Somebody is wrong.. :) ABC says Kerry Up, TIPP says Bush Up - Take your pick!

[Smash255]

The ABC poll's approval of Bush's handling of War on Terrorism is very strange. It is down to 50% approval. Also, it has Kerry up, albeit barely, on who you would rather see handle the war on terror. This is very strange as other polls have still shown Bush preferred in handling terrorism by 8 to 10 points at least. This abc poll shows Bush gaining on the economy and losing on terrorism. Who would have thought this a few months ago? Anyone with any conclusions on why Kerry would be gaining on handling war on terror (not partisan rants, just objective opinions please).

Could the 9/11 comission report statig that their is no evidence to connect Saddam to 9/11 impacted Bush's terrorism handling in the ABC poll?

[Smash255]

Options on why their is a difference in the 2 polls

One is that undecided voters tend to go for the challenger in incumbent elections.  ABC poll pushes the undecidedes more than the TIPP poll, so the undecidedes in this election are stayinh with tradition and going towards Kerry.  That will be shown in the ABC poll, but not in the TIPP poll.

Another explanation could be that Bush was doing better last week and Kerry is doing better in the last couple days.  The TIPP poll started a few days before the ABC poll & the ABC poll ended a few days later.  If Bush was doing better last week than he is doing now that could explain why their is a difference in the two polls.  Also the Harris poll & the recent Rasmussen poll could at least back that up a bit, the older Harris poll which was partially taken last week was in Bush's favor & the Rasmussen poll whichshiows Kerry up 3, was taken within the last 3 nights.

The ABC pol does show a slight oversmapling of the Dems, but not nearly enough to have an impact.  The ABC poll does show Dems with a +8 adv in those in the poll, the 2000 results showed a Dem +5 adv  (39-34), so the oversampling is really only +3 which isn't enough to impact the polls other that 1 or 2 points, and without knowing the Party Breakout  of the TIPP poll its hard to say how accurate their sampling was.