Inertia is a powerful thing.
Posted by: brian at October 22, 2004 9:29 PMTime has traditional skewed left so a 5pt Bush lead here could be even bigger.
To Brian's point, if the polls all start to tell the same story next week (Bush +5 or more) those likely Dem voters may not show up and the Bush margin will increase (and hopefully pull along more marginal states and senate candidates)
Posted by: AWW at October 22, 2004 10:19 PM